Regardless of the genre of fiction, it seems obvious to say that in most cases a fictional narrative, whether realistic or science fiction, is filled with heroes, characters, and villains who allow writers to draw the thread of their story.
Quasimodo, Dracula, Sherlock Holmes and more, there is no shortage of great novel characters, from Flaubert to Stephen King. But when you want to follow in your favourite author’s footsteps, creating a persona can be a challenging exercise.
A character in a novel is essentially a whole set of characteristics. It is thanks to these set of characteristics that make it possible to write a novel for the reader to enjoy.
There is obviously no method to imagining and then creating an effective character or designing a protagonist that holds up on paper. There are no rules to writing a novel in general(let alone writing a fictional hero). However, there are some tips you can use to get started.
Here are some literary tips on how to build the most complete character in a novel, and how to develop characters that fit the genre of the novel in question.
If its your first novel you may want to consider hiring an English tutor to help you fine tune your plot and character development.
Disassociate Yourself from Your Characters
From fantasy to adventure novels, building a character implies knowing the novelistic universe you wish to develop, but also and above all: dissociating the plot of the novel from your own tastes and yourself as a person.
Apart from autobiography, a character in a novel should very rarely corresponds to our own lives. Indeed, the idea is not to satisfy one's ego by making the character exactly like us - studying the same subjects, living the same life, or even looking the same.
The main idea is that the protagonist anchors and embodies the novel above all else!
To do this, and to succeed in separating what you want to place in the character and what is useful for the story to be effective, there are a few skills to practice when writing:
Why not make a summary sheet of everything the character represents: physique, occupation, daily life, social background, etc.?
Study the context in which the character lives: the city, the countryside, a particular profession, etc. This allows you to best embody his or her outlook.
Why not write down your pre-story on a separate sheet of paper? A story that is not destined to be published, but which gives some background to the character you have in mind. It can perhaps be one particular day or pivotal moment in their lives.
Do not create a character just for the sake of it. Each person must have a role, either in helping display your theme or to move the plot along.
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Don't Create Clutter Characters in Your Novel
How do you write a good character?
To create a good character, you must first review your motivations to build them.
Whether it's the main character or the secondary protagonists whose role is to flesh out the narrative scheme, every novelist will tell you: making characters just for the sake of adding them is not useful. It's even counterproductive, crime novel or otherwise.
Because yes, beyond supporting the role of the villain or adding aimless prose, making a great character is above all about giving them a role in the novel. Each character must therefore have a stake in the unfolding of the story.
This is, of course, not a hard and fast rule – there could be a large group of protagonists or just a purely literary choice.
Another consideration is that you don’t have to have a ton of characters to have a great story. Many books with only one or two characters manage to spin a great tale without making it any less exciting.
In short, the fictional character is often constructed in relation to the writer's interest. Exceptions are possible, of course, and certain features of the main character may need a lesser character to be emphasised. It's all a matter of measurement!
Avoiding Clichés to Build a Character in a Novel
On the same note, beyond the fact that it is entirely possible to choose it strategically, a character who ticks all the cliché boxes is not always going to be very appreciated by readers, nor very effective for the manuscript.
Indeed, if we write the biography of a baker, it will not be surprising to see them tick all the boxes of their trade: hands full of flour, white outfit, etc. Especially if this baker is going to be the centre of our story.
On the other hand, imagining up a bourgeois character that is necessary to have as a cliché – well then that’s not hard at all! In these cases, you can go full pleated skirt and a lacquered haircut to the millimetre, all wrapped up in a chic neighbourhood.
Depending on the type of novel, it is essential to be nuanced from the beginning of the novel to the end. Complex characters are often the ones who provide the most emotion.
Furthermore, it’s important to understand the character inside out for the sake of consistency. Imagine reading a novel where the character’s mannerisms don’t match up from the beginning to the end of the novel.
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Assume Your Reader is a Smart Reader
In the same way as creating novelistic characters based on clichés, it is important to realise that literary storytelling is a space where the mind can fill in many gaps.
Sometimes novelists may be tempted to fit a protagonist into a box, so that the character can be identified by the majority of readers. However, relatable and understandable characters are not always the ones we think they are.
When in doubt, stick to “showing” not “telling”. Repeated behaviours and patterns of thought can be enough to illustrate a character’s personality, without the need to explain too much! Result: more nuance in his construction!
From Camus to Madame Bovary, an interesting character is not necessarily one who fits into the structure of the novel in a fluid way. For example, they need not always be a role model or have a personality that we like.
In this, whether similar to our values or the opposite, a good character is often that paper being that builds a mirror between themselves and the reader. Whether that mirror reflects back something positive or negative. It is above all a question of identifying with what the character builds in the story.
Do Not Forget Secondary Characters in a Novel
While it is often important not to insert too many unnecessary characters into the novel's plot, on the contrary, secondary characters are sometimes important in any genre. They give the main characters their value and provide an internal view of what may happen in the storyline.
Far from being a foil in the construction of the novel, the secondary characters allow us to get to know the main characters, but also to unblock certain situations occasionally.
Whether or not they are close to the main hero, it is easy to understand this when you look at some of the books where the characters are numerous: Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling for example? What would the saga be without all the characters that gravitate around the trio of wizards? They are also what allow the plot to be so rich, and the heroes of the novel to go so far.
And yet, they are not devoid of personality, and are far from being hollow! Becoming a writer is an art!
Building a Character in a Novel: Giving Them a Language
From the secondary character to the main protagonist, a character is also perceived through his or her language and what they say!
Inventing a character, as you will have understood, means creating a mind, a personality, in order to write a story. Whether from the internal point of view or not, the narrator focuses at one point or another on what the protagonist is thinking and doing.
These elements are anything but trivial details. Making a character speak in a modern novel is not the same as making a character speak in an essay. To make characters speak is to assign them a register of language, which will also require rereading their words over and over again to make sure they sound right.
From war vocabulary to the realism of the prison environment, certain lexical fields establish literary characters more by what they say than by what they do.
The character must be like a real person and keep the same voice throughout the novel! For this, character sheets are often very useful. They allow you to situate the type of character while writing a novel.
The creation of a character is not based on anything else, except the story that is being told and the way the character evolves within it. With all these tools to get you started, composing a character has never been so fun and exciting!
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