One of the keys to a great story is the characters in it. The more unforgettable your characters are the longer they will stick in your readers mind and the more they will be talked about. You need to have several unforgettable characters in a story. It’s not just enough if you have one or two, almost all the important characters in your story need to have deep personalities. Your readers should be able to get to know them and understand them and feel the same emotions and feelings they feel while they read your story.
Before you write your story you need to plan out your characters, their personalities and traits thoroughly. The more you think about them and plan them, the more likely your readers will like them and remember them for a long time.
If you’re keen on learning how to create good characters then read all the tips below and practice them:-
1. Plan them ahead:
You shouldn’t just start imagining your characters while you write your story. If you do this it could affect the depth of your characters and make them appear less genuine. You need to plan them ahead and spend a lot of time imagining them and giving a lot of depth to their character.
2. Interview them in your mind:
The more questions you ask the better their character will get. So ask for more information than you need. You always don’t have to imagine them to be in a lounge or a sitting room or a homely environment. Imagine them in your most comfortable environment or their most comfortable environment. For example, if you’re interviewing a stone-age man or a stone-age woman in your mind, picture them in a cave and talk to them while you sit on stones or on the floor. If you’re interviewing a dog, picture it in its kennel and interview it. If you don’t want it to be a talking dog observe it carefully and see what it does.
3. Use characters from real life:
You could also use characters from your real life. You could take the characters of your real friends and integrate them with the characters in your story. This way they will sound more real than ever and the reader will be able to understand them better. You will also have a better idea of what they might do in certain situations.
If you want to use this method you might need to ask them for permission to use their character in your story. The last thing you want to do is end up with a lawsuit or a bad name.
4. Put in your emotions:
Use your real emotions in your story. Open up and use everything that’s going through your mind while you write. Don’t try to hold back anything – doing this will affect your character. The more natural and real emotions you put in, the more lively your characters will sound and the more they will be loved and understood by your readers. Write down how you would react to something that happened. If the incident made you angry and shout out, just write down that. If the incident made you happy then make a note of the laugh or smile. Do the same with every other emotion.
5. Keep them realistic:
The key to a great character is to keep them realistic. Your audience will be able to associate themselves with your characters if they are more realistic and they will enjoy reading and finding out more about them.
If your characters are too artificial they won’t enjoy reading about them or finding out more about them. An e.g. is the Twilight Series. One of the reasons for its success was that the character Bella was realistic. Even though the story was pure fiction with vampires and werewolves and a girl falling in love with a vampire, many girls who read it were able to associate themselves with the girl Bella. As the way she behaved and the emotions she had seemed realistic.
So keep your characters realistic throughout the story so that your readers can associate themselves with their favourite characters.
These are 5 ways in which you can create unforgettable characters for your stories. These tips can be used to create characters for not just story books and novels, but also for movies and other scripts where having good characters is important.
How do you create characters for your stories? Have I missed out anything important? Are there any tips you would like to share with us? I would love to heat your ideas. Please leave your comments in the comments box below.
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