Designing Compelling Characters for a Novel

The modern day reader wants character driven content, not only in novels, but in all of our entertainment. What makes Reid in "Criminal Minds" so interesting? Why can "House" tell the same story hundreds of times and never get old?

A novel must be more than a compelling sequence of incidents. It must contain interesting people with interesting problems, and if you design these at the very beginning of the novel writing process, you're guaranteed to produce a better story than you otherwise would have.

Most new writers sit down with a single concept banging around in their heads; they'll say they want to write a novel about UFOs or dragons. This is a nice place to start brainstorming, but it's a downright predicament if you next intend to type the words "Chapter One."

Using Character Design to Brainstorm

We meet people and we know words. With these two attributes, we are capable of conjuring the most bizarre and interesting people the world will ever know. When you're suffering from writers' block at the prospect of a new project, this is a great way to get on with your writing.

Start by thinking of someone you know of. Bill Gates. Your grandmother. The rude guy who screamed at the cashier two days ago because the fries sucked.

Now give them adjectives.

Rich CEO.

Elderly Jewish Woman.

Rude Customer.

Those can certainly describe the people we made note of a moment ago---but they can also describe a lot of other people.

Let's flesh them out a little more. Let's add another adjective. Forget about the people who made you think of the words originally.

Rich, black CEO. -- Hey, that's kind of interesting. Most CEOs are white, so this guy has to have a cool story.

Elderly Jewish woman with a photographic memory. -- Sometimes there just isn't an adjective for what we need to express. Feel free to use as many words as you need to make your characters interesting.

Rude, racist customer. The word racist adds whole new meaning to the word rude, so now you've got a stronger image of this guy. And since our Rich CEO just became black, it even gives us some potential conflict (the root of any good novel), right off the bat.

Get a list of nine or ten people started. They won't all fit your novel's theme, so don't feel compelled to go further with the ones you dislike.

Interesting people, while important to a novel, aren't the entire equation. Even House, which tells the same story almost every week, has more than "a brilliant, but socially inept doctor."

To really engage the reader, you need interesting characters in interesting situations. The situation isn't the plot, but it's a big part of it, and it is often the root of a sub-plot.

Rich, black CEO, who's involved in a lawsuit over the way his product is portrayed in a new movie.

Elderly Jewish woman with a photographic memory, who's having a reoccurring nightmare about Nazi Germany.

Rude, racist customer with anger-control issues, who discovers that his wife of 20 years had a black father.

Sometimes, you'll end up with something unusable or that needs more information to be interesting. Other times, you'll end up with something very close to a logline. Both are fine; the point is to get your creative juices flowing.

Our CEO could probably be a good antagonist. His motives are easily identifiable, but his situation isn't all that interesting on its own. Let's suppose our main character is an independent film-maker who just won a prize for her startling new documentary. Uh oh!

The Jewish grandmother could be the central character of a historical WWII novel, told in flashbacks.

The rude customer ended up having the makings of a good literary novel, and could easily be the protagonist or antagonist of that situation, depending on where the author took the character.

These three characters together don't lend themselves to being in the same story, however. That's why theme is important.

Theme

Theme is the subject matter of your novel. If you wanted to write, for instance, a romance, you'd be very deliberate in your choices. While randomly assigning attributes and situations is a good way to brainstorm, it's not so good for getting characters that fit something you've already decided on.

With a romance, you'd want to differences that could put strain on the Hero and Heroine's (H/H for short) relationship.

Poor, Amish girl.

Wealthy young computer engineer.

These two could easily meet during the girl's "running around" period, where Amish children are relieved from their religious restraints to explore the world. To be together, either the Amish girl would have to abandon her religion (and to an extent, her family) -- or the engineer would have to abandon his wealth and live in a world where his skills meant nothing.

Throw in a pious Amish bachelor and you've even got an antagonist!

Now give them appropriate situations. These need to make sense in your context, without being entirely predictable.

Poor Amish girl, whose friends and family are pressuring her to be baptized into the Amish church, and to break up with her "English" (The Amish word for outsiders) boyfriend.

Wealthy, young computer engineer who was just found a business opportunity in France. (Oh! Now they've got a time limit!)

Pious Amish bachelor who can't control himself around younger women.

Once you have a few more characters, make connections between them. Maybe the Amish girl has a prearranged relationship with the bachelor, despite his reputation. Maybe she liked him initially, but she found out he was a letch. Maybe the Amish girl almost goes to France with the engineer, but the bachelor arrives with news that her father is dying.

When you have a list of six or seven characters with situations, you'll be able to draw vast webs of potential story ideas.

What to avoid

Recognize when you're just replicating someone else's work, when you've made a stereotype, or when you've just made something really uninteresting.

A young wizard who's been invited to join a prestigious school, for example, will be really hard to make into a character other than Harry Potter. It's doable. Maybe this character has to compete with other wizard children to get in. Maybe he gets there and finds out they invited the wrong person. You can make this character unique and even likable, but be aware that you're exploring a very well-used archetype.

An evil terrorist plotting to destroy the world! Evil is a wonderful adjective. Terrorists are great to write about. But terrorists have realistic motives, and evil people really don't. The evil terrorist who wants to watch the world burn isn't just overdone and unrealistic, it's two dimensional and boring. What does he gain if the world blows up? Why does he want to destroy it? You could answer those questions and make the character work, but it'll be hard.

An old book-addict who just won a $1000 gift certificate to Barnes and Noble. This character is boring because the conflict has been drained from her like as if with a sieve. It's obvious wish fulfillment, and unless you're an amazingly gifted humorist, you need to rethink a character like this. Inverting his situation makes him down-right interesting. An old book-addict who's just dropped his $1000 gift certificate to Barnes and Noble into a storm drain. That could make an intriguing humor novel, or be the ironic tragedy that kick-starts another character's story!

One final character to avoid--yourself.

If you find that you're writing about a struggling author who smokes too much, you probably need a break.

Good luck, and happy writing!