Characterization Tips for Creating Memorable Stories

Writing good stories is hard. Writing good stories that linger in reader’s minds long after they finish is another challenge entirely. There are many factors that culminate into creating such a story – setting, point of view, and word choice – basically everything any creative writing class urges you to practice. The single most important facet of telling great tales is to concoct believable characters, and ensuring that those characters drive the action in the plot.

Why is characterization so crucial to story telling? Look back on a novel you’ve recently finished, or even a classic work you had to read in high school. I’ll bet that the book you remember was very much driven by a select group of characters. A writer can have the most ingenious plot in mind, full of twists and turns and unpredictable events, but they mean nothing if the characters behind them are hollow and watching them unfold from the sidelines. One key thing to remember is that you must always let the characters respond and influence the action; never sacrifice simple plot and action summaries in stead of what the characters feel and how they themselves react to the situation.

Once you realize that characters are vital to your story, work on creating three-dimensional characters. Making your characters black-and-white stereotypes is a trap many people fall for. You have a military man in mind; he has to be scruffy with a cigar and scars on his arms. Your story calls for a hero to rise; make her meek and quiet with glassy eyes. In all honesty, stereotypes are a great starting point for developing characters, especially for beginning writers. Understand that your reading audience is aware of such heavily used constants in characters and find a way to be original.

The ultimate trick is to make them your own. Work to establish their beliefs, their morals, and how their pasts influence their decisions. The more layers of detail the better, if those details have an impact on the characters themselves or to the unfolding plot. Creating superfluous asides about your protagonist’s fingernails might become redundant when your story coalesces to a final draft. As well, perhaps a character you have in mind truly is shy and doesn’t have much dialogue. That person’s story can still be found in descriptions of how those around him/her react to their presence, through their flashbacks, etc. There are always ways to relate realism into your characters, no matter what their own shortcomings are.

Then comes the human element: how memorable is this character to relate to the reader? Will he/she leave a lasting impression? Have I made their motives clear enough? Do their personalities help define their stance as good or evil? If any of these parts do not add up to a cohesive whole of who you want that character to be, rewrite and rethink his/her motives. The clearer you understand your own creation of characters, the more knowledge and uniqueness the reader will feel towards them.

To leave a lasting impression of your own writing, characterization is the single most important factor to practice. All the action in the world means null if the people in your tale are not affected by it, or affect it on their own. Dig deep to find motives and personalities, use stereotypes as a base starting point during conception, and remember that the more rehearses you are about your own characters, the more your reader will enjoy and relate to them.