Creating the Well-Developed Character

Step One: Faults and Virtues

So you've decided to use this guide to create a well-developed character... I'll warn you that it's a long and time consuming process, but it's well worth it, so don't lose patience.

The first step is to decide your character's gender and age....but the first step with any work involved is deciding your characters's faults and virtues. Thus,

Step One: Faults and Virtues

Let's start with virtues.

Virtues are not too hard to come up with (much easier than faults, in my opinion). Still, here's a sample to get your imagination warmed up.

Selflessness

Gentleness

Perseverance

Courage

Patience

I would pick 7 virtues to start with.

Next, choose some flaws. As unpleasant as they might be, everyone has them, and it is important to endow each of your characters with a reasonable amount of imperfection, especially your protagonist. Yes, I meant protagonist, not antagonist (although antagonists must be flawed as well, to be sure). Perfection is unrealistic, and gives your reader nothing to relate to. No one likes reading about a perfect character. It's boring!

These are some faults to get you started:

Conceit

Selfishness

Distrustfulness

Arrogance

Indecisiveness

I suggest you pick seven faults to start with, although more will probably crop up as you get to know your character better.

[I'll make an example character as we go along. I've decided my character will be female, age 24, and her virtues are: generosity, humbleness, modesty, honesty, love, kindness, and gratitude. Her flaws are procrastination, slight naïveté, has trouble saying no, can be messy and disorganized, forgetfulness, over sensitivity, and a bit of a "I don't need your help; I can do it myself" attitude]

Now that you've established faults and virtues, it's time to move on to personality.