Stewart’s guide to creating great characters

It has been said that the essence of every story is to put a hero in a tree, throw stones at them, then bring them down again. But when the protagonist comes down he or she is not the same person they were before you threw those stones. By surviving the attack and learning valuable lessons about life and the toughness of the human condition your hero has changed. This change is called the character arc.

Characters need to arc during your story. They begin in one state of mind, they face challenges and grow, and they finish the story as better or wiser or changed people. This is important because the reader has been rooting for them and will gain a sense of satisfaction in seeing them reach a degree of maturity as a result of their journey through the story.

All characters have wants and needs which will either be fulfilled or denied during the story. If they achieve their goals, they’ll either be happier as a result, or they’ll learn that this kind of fulfilment is actually empty and that other things matter more. If they fail in their quest, they’ll either be affected in a depressive way or will decide that this failure has brought them some kind of symbolic success on another level. Every character who appears more than once should have an arc, no matter how small. Show it in as subtle a way as you can, but don’t neglect this important facet of fiction.

If you deleted all your characters’ names, would it still be obvious who was talking? Probably not. So this should be your goal in this draft. Give each character a vocabulary, accent, favourite phrases and manner of speaking that gives them all complete originality. However, don’t try to achieve this simply by giving everyone a different regional accent and writing it all phonetically. This would be difficult and tedious to read, and would alienate readers who are unfamiliar with those dialects.

Start by listening to how real people speak. They often have catchphrases. They may be incapable of finishing one sentence before beginning the next one. Perhaps they are always cynical in their speech, or are always trying (and failing) to be funny. Some people talk in formal tones with long words and correct grammar. Some only use the latest slang words from the street. Each person has a different agenda that taints the tone of what they say. Give colour and variety to your characters by making each individual talk in a way that is unmistakably a line from that character.

Don’t just think of a name and a description and put words into the new character’s mouth. This results in flat, drab writing. As a writer you must always be on the lookout for interesting characters in real life. Use people you meet for inspiration. If you end up at a party full of strange people with whom you have nothing in common, don’t be disappointed — be thankful for the opportunity to note their eccentric characteristics and speech patterns for future writings.

Good writing stands head and shoulders above the rest when every character encountered has a life, a vocabulary and an agenda of their own. Even minor characters have been living their lives up until the moment they appear in your writing, and they don’t want to give those lives up and simply join in the main story without a fight. Every little character must have their own ambitions and needs that will often be in conflict with those of the main character. Life is like that, and fiction in all its genres benefits from fully rounded and individual characters on every page.

Show, don’t tell… Show, don’t tell…

Repeat this mantra every time you sit down to write. It means that you mustn’t tell the reader everything about your character and their situation with direct description. Use the drama of the story and appropriate details to show the reader things that they will interpret for themselves. If a character likes to rebel against authority, don’t tell us. Show us. Show the bad attitude, the can-kicking in the street, the rule-breaking. If a character has a crush on another character, don’t tell us: show it with their body language, their heavy breathing and the double entendres in their speech. Showing instead of telling is a mark of elegant and mature writing. It’s one of the first indications that an editor can use to distinguish between a publishable work and an amateur work. Learn it, chant it, use it.