How to Write Stories People Will Love

33. Develop Your Characters

PerfectGemini, a loyal follower, recently asked me: "How do we design and develop characters, and sort out their personalities? What's the best way to understand our characters?"

When we don't project a character's personality onto a page, they seem like flat, forgettable, two-dimensional people. This might happen if you don't have a solid grasp of who your characters are and what they're like. So how do you do that? Here are a few ideas...

Base them on people you know - When you create a character using the personality of a friend or relative, you already understand what this person is like. You can predict their reactions and you won't have to rely that much on imagination to write them. Just make sure to you use a different name, haha!

Base them on movie characters - Movies are full of well-rounded characters that seem real to us. Maybe you could borrow one. Someone else has already done the work for you. All you need to do is be consistent, and stay true to that personality.

Mix and match - You could take certain personality traits from different people and mesh them into one character. For example, maybe the character is charming and fearless like Han Solo, but curses a lot like Detective Morgan from the show Dexter.

Consult the Meyer's-Briggs personality types - If you do a search for "Meyers Briggs personality types", you'll discover a test you can take to determine one of sixteen personality types. A lot of writers like to use this as a base for developing their characters.

Create a character profile - Do a search for "character development sheet" and you'll see numerous results. These worksheets make you answer questions about your character that help you figure out this person's personality. Try one!

Write as that character - Step into your character's shoes and start a stream of consciousness. Just start writing random thoughts while pretending to be that character. This won't go into your story, but will help you get into the role. I'll make one up right now, as an example:

I can't believe she said that. I mean, sure, there's a hole in my shoes and maybe they're a little scuffed, but I like them that way. It means they're comfortable. Okay, maybe sometimes dirt rolls into the shoe through the hole, and my socks get dirty. Oh man, I hate dirty socks. Which reminds me, I need to ask Mom to get me more socks. Then again... she's gonna tell me to throw away these shoes. Dammit. Maybe I should get my own socks...

There's really no point to these ramblings other than to get your brain to focus on who this character is and how she thinks. Do as much or as little of it as you like without worrying if it's any good, because it's not going into the story.

Do you have any strategies you use to develop your characters? I'd love to hear about them. (And I'd love a vote as well!)