Are the characters in your latest story falling flat on the page? Do they feel more like caricatures than real people? If readers aren’t connecting to your cast, it’s likely because the characters lack complexity and believable flaws. The solution is to dig deeper and give each one psychological nuance and unique motivations that explain their behaviours.
Start by uncovering the driving needs, wounds, and desires that shape your characters’ inner landscapes. Determine their childhood influences, important backstory events, and core personality traits. Know what your characters love, fear, dream about, regret, and try to avoid. Tapping into these realities will reveal stronger motivations and explain their behaviours in a more relatable way.
For example, if you have a villain who comes across as one-dimensionally evil, spend time exploring what hurt them and warped their worldview over the years. Were they raised by an abusive father? Bullied as a child? Betrayed by a lover? Their dark actions can become more understandable with context about their inner damage.
Or if your protagonist is boringly perfect, give them some intriguing flaws and weaknesses to struggle against. Do they have a temper they can’t control? A secret addiction? Chronic jealousy issues? Flaws make characters flawed make characters more human. And watching them grapple with these faults while pursuing their goals adds built-in inner conflict.
Go beyond just explaining what your characters do in your story, and explore why they do what they do. As you get to know them better, inconsistencies and contradictions will emerge – embrace these! Complicated characters full of contrasting traits and battling desires are the most fascinating to unravel.
Along the way, ask yourself why two characters responding to the same situation react differently. Uncover why one is an optimist, another a curmudgeon. Determine why one rushes into action while another prevaricates. And establish why some cling to harmful patterns and behaviours that hold them back.
Outside events and relationships should also shape your characters over time in significant ways. Chart how the loss of a parent at a young age has left lasting scars. Consider why a betrayal decades earlier still dictates how one character approaches relationships.
By tapping into these psychological layers, your cast will start coming off the page with all their human complexities. They will be flawed, yet likeable. Relatable, yet fascinatingly unique. And their storied pasts will illuminate their behaviours as their journey’s unwind.
Soon your characters will speak and move through your scenes fuelled by their deepest needs, hurts, and desires. Their once-flat exterior will be infused with motivation and purpose. And readers will find themselves invested in their struggles, heartbreaks and redemptions as they move through your narrative. So banish bland characters by rolling up your sleeves and doing the necessary emotional work to uncover what makes them tick. Once you’ve tapped into their psychology and mapped their past influences, they will leap off the page as fully realized people. Your readers will in turn follow along more eagerly, rooting for these intricate characters they now know inside and out!
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