Ten Things To Know About Your Character Before You Write Them

I’ve talked about creating characters before and my own little tricks and tips for making well-developed and intentional ones. But today I thought I’d give you a bit of a cheat code for crafting your characters. Some easy steps to take if you aren’t sure where to start with fleshing them out. If you couldn’t guess from the title, here are 10 things that I almost always make sure that I know about my characters before I start writing them, along with the reasons why. 

1. Their worst fear. Why not dive right in with one of the biggest? 😂 I don’t mean being scared of spiders or snakes when I say this. Do they fear failure? Defeat? Being abandoned? Knowing what they will go to the greatest lengths to avoid will guide their choices when you, naturally, make them confront those fears. Naturally. 

2. Their greatest desire. These two are basically the foundational columns for your character. What they want and what they fear. Because they often complement each other. If what your characters is most afraid of is abandonment, then it follows that what they want most is a family or to belong. If they are afraid of failure, they want to be perfect or something along those lines.. 

3. Their family situation. Orphaned, siblings, both parents, one parent, you get the idea. So often characters are “developed” by killing off family members. We all know how I feel about that. 🙄 But regardless, you have to know about the family. Because an oldest child will respond drastically differently than a youngest child,. Someone who’s grown up with a single mom reacts differently than someone with two parents. Having a bunch of siblings is the same as being an only child.  

4. How old are they? Again, ties into how they react. 17 vs 24. Huge difference in maturity levels and reactions. This is something you’ll usually know right off the bat, just because that’s what we think about when we make our characters. Name, looks, and age. 

5. Their hobbies. Or, if you can’t think of more than one, their favorite hobby. This is something that fleshes them out into a real person. How do they like to spend their time? When someone has one thing they like to do, then other things follow. If I know that my character likes collecting baseball cards, maybe she likes to collect coins and stamps too. Or perhaps they’re an athletic person who loves different kinds of sports. That can lead to watching sports, etc. 

6. Five words that describe them.  I.e. fierce, demanding, passionate, loud, stubborn. Forcing yourself to come up with descriptors is a step similar to making a collage. It will give you deeper insight into your characters. It may feel like a vague step, but if you put some effort into it and find some strong words, it will reward you. It can’t just be “strong” or “smart.” 😁

7. Their dreams. This is very vague, but I challenge you to make it specific. What do they want to do in five years? Where do they want to be? This can be as small as wanting to be a vegetarian to graduating law school. Make it as broad or as focused as you want it to be.

8. Their name seems extremely obvious, but you can have fun with it. I do my best to make sure every name I give a character has some deeper meaning behind it. Whether it means betrayer or clever or callous, I like to choose the name to coordinate with the character. Bonus points if the full name has a special meaning all together. 

9. How do they best process things? Do they deal with their problems by punching things? Maybe journaling is better for them. Would they rather go for a walk or sit and stew? Since we nearly always put our characters through terrible trauma, they have to deal with it at some point. How?

10. Their inner circle. A person is a sum of their closest people. Who do they hang out with? How do these relationships benefit them? So often trauma is the biggest bonder in fantasy, and I would love to see some intentional friendships. 

And that’s it! Ten tips to develop your characters. I hope some of these helped you –pick and choose which ones work for you. Everyone will have different ways to create their characters. Let me know in the comments what you would add to this list!