So you have a story idea. That’s fantastic. But there might be one thing that you’re missing: your characters. The people who will take your story and carry it through to the end.
Characters are the glue that keeps your story together. They’re also what keeps the reader coming back chapter after chapter because they’re simply so like-able. You’ll have different characters, of course. You’ve got your protagonist, your antagonist, the supporting character, the character you don’t want to kill off but have to in order to move the protagonist to beat the antagonist––there are so many characters involved in story writing that it can be difficult to know where to start.
Personality Traits
If you’re writing romance like I am, I recommend starting with your two main characters first. They are the ones that the world you create will gravitate towards and they are the key driver of your story. Break down your characters according to their personality traits.
Ask yourself the question: what good traits do my characters have? Then list those out. What bad traits do my characters have? And then list those out. The key here is to have a healthy balance of both good and bad traits in each of your characters, otherwise you may end up with a Mary Sue type character that no one likes.
Check out this article for a notion called “The Minus 1 Rule.” In a nutshell: give your characters three “good” traits and one “bad” trait to make them more relatable.
For example: your heroine may be honorable, trustworthy, and loyal, but she tends to be taken advantage of because she’s so trusting. Or your hero may be brave, strong, and kind, but he’s a bit of a klutz when it comes to romance.
Context is Everything
Think about the world and the situations in which you are putting your characters. An honorable, trustworthy, loyal but gullible heroine may just have her heart broken in a chic lit novel, but may wind up getting killed in a fantasy romance novel. That brave, strong and kind but klutzy hero may be a lovable goofball in a romance novel, but might wind up messing up big time by falling in love with the wrong girl in a thriller novel.
So when you’re creating your characters, make sure you remember what genre you’re writing and plan accordingly.
Get to Know Your Characters
Now that you have their personality traits down, it’s time to start putting them in some hypothetical situations. Pick a writing prompt (like these ones) and write how each character would react to the situation. I bet each of your characters wouldn’t react the same exact way, just as people all over the world wouldn’t react the same.
As you do prompts, the character’s backgrounds will begin to unfold. Perhaps your protagonist walked to school every single day while another character got to ride the bus. Or maybe one of your characters grew up in a loving orphanage while another had a not-so-happy childhood with not-so-loving parents. Lean into these sessions and respect them for what they are: an opportunity to get to know your characters better.
Elizabeth Yuen 