When writing your novel and getting to know your characters, you might end up drowning in all your notes about them. Initially it might seem as there are so many things you need to know and remember about them, to make sure that they are consistent and complex. But here’s the reality: it’s not about the quantity of information. It’s about the right information. Here are 16 things you should know about your character to make them into a three dimensional being.
Core traumatic event
This is where all of it starts. Usually it’s a traumatic event from their childhood, that caused their misbelief, that will become central to the novel and drive the plot forward. Something that happened, that gave them a flawed belief about reality. If their friend or parent betrayed them, if their dog died, anything on those lines, as long as it clearly connects with the misbelief. Usually it’s followed by affirming events.
Misbelief
Knowing your character’s misbelief is perhaps the most important part. It’s the consequence of this traumatic and affirming events, and it’s something that drives the plot forward. Let me give you an example. Your protagonist’s mother died due a complication in the hospital, and she ended up believing that hospital’s and doctors never help. Her motivation growing up would be to become fully healthy, but facing a health issue she’s not able to fix with natural remedies, she goes on some adventure for looking solutions, while trying to stay away from the hospitals. This misbelief is the internal struggle that drives the plot forward: she will do anything before doing what will give a solution to her problem, until she will truly face the trauma of losing her mother.
Core values
Understanding your character’s core values is not only important to know what they care about, but to define how they will sacrifice those values. Giving impossible choices, moral dilemmas is one of the crucial things for a compelling story. Let’s stick to the example from before, and let’s name our protagonist Jade. She’s spent her life educating herself about health, just to stay way from doctors and hospitals. Her three core values are: health (feeling good in her body), security (feeling safe), and control (feeling like she has power).
How those core values get sacrificed
In order to make the story truly compelling, Jade needs to sacrifice a value she cares about, because they become mutually exclusive. She’s trying to stick to all of them, but down the line, she needs to choose between health and control. She initially sacrifices health, because she doesn’t want to give control to doctors. Then she sacrifices control, because she cares about health more, when she finally goes to the hospital.
External struggle
Central to your story is a conflict, one that everyone notices on the surface. A battle, conspiracy, anything of the sorts. In Jade’s case, her enemy is the hospital, her external struggle is figuring out her health without involving doctors. But it needs to directly connect with the internal struggle.
Internal struggle
Now, her internal struggle connects to the misbelief and where it came from. She hasn’t faced the truth about her mother’s death, and how she felt about it. Staying away from hospitals has become a defence mechanism. You need to figure out both the external and internal struggle of your protagonist, and connect it with that core traumatic event.
What will challenge this misbelief
The story will tell how your protagonist went from their misbelief to facing it head on and making a full turn after dealing with both external and internal struggles. In Jade’s case, she might meet a doctor who changes her mind. Who makes her think, well, doctors might not be so bad. Perhaps she would meet this doctor in a place where she least expects it, on some natural remedies retreat in Costa Rica, in the middle of meditation during yoga class, where she of all people would get critisized for making noise. Seeing him that way would challenge her beliefs.
Core motivation and goal
Another thing you need to clearly know about your protagonist is what do they want. In Jade’s case, it would be a natural solution to her health problem without involving the hospital. While usually during the story protagonist faces that what they want and what they need might be two different things, it’s important for the protagonist to have clear motivation and a clear goal from the start, and for them to focus on it.
Character arc
Having character change throughout the novel is critical for a compelling story, one that keeps the reader engaged. It doesn’t necessarily mean that the character needs to improve, as negative arcs are also a thing, they can become the villain of the story, or simply, get worse. But no matter what, there needs to be a character arc, and one that directly relates to the struggles and misbelief we discussed. In Jade’s case, she might go from being close minded and solely sticking to her approach, to becoming more open minded, and the doctor she met, let’s call him Ravi, would help her to become more open minded, while he would be on his own journey to understand some patient’s point of view.
Quirks and habits
Some peculiar behaviours, things your character systematically does, especially peculiar ones will make them more interesting. Flipping the coin, blowing the gum, anything. Ideally, it would be consistent or complimentary to how the character is overall, but it can also contrast in a strange, yet compelling way, as long as it works. In Jade’s case, she might always wake up exactly at 5am, even though during childhood she had been a night owl. Later on it would be revealed that she started getting up early because her mother died in the morning while she was sleeping. Having a plot relevance makes it even better.
Contradictory traits
This is the one thing that has made some of the most iconic characters so compelling. That is matching two things that kind of don’t make sense, that create a cognitive dissonance. Think Hannibal Lecter—perfect gentleman, yet. Georgia Miller—trailer park genius/loving mother yet serial killer. One recurring motif in many stories is “doing bad things for good reasons”.
In Jade’s case, it could be that she’s extremely careful when it comes to her health, yet goes on these extreme adventures around the world, putting herself in the harms way. It can be quite relatable to a huge audience, in fact.
Outfits, something they always carry
Defining potentially iconic outfits that fit or compliment their personality can make the character way more compelling as well. It doesn’t mean you need to describe everything they are wearing, but rather focus on peculiar center pieces, like a burgundy velvet jacket.
Even better, define something they always carry. It might be a pocket watch, a journal. Make it a bit strange, perhaps something broken, something that makes the reader ask questions, something that doesn’t quite fit the story yet.
Perhaps, despite her negative feelings for doctors, Jade always carries an old stethoscope. Later the reader finds out that her father, who abandoned her mother when she got sick, would have been a doctor, who owned that stethoscope, adding more depth to her trauma.
What are they ashamed about
Another thing that can make your character more complex is knowing what they are ashamed about. What they don’t want others to find out no matter what.
In Jade’s case, she might be ashamed for the last words she told her mother. Let’s say, she had blamed her mother for her father leaving. That would create even more pressure on Jade to hate her father and doctors on top of that, at least in her mind.
Attachement style
If your character is having any relationships with any other characters, and it’s unlikely they’re not, there are colleagues, friends, any other kind of relationships, then it’s good to know their attachment style, to predict how they will interact with others. There are four styles: secure, anxious, avoidant, fearful.
Now, Jade was abanonded by her father (directly) and by her mother (because she died) and that can most likely create an anxious attachement style, and if she would get into a romantic relationship with someone who is avoidant, it would create a potentially complicated and even toxic dynamic, which would push her trauma even further.
Defense and coping mechanisms
Last but not least! During your novel you will want to show how your character deals with different problems, and often it might be in ways that doesn’t make sense to the reader. That will be because they have their own defense mechanisms and coping mechanisms. Some of them might be healthy and mature, while others can be self sabotaging. Defense mechanisms like denial, intellectualization, repression and many more. Coping mechanisms can be meditation and mindfulness, but it can also be maladaptive daydreaming, which only creates more problems.
In Jade’s case, it can be disiplacement, because she would systematically put her negative feelings on one thing (let’s say, her father) on others, who are not at fault (any doctor she meets), instead of facing head on her negative feelings about her father. She might also try to over compensate her never visiting the hospital, by overdoing with different natural remedies, that would in return make her even more sick.
Found this useful? I’m writing my dystopian gore psychological thriller, I’m putting all my knowledge and life experience in it, building an intricate world with complex characters and a deep message. If you’d like to be informed, you can leave me your email here and I’ll send you an update once it’s out.
Have a lovely day.
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