Creating Characters That Don't Suck!

Hey everyone!

I keep getting asked about character creation templates, which I have a few of, including personality tests like the Enneagram and the MBTI test so I’m going to break these down just a little bit for you and we’ll go from there.

First off, there’s really no wrong way to create a character for your story… with one exception. If you make a flat, two-dimensional character that never grows or changes or does anything differently than they have at the start of your story, you’ve written a bad character. There’s a reason why, because all stories (at least good ones) have one thing in common: conflict.

If your story doesn’t have any conflict, and the characters just get whatever they want whenever they want it, it’s not much of a story. Even if we’re talking about a fantasy world where there is magic or a sci-fi world where there is advanced technology, you still want your world to feel somewhat realistic. So, make sure that you’re adding some kind of conflict to make it more realistic. Let’s look at some examples.

Think about it for a minute. If, in Jaws, by Peter Benchley, the shark bites someone and is immediately dead, the story is over right there. Jurassic Park by Micheal Crichton, the dinos never get out of the enclosures… no story. Hotel Transylvania, a Disney movie… if Johnny wasn’t human, then Mavis just has a birthday party!

See what I’m saying here? You’ve got to give your characters something to overcome! But, how do we know what to have them overcome, you ask?

Simple: Backstory! Backstory will tell you exactly what to put in your characters’ way to make their life harder and give them something to overcome. So, let’s look at character backstory quickly and see how you can use it to your advantage.

Character Backstory:

Looking at a backstory, you’re going to want to focus on what makes someone want to do, or actually do the things that they do. So, what happened in their past to make them think this way? Did they have a rough childhood that makes them now go after domestic abusers? Did their parents forbid them from eating sweets and now they're a baker in their new town?

I like to think about this in terms of something from D&D: Favored Enemy. In that context, it means that when fighting the character gets an advantage when fighting that type of enemy. So, someone who is particularly motivated to punish domestic abusers (like out example above) might feel a righteous sense of “correctness" when doing so. When you write the backstory for your character, make sure that you include those things.

Now, let’s look at how they will apply to your story and the choices your characters make along the way.

Character Development:

When you’re making your characters, give them the same detail and context that you’re seeing in a dream or Hollywood movie. Don’t let them be just “halfway” characters that almost have a life. Let them have a full life of their own so that they stand out and live in your readers heads for months after they finish your book. It’s not always the easiest thing to do, but, it’s always going to give you a better outcome.

Make sure that you’re including the full sensory experience and for example, if your character has a diminished or a heightened sense, say they’re a werewolf and they have a heightened sense of smell because of that, then you would make sure that you describe that heightened sense of smell. On the other hand, if a character is paralyzed from an accident , then someone or something touching their foot is not something they would feel, so perhaps they wouldn’t notice that if someone wrapped a rope around their foot or a snake coiled around it.

The same thing with sight, if your character is blind then they obviously cannot see anything but if you go do some research, in a lot of cases people who are blind whether that be legally blind or medically blind they can still see shapes or flashes of light, so there is some room to play with there, it’s just not quite as interesting As someone who has full use of their sight. Which also plays into hearing, for example, if someone’s ears are damaged or they’re underwater, if someone puts earplugs in their ears, what changes does that make to their perception of the world? All those things can go into planning your character, and when you do that correctly just like describing a setting, then you have a very rich sensory experience for your readers to uncover and get lost in.

The GMCS Method:

The GMCS method is a shorthand way to say “Goals, motivation, conflict and stakes". It’s pretty self-explanatory, but let’s break it down a bit and talk about why it’s so important to putting together characters that feel life-like and get your reader’s attention.

Goals:

We already talked about goals, but, there is some more detail we can go into. Goals are whatever the character wants to achieve, and normally they come in more than one variety. You’ll have primary goals, which are the big things that your characters want to achieve, world peace for example; and minor goals like getting from one place to another. When you have a few of these together, your characters become more life-like and real. The layering makes more sense as we go on, so let’s keep going.

Motivation:

Goals feed into motivations, but they’re not quite the same thing. Motivations frequently change while your character is going through the story. For example, your character could meet another character and realize that they have a desire to protect them (or to do bad things to them), so then they would be motivated to do that thing. It might not necessarily be one of their goals from their backstory, that’s why it’s listed differently.

Conflict:

This is where, as an author, you get to put things in the way of your characters and where you make life harder for them. Of course, it’s somewhat fun, but there’s got to be a reason for the conflicts you put in their way.

Does your character have a physical ailment? Use that to your advantage. If they aren’t very physically fit, put a moment in their way that makes them do something physical to reach their goal. Are they unable to read? Make them learn how to read something to overcome an obstacle. Rebecca Yarros does this remarkably well in the Fourth Wing series with Violet Sorrengail.

After all, without conflict there’s no story. If everything is easy, there’s nothing to read. So, make it difficult for your characters!

Stakes:

This is where things get super important. Without any stakes, there would be no reason for your characters to try to achieve their goals. When creating your characters, keep these in mind. They go hand in hand with conflict, and in a lot of cases can tell you what kind of conflict you need to put in front of your characters. Also remember these do not have to be life and death, world-ending stakes. They can simply be something like your character wants to get a raise at a job, and if they don’t get that raise there are consequences that come up for that. Now when you do put stakes in, they should be meaningful, and by that I mean they should have some kind of impact on your characters, or the world at large.

For example, look at Frodo destroying the one ring in mount doom in JRR Tolkien's The Hobbit. If Sauron is allowed to get the One Ring, things are going to go very badly for Middle Earth, therefore there are some very severe stakes to Frodo not destroying the ring. Now of course, like I said they don’t have to be that drastic however, if you’re dealing with something like that that gives you a lot of options to add conflict to put in your character’s way, so as you design your character and you start looking at what their goals are going to be, you can add in the stakes and that can help you figure out what kind of conflict to use to stop them from achieving their goal and those two things together, the stakes and conflicts, will make your story and your characters much more believable.

Sensitivity Readers:

One very big note, especially when creating human characters, is to be knowledgeable and understanding of the possibly upsetting or stereotypical aspects of human nature that can come out very easily when creating a character. Now, of course, authors aren’t expected to know all of these things on their own, but you can always employ what are called sensitivity readers. While these positions are frequently paid ones, they’re very worth the price if you want to not appear insensitive to the group you write about.

Asking for sensitivity readers from your reading group is pretty easy, and when we’re looking at roughly $.001 per word for full manuscript sensitivity reads (versus $.007 per word or more for professional editing) it’s a very good thing to take advantage of. There have been many authors who have been labeled as racist and probably didn’t take advantage of sensitivity readers. Don’t make that mistake for your book.

The M.B.T.I. Test:

The MBTI personality test from the Myers-Briggs Company is a self-assessment personality exam that’s loosely based on the foundational ideas of Carl Jung. There are a total of 16 possible personality types, showing what ends up as similar to a Venn diagram to narrow down the personality of the person taking the exam. It's not a substitute for proper psychiatric assessment from a psychiatrist, but, it’s a pretty solid place to start.

How does that apply to writing fictional characters, you ask? Well, let’s dive into it!

Character Voice:

When you’re developing what we call “character voice" what you’re really developing is the personality, soul and life of the character. Just like when an actor really embodies a character and you can’t imagine anyone else ever playing them, that’s the kind of character that we create when we find the character voice.

So, looking at creating a character, we can start with an idea and let the MBTI test, or rather, it’s personality types (sometimes called character archetypes) help us along. We do the same thing already when we speak of a character as a “bad boy, golden retriever or a horrible narcissist”, this just has some more information about that type of personality.

So, I’ve seen this done in two different ways:

First, you decide on your character, figure out what’s going on with them in their basic personality and look into what would be the appropriate personality type for them as more information.

Second, when you’re planning out a character, you can decide on personality from the group. Normally, these stand out as the way you see them in your head when you daydream about them. However, if you wanted to you could start from a personality type by itself and let that guide you as you create the character.

Either way, you can use the personality types to help craft your characters and add in the conflicts and goals to help shape them into more believable characters. Just keep in mind, the more complex you make your characters, the more notes you’ll want to keep handy so you keep things straight.

The Enneagram:

The Enneagram is another self-assessment test that can help you discover more about your personality or the personality of the characters you’re creating. In this case, instead of 16 personality combinations, there are 9 to work with. In many cases, you’ll find yourself or your characters relating to more than one of these personality types, and that’s completely fine. Let your judgement reign here.

Main & Sub Character Templates:

These are basically the short-form versions of the detailed character template that I’ve got provided in the character creation pack. When you don’t need a whole list of questions, but, still want to have a place to keep track of your character details these are where I would go. You’ve still got everything you need to have physical and psychological characteristics on hand when you need them, without going through a whole stack of questions just to get your info available.

Pretty much every one of my sub-characters has their own template, it makes keeping track of things much easier. Main characters are in pretty much every scene and you think about them all the time as an author, but your sub-characters might only be in a few scenes and are less likely to be remembered in clear detail. That’s the exact reason that I made one for them. And basically, the sub-character template is just a stripped-down version of the main character template. If you need more information, you can use the main character template or just add what you need to the sub-character template.

Using the Templates:

Ok, we went through all these templates, now, what does that mean for creating a fictional character that doesn’t suck and feel like a cookie cutter of everyone else’s? Well, let’s dive right in and create one! It doesn’t matter if you’ve written 100, or you’re still figuring out your first character, we can do this together! We’re going to start with the “Detailed Character Template”, but you could apply this process to the “Main Character” "Sub Character” Templates as well, those are just a bit more limited in scope for when you don’t want to go through all of these questions or don’t need them.

Step One - The Basics:

Starting off with something simple, let’s give this character something to work with. All characters have these five traits, even if they’re unemployed, so let’s plug them in and get to work.

Name
Age
Sex/Gender
Ethnicity
Occupation

For a name, I tend to use a random name generator unless I have a specific character name in mind, but, feel free to go with whatever name moves you. Moving on to age, I try to keep my characters above 18, but, in some cases you’ll need to have them be younger or older depending on the needs of your story. You can play around with this and get something that works for you. For sex/gender, you can insert anything you need in here and get moving along. The same goes for ethnicity, although it might be important in your story if you’re making a fantasy or sci-fi world. Looking at their occupation, even if they are unemployed or a thief or something like that, they still have something that gets them the money or resources they need to survive. If you’re going to include something like that, please, make sure that you enlist a sensitivity reader and don’t just “wing it”.

Step Two – Physical Appearance:

What does your character look like? This can be as simple or as detailed as you want it to be, sometimes it might be very complicated and include things like scars, or a limp from a previous injury. Other times it might be specific tattoos, or a strange eye color that makes them stick out from the people around them. As long as you don’t describe your character as “average”, you’ll be fine; average is different to each person, so it won’t help you when you’re making a character.

These are the things I’d consider the basics here, you can go into more detail if you want, but this should get you going in a good direction.

Eye color
Skin color
Hair color
Height
Weight
Body type

If you can define those 6 things, you’ve got a good start. Feel free to add in others as you need them or think of them. If you don’t need any of the categories, just don’t fill them in.

Step Three – History:

Next on the list is history, I like to start things out simply, since a lot of what is in this section tends to be things that come up as you write the story. If you’re already working with a well-established character, you might know some of the other things already, so you can fill them in. If you know what you want that character to do in the future, you can just plug in those answers too. This also goes back to conflict from earlier, if your character wants to do something, you can put obstacles in their way to make for a more interesting story. Sometimes, even just the most obvious things, like something being too high to reach currently can be enough of a conflict to start with.

Birth date
Place of birth
Key family members

Keeping it simple, these are the things that all characters will have in common and, they will be very useful when setting up your story. Feel free to go into more depth on the template whenever you need to.

Step Four – Psychological Traits:

Remember the Enneagram and MBTI tests from above? This is where they’re going to be very useful. Now, of course, you don’t have to have a complete psychological profile like you see in TV crime dramas, but, it might be interesting to dive a little deeper into this for your main characters. There may be some things that will tell you how they might react to a certain situation, and, that can tell you how to help or hinder them as the story progresses. Here are some basics.

Intelligence
Hobbies
Temperament
Phobias/Fears
Routines
Bad Habits
Flaws
Quirks

If you are able to get through that list, that’s a good starting point. There’s quite a bit more in this section that you can add if you want.

Section Five – Communication:

This one might not seem all that important, but it really is. After all, if your characters never move or communicate, they’re going to be pretty boring. Let’s look at what types of things you may want to keep in mind for when they do.

Languages known
Preferred communication methods
Accent
Style and pacing of speech
Pitch/Tone of voice

Sure, not all of that will apply to every character. But, what if you’re in the far reaches of the galaxy on a sci-fi adventure and your Science Officer just got knocked unconscious by a hypersonic Nerf(TM) dart? How will you communicate with the aliens you just encountered? What about a spy in a foreign country in the early 1700’s in Europe, wouldn’t they need to speak multiple languages? The other options here also play into that as well, so don’t forget to keep them in mind.

Section Six – Strengths, Weaknesses & Abilities:

There are a lot of things you can put into this section, for example, Superman was weak to Kryptonite. Since you can add so much, I like to just list these in terms of their category; IE: Physical, Psychological, Interpersonal and so on. And keep in mind, normally, for every strength there is usually a weakness. An over-powered character that has no weaknesses is impossible to overcome or defeat so they aren’t very useful, even as the villain.

You can also include a character’s abilities here, for example. Are they proficient in a style of fighting, good with certain weapons, have a particular affinity for a type of magic? This is a good place to put that information.

Physical
Mental
Psychological
Interpersonal
Magical
Technological

Section Seven – Relationships:

Every character has a relationship to another character, place or thing, even if it’s simply to hate it’s existence. Let’s put those things down in this section and make it easier to recall that information later in the story.

Parents/Guardians
Romantic Partners
Friends
Enemies
Allies

Obviously, this isn’t a complete list and you can always add more to the “Detailed Character Template” if you need to, but this is a good starting set.

Section Eight – Character Growth:

We talked quite a bit about goals and conflicts above when we broke down the basics, but this is where you can go into more detail if you want/need to. I’m not including everything in this section, just giving you an idea of where you can go with it.

Character archetype
Character arc
Core values
Internal conflicts
External conflicts

Two of the most valuable here are Character Arc, and Core Values. These will help define your character as they move through the story, with each influencing the other. Pay close attention to how these relate to the GMCS information you learned about above and your character arcs will look much cleaner and be easier to follow.

A character arc is the journey that your character goes through during the story, to put it simply. It’s the growth that they make or the situations or hardships that they overcome in the story that make it interesting. As an example, look at Disney’s Hercules: Hercules has to realize that love is more important than his life to become a God.

A character archetype is fairly simple, but, it’s basically a category of a character. A hero, a villain, a bad boy, a valiant knight and so on. There’s kind of one for everything, but, for some authors and readers it can help to make a character easier to read or write.

So, that about wraps it up here today. Let’s see what we’ve got and I’ll show you the quick character I made while going through this blog post. Feel free to comment below and share your own, or email me any time and share your characters. I love hearing from you, so, don’t be a stranger!

Character Creation Wrap-up:

I’m going to start with something I’ve never made before, a Lich. (And yes I know, bad D&D player, no pizza.) A Lich is an undead wizard of sorts, kind of like Voldemort from Harry Potter, so let’s get to it. And remember to stick around for a short story example from the character I’m outlining here.

First, since I don’t have a name in mind, let’s go to my favorite “Random Name Generator” and find a name for our character. Keep in mind, that if you’re going to try to make an audiobook at some point, you might need to know how to pronounce the names you give your characters. For now, we’ll just move along, and, don’t freak out when your spellcheck has a fit over random names. Just add it to your dictionary when you decide on the correct spelling of the name.

Name: Druzciak
Age: 2,721 years (not quite immortal)
Height: 6 feet, 9 inches
Weight: 220 pounds
Physical build: Gaunt, desiccated
Eye color: Glowing Purple
Hair color: Ashen Gray
Tattoos: Tribal tattoos up his forearms with celestial symbols on the backs of his hands and fingers, all in sharp and bold black like they were done yesterday. They glow a sickly green when his magical power is used.

Ok, let’s stop right here for a minute so I can show you something I just did. It’s not critically important that we know the color of the tattoos on Druzciak’s arms (at least not at this point), but, it is important from a storytelling standpoint that we know that when his tattoos start to glow green, something is about to happen. Little clues like this will help you plan out the details of a scene and make them more immersive. Adding them to a character template helps you remember them so you keep things straight while you’re writing, especially in a series. That continuity is very important to readers, if your details don't stay consistent you'll lose readers before you even get them to read your story.

Main Goal: Take over the kingdom of Edrowailum, after escaping from the Dagruqis Dimension, where he has been held prisoner for a Millenia by the Council of Elders.
Minor Goal: Find the Phylactery that holds his immortal soul so that he can reside on the mortal realm and take over the kingdom of Edrowailum forever.
Major Conflict: The Dagruqis Dimension is guarded by Hell Hounds
Minor Conflict: He is not immune to the venom of their fangs, only severely weakened
Motivation: He was wrongfully imprisoned for trying to bring his beloved, Arenaria, back from the dead so that he could spend eternity with her
Stakes: If he doesn’t return to the mortal world and reclaim his Phylactery, he can never be united with Arenaria and will forever be alone in the Dagruqis Dimension as it’s prisoner

Now, that’s not exactly a perfect character to start with for everyone, but, I hope that you can see how answering just those simple 14 questions can give you a character that you can work with. You can add detail if you like, and you can have a deep character very easily. Give it a shot and see what you can come up with!

And now, here’s that story example that I promised you! I’m going to try and use all 14 points here, but, at the very least I’ll hit the high points and make it clear how they impact your character and story. See if you can pick out the places that I included the elements I just listed and how they can help you plan out the rest of the story!

The Confrontation in the Tower

The heat from the winds that howled around the crumbling bricks of the tower permeated the nearly shattered cell that Druzciak had spent the last centuries in. The days had blended together like the grit that the tumultuous winds ripped off the walls like the sands of time in an hourglass that held the fate of his existence. How could he have been imprisoned for what he did? He simply wanted to spend eternity with his beloved Arenaria, the only thing that kept him sane, how was that a crime? She died far too early from a fever that he didn’t have a spell or potion to cure, the only way she could come back to him was through the darkest of magic, the kind that was forbidden by the Council of Elders. And when they found out what he had done, they weren’t kind to him.

His phylactery calls to him, whispering that it’s waiting for him to complete the ritual that will transfer the end of his life essence to Arenaria, bringing her back to life for as long as he survives. The only problem is that he has to be physically in contact with it for it to even have a chance of working. And if it fails – he loses all control of his mind, he’ll wander forever with no memory of who he is or what he was doing for the previous years of his life. But, those are the risks that have to be taken in moments like this.

Druzciak takes another look around the cell that’s been his home for a millennia and once again looks at the crumbling brick of the wall. Hoping beyond hope that, just for a moment, the wind will stop and the Hellhounds will find something else to do so that he can escape. The Hellhounds have a very particular venom here in the Dagruqis Dimension, it’s a very potent neurotoxin that neutralizes the control of the afflicted person’s muscle control while still allowing them to maintain feeling of their surroundings. In short, you still feel pain but are completely paralyzed. And since he’s had limited exposure and isn’t in his laboratory he can’t make an antidote. He learned that the hard way when he first went insane, his mind shattered and he jumped out of the tower, casting the only spell that still worked to slow his fall to a survivable floating to the ground. When the first of many Hellhounds bit him, all but two of his muscles stopped working entirely. Thankfully, his heart and what was left of his diaphragm didn’t stop responding, he could still live and breathe. The pain though – it shattered the last remnants of his mind - all he could think of now was Arenaria and revenge.

The heavy iron keys clanking in the hallway outside of his door snapped him out of the memory of being bitten by the Hellhounds and back to the present. That sound was a siren song for him, it sounded beautiful but held horrors in it’s wake. The last time the door was opened he was interrogated by the council for weeks on end, trying to learn the hiding spot of his phylactery so it could be destroyed. Of course, he hadn’t given in and let the secret go, but there wasn’t a single spot of his gaunt body that had been neglected from their ministrations. They attacked him both physically and magically, no violation of pain was too great, no torture too extreme. Even his mind and soul were ravaged. And now they were coming for him again.

His eyes snapped open with a sharpness they hadn’t shown in centuries as the keys stopped moving and the doorknob slowly turned. He drew his emaciated body up to it’s full height and puffed out his chest beneath his thread-bare robe. The grey of his hair whipped about in the wind as the tattoos on his hands started to glow. They had made a mistake not to lock away all of his magic, and this time they were going to pay for it.

Long ago he had decided that he would have to take over the kingdom of Edrowailum, the very place he was now a prisoner of, to reclaim his lost phylactery and bring Arenaria home to him. It didn’t matter if he took it by force or it was handed to him, the council would pay for imprisoning him. So he had to kill 50 people to make the phylactery – so what? He would gladly kill 5,000 to get Arenaria back and would do that a thousand times over just to bring her back from the Underworld. The council not accepting it was their problem, not his.

As the door creaked and crept open, his tattoos glowed a more vibrant shade of green as his power grew. He could feel it all the way to his shoulders now. It wouldn’t be long and he would have a fleeting moment of his full power – a fleeting glimpse into the glorious raw being that he had become so many years ago by offering up his soul for the ability to bring his love back to him. It might only be once that he could do this, but, for Arenaria it was a risk he was willing to take.

Closing:

I know it's not exactly a great story, but, on the fly it helps you see how those details play off of each other and help you build a compelling scene, and that leads into a story that hooks a reader from the first sentence! Until next time, good luck and happy writing! Here is the store link for the free templates!