The Art of Character Development: Creating Memorable and Relatable Characters

Character development is a crucial element of compelling storytelling. Memorable and relatable characters are the heart and soul of any narrative—whether in literature, film, or television. Characters drive plot development and effect emotional resonance that leave a lasting, life-changing impact on the readers. Creating unforgettable and relatable characters requires a blend of creativity, empathy, and technique. In this article, we will look at the essential elements of character development and offer writing tips for creating characters that resonate with your readers.

What is Character Development?

Character development is a fiction writing element that involves the cultivation of certain traits in individuals that influence their behavior. It is essential to a character arc—the transformation or inner journey of a character over the course of a story—because it drives a character’s transformation. Character development encompasses a number of elements—the most essential of which are appearance, history, personality, relationships, work and skills, ambition, limitations/restrictions, character defect, and relatability.

The Essential Elements of Character Development

All novels are character driven in varying degrees. A plot-driven story, for example, relies on characters to move it from point A to point B to point C, and so on, in a compelling manner. To effectively flesh out characters that do exactly that, let’s unpack the essential elements of character development.

1. Appearance 

Physical characteristics

Physical attributes is often a great place to start when introducing a character. Appearance may not be the most important aspect of a character, but readers would want to know at once what the character looks like.

These are the most commonly described physical features of characters when they are first introduced:

• Eyes.  Helen has almond-shaped brown eyes brimming with warmth, as well as a hint of cunning.

• Entire face. Theodore, the youngest trader on the floor, looked like a young Christopher Walken, but with a more inscrutable expression.

• Hair (or lack of). The professor may be in his late fifties, but he still had such a luxuriant head of hair, with very little graying happening. 

• Height.  Sarah was only fourteen, but she was already learning not to trust low ceilings.

• Build.  My twin was short and unusually thin, no matter how much she ate. It was as though she was intentionally built to squeeze into narrow spaces.

Manner of dressing

A characters clothes offers plenty of opportunities for characterization. Not only do they help create a vivid image of the character in readers’ minds, they can also be useful for reflecting a character’s attitude and/or inner state.

2. History

Your character’s background, or backstory, is vital to who they are in your story. Their past experiences, the things they were taught, the things and people they loved in the past, and so on influence their thinking, motivations, emotions, and actions. Whether or not a character experienced a life-changing event in the past will contribute to the person they are as your story unfolds.

3. Personality

Voice (i.e., speech, internal dialogue and thoughts), mannerisms, and idiosyncrasies, and unique choices all make up your character’s personality. A person’s personality is tied to their experiences, both past and present, because they help influence the choices they make. In turn, your character’s personality can help determine plot progression and how the other characters in your story behave.

4. Relationships

Your character’s relationships include family and clan, their social circle, their community/neighborhood, and their professional network. In the age of the internet, these relationships are forged and nurtured both in person and virtually. The quality of their relationships, or the absence of any relationships, will be a significant factor in their personality, decision making, and actions. 

5. Work and skills

Many stories unfold around a character’s job. In the John Grisham novels, many of the main characters are lawyers; in Gillian Flynn’s debut novel Sharp Objects, the main character is a journalist; and in H. G. Wells’s classic science fiction novel The Island of Dr. Moreau, the main antagonist, Dr. Moreau, is a scientist (a mad one). Even if your main character’s job is not a main plot element in your book, it can still play a significant role in character development.  

6. Ambition, motivation, aspiration, mission

These elements drive your character to act. They too influence your character’s choices, and therefore can be used as a central plot element, especially for novels that tackle themes of chasing one’s dreams (e.g., work at the White House), embarking on a journey to make a difference (e.g., save endangered animals), or standing up for what’s right (e.g., work with journalists to end corruption in the police force).

However, it is entirely possible for your character to be an aimless, unmotivated person at the start of your story, or for the most part of the story. Your character could also spend the most part of the story denying a fundamental truth or running away from someone or something. 

7. Limitations/restrictions

These are more than a personality flaw. These are physical or mental weakness that your character overcome through their arc. These help to humanize your character and make them more sympathetic and relatable. In Robert Ludlum’s Bourne novels, the main character, Jason Bourne, suffers from amnesia caused by gunshot wounds; in Jonathan Lethem’s crime noir novel Motherless Brooklyn, the main character, Lionel Essrog, has Tourette’s, which seriously hampers his interactions with people and performance of his job as a private investigator; and in Stan Lee’s comic book Daredevil, Matt Murdock, Daredevil himself, is blind.

8. Character defect 

Everyone possesses a personality trait that irritates friends and/or family. You have plenty of choices: self-centeredness, unpredictability, loudness, inability to keep a secret, lack of boundaries, competitiveness, laziness, and so on. 

However, balance your character’s negative traits with their positive ones. You’ll still want your readers to like the character—or at least understand them and sympathize with them when all is said and done. But the flaws are necessary to show the character’s humanity. A character’s defect is often connected to an unrecognized need, which often gets resolved through the character arc.

Tragic flaw (or fatal flaw)

In a more classics-oriented and darker narrative, character defect can take the form of a fatal flaw. A fatal, or tragic, flaw is a character trait that brings on a character’s downfall or demise. As the name suggests, this flaw is more serious—ranging from destructive to deadly. Examples of tragic flaws include uncontrollable jealousy, greed, and cowardice. 

9. Relatability

A character’s relatability is influenced by the previous elements. A character who is exquisitely beautiful and intelligent and gets practically everything she wants may not resonate with many readers, unless she is a character in a happy-ever-after romance novel, in which case many readers would be projecting onto her rather than relating with her. On the other hand, a young woman who was bullied in high school and is learning to accept her imperfections, capitalize on her strengths, and stand up for herself as a young professional offers the makings of a relatable character. 

How to Create Compelling and Relatable Characters

1. Choose the right details for your character’s appearance.

A character’s appearance consists of physical features, as well as physical deformities (if any), manner of dressing, posture, gait, and the like. Appearance is the first and easiest way to introduce your readers to a character.

Not every character should be good-looking. Outside of romance novels, characters don’t have to be beautiful women and/or a handsome men. As a matter of fact, Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot is described as being barely five foot four, with an egg-shaped head and a “stiff and military” moustache.

Take note as well that you don’t always have to describe a character’s appearance the first time they are mentioned. You can, for example, introduce a character through other characters talking about them, without necessarily describing their appearance.

As for a character’s clothes, in particular, depending on your genre and the specific story you’re telling, make sure your character’s choices in clothes, shoes, hats, bags, and the like are based on their personality and not your personal preferences. Note as well that in certain contexts, color, material, and/or style can play a more substantial role—that is, they can help convey symbolism, underscore themes, or create atmosphere, etc.

Overall, while vivid description is necessary, you’ll want to avoid getting too specific. Leave enough room for your readers to imagine the character and project some additional physical attributes according to their own personal preferences.

2. Give your character depth.

Compelling backstory

Your character’s backstory should be consistent with the person that the readers meet during the time that the story takes place, so plot the details carefully.

These are the most common blanks that you’ll want to fill in:

• Where is your character from? 

This should generate more details than the obvious place of birth and place where the character grew up. The question also covers the kind of family life they grew up in, the culture they were exposed to, the language and dialects spoken around them, the unique expressions, the food, the holidays, etc.

• What major events have had a lasting impact on them?

Your character may or may not have any. Some stories benefit from a character who comes with an emotional baggage, a big fear, or a big dream that dictate their actions. Conversely, some stories call for a clean slate of a character—that is, someone whose life has been pretty normal and uneventful, until the major event/conflict in the story. 

• What was your character like as a child?

This question also answers more than just whether they were a well-behaved or precocious child. This can cover their health—was the character a healthy or sickly child? Did the character have many friends, or were they quiet and preferred solitude, playing by themselves? What did they love, what did they enjoy doing, were they close to their parents, and so on.

With a character’s history, especially your main characters and other significant characters, you can be as detailed as you can get—even down to a character’s favorite song as a child or the first food they hated, if it helps you see them more vividly. However, not every little detail you throw into the picture during brainstorming has to make it to your narrative, because you won’t really want to distract your readers with too many details, and you’ll want to leave them room to fill in any blanks they see outside of the details vital to your story’s plot, theme, and character development.

Complexity and nuance

Memorable characters are multidimensional. Their humanity should be front and center in your story—and being human, they can’t be perfect. They shouldn’t even be likable all the time. Complex and nuanced characters possess strengths and weaknesses, courage and fears, virtues and flaws in realistic proportions. Characters like these feel like real human beings—they are real human beings. 

3. Give your character a compelling voice and personality.

Speech 

The way a person speaks helps establish their personality. A bold and assertive character would tell their team, “I want this project wrapped up on Friday before lunch.” A mild-mannered character would say, “Please tick off all items on your to-do list so we can wrap up this project on Friday before lunch.” 

Then consider these: 

When does the story take place? 

What year, decade, even century? Your character’s choice of words and the expressions they use should be consistent with when your story takes place. For example, if your story takes place in the nineties, then your character won’t be using the terms “BAE,” “the feels,” or “adulting.”   

Where does the story take place? 

A character living in New York will use the word “mad” to mean “really” or “very,” as in “That song is mad groovy.” But then also consider whether a character has lived there long enough to be talking like the “natives.” A character may be living in New York when the story takes place, but if they’re, say, from London, they’re likely going to tell their friends as they’re leaving a restaurant, “I’ll join you outside. I need to stop by the loo.” 

What is unique about your character’s speech?

Giving your character a unique way of talking makes them memorable. Do they stutter or stammer when excited or anxious? Do they have a favorite phrase or crutch word (e.g., “The idea is a little out there, you know,” or “This is, like, the hundredth time you’ve asked” … “For the hundredth time, please pick up after yourselves, vibe ruiners!”) Give your character memorable expressions, and that includes their favorite curse word, if they lean toward the salty type, or if they’re the type who curses when they’re very angry.

Internal dialogue and thoughts

Letting your readers in to your character’s head is one of the best ways to amplify your character’s voice. Make your readers privy to your character’s thoughts and internal dialogue. Allow them to see how your character thinks through their problems, rationalize their actions (or failure to act), weigh their options in the face of dilemmas, and so on. 

Here’s where things can get very interesting: Is your character’s internal voice the same as her external voice? If not, is the inconsistency intentional? Or is it a result of a need to adapt to their circumstances? Does the inconsistency create internal conflict for the character her? Use this aspect of fiction writing to your advantage when it comes to fleshing out your character.

Quirks and idiosyncrasies

Memorable characters often have unique quirks, habits, or mannerisms that catch people’s attention, whether in a good way or in a bad way. These traits, however small, can leave a lasting impression. Such is the case with Sherlock Holmes, who Dr. Watson describes as “one of the most untidy men that ever drove a fellow-lodger to distraction,” someone who “keeps his cigars in the coal-scuttle, his tobacco in the toe end of a Persian slipper, and his unanswered correspondence transfixed by a jack-knife into the very centre of his wooden mantelpiece.” 

4. Make your character relatable.

Universal emotions

Readers can easily relate to characters who experience universal emotions like love, hope, anger, fear, joy, and sorrow. These emotions brings real life to your work of fiction, and when your audience is able to relate to your character, they can empathize with the character. For instance, Elizabeth Bennet’s feelings of pride and prejudice are emotions that readers can easily identify with, regardless of the era.

Comparable challenges and obstacles

If you’re writing a fantasy novel, give your characters challenges and obstacles whose real-life parallels will be easily recognized by your readers. For example, regarding Alice in Wonderland, editors Charles Frey and John Griffin propose that Alice is “engaged in a romance quest for her own identity and growth, for some understanding of logic, rules, the games people play, authority, time, and death.”

Personal growth

Significant personal growth is a necessary element in your character’s relatability. Character transformation can either be internal (such as a shift in beliefs or attitudes), or external (such as achieving a long-pursued goal. Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway opens with Clarissa Dalloway second-guessing her choice of a husband—the reliable and successful Richard Dalloway over the exciting and enigmatic Peter Walsh—but by the end of the story, she gains new insight into Peter’s true character and motivations and comes away with a new way of looking at her life. 

5. Take your character on a journey.

Character arcs

Your character’s arc should include the challenges they face, the changes they experience, and the lessons they learn. In a well-considered character arc, the character evolves in a way that keeps readers engaged. An example of a compelling character arc is Katniss Everdeen’s evolution from a reluctant participant in the Hunger Games to a symbol of rebellion depicts personal growth.

Show, don’t tell

One of the best techniques in fiction writing is “Show, don’t tell,” where instead of directly stating a character’s traits, you show them through their actions, speech, thoughts, and interactions with other characters. The result is a more organic and credible character development. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus Finch’s actions demonstrate his integrity and moral courage without the author having to explicitly describe him as a man of integrity and moral courage.

6. Balance archetypes with originality.

Archetypes are universal, recognizable character types that serve as a foundation for building characters. The most readily recognizable archetypes are the hero, the mentor, the trickster, the femme fatale, and the outcast. However, take note of the word foundation—that is exactly how you should approach archetypes. The resulting character should be more complex and human—and therefore compelling and memorable—instead of a cliché.

The Takeaway 

The art of character development entails creating characters that are both memorable and relatable. By giving your character depth, highlighting their relatability, and employing effective techniques, you can flesh out multidimensional characters that engage your readers and impact their lives long after they have read the last word of your story.