7 Tips to Help You Get to Know Your Character

Crafting Strong Characters That Will Intrigue Readers

“Plot is no more than footprints left in the snow after your characters have run by on their way to incredible destinations.”

-Ray Bradbury

So, the question is, how do you get to know your characters. How do you create a character so perfectly spectacular that your story falls into place around them? Your protagonist is the central pillar that you craft your novel around. They need to be engaging, dynamic, complex, flawed, and likable.

Mostly, they must feel real to the reader. Who would want to read hundreds of pages centered on a stale caricature?

This task can seem intimidating at first- don’t worry, that’s normal. Both new and veteran authors struggle with this. So how do you craft such a character? Well, the key is getting into their head. An underwhelming character isn’t a failed character. Chances are they just aren’t done baking.

Here are seven tricks to get to know your character so you can write strong, realistic protagonists for your novel.

Find out what makes your character tick

Your reasons for imagining them into existence are important. Why them? What inspired you? What makes them special enough that you want to spend hundreds of pages seeing the world through their eyes.

If you are going to be putting massive amounts of work into getting to know this character, it’s important that you like the person you are spending all this time with.

So before embarking on this journey of discovery, be sure this character is the one whose eyes are the right set to channel your story through.

Get inspiration from your favorite characters.

This doesn’t mean you can copy your favorite character by changing their hair color and slapping a new name on them to pass them off as your own. Please don’t do that. But taking inspiration from well-crafted characters isn’t just smart, it’s done all the time by famous writers.

Take a character you admire and examine them. What is it you like about them, why do you like them?

Apply those aspects to your character. For example, if you are a Buffy enthusiast, instead of making another Buffy, decide what you like the most about our vampire-slaying hero. If it’s her sense of humor, try to incorporate that into your character in your own way. Or if it’s her loyalty to her friends, try to reflect that in your own writing.

These examples are surface-level attributes, and odds are your admiration for a character is a little deeper than this. That’s good. Deep is what this is all about. Try to isolate what draws you to these characters and then apply that to your own. Do this in your own way.

Oftentimes, after spending hundreds of pages writing your character, they will take on a life of their own. That’s good! This means your character is well on their way to becoming.

Get to know your character’s head by taking quizzes.

A good trick is to take online quizzes as if you were your character. You can do the serious character quizzes, the personality tests, or my personal favorite, the ridiculous ones.

If your character was an ice cream flavor, which flavor would they be? Which Hogwarts house are they in? Which glee character are they? The list is endless.

Not only is it a ton of fun, but this is one of the easiest ways to think like your character. What is their favorite season, favorite sport, favorite holiday? The list is endless.

While you are making these split-second decisions about who you think your character is, you are getting closer to understanding them.

Plan out the world around them, down to the last detail.

Build your world around your character, and don’t skimp on the details. This involves micromanaging your characters’ day-to-day life. This is usually the kind of stuff that won’t make it onto the page.

Sketch out your character’s room. Are they messy, or exceptionally tidy? Are there walls covered in posters? Is there a secret teddy bear on their bed they can’t part with? Or perhaps they installed a tripwire in case of intruders. What’s their daily schedule like? Any weird morning habits? What do they eat in the mornings as they run out the door? If they are students, then plan out their classes. Which ones do they hate?

It’s up to you what you choose to focus on. Not only does this flesh out your character, but you are also world-building. These details can give you a perfect chance for a running gag, subplot, or fun character quirks unique to them.

Sketch out scenes and scenarios you want to put your character through

These don’t have to be for your novel if you don’t want them to be. Rather, it can be more fun to plop your character into different scenarios and see how they react.

Imagine what they would do if they were called into the principal’s office, or their crush confesses to them. How would they take it if someone offers to buy their kidney? Do they need it? Or would they trade it for a superb slice of cheesecake?

These can be humorous, dramatic, romantic, sad, or just plain ridiculous, depending on what type of scenes you enjoy. This can work two-fold, expanding your grasp of your character as well as flexing your creative muscles.

Spend time with characters that aren’t yours.

Getting to know your character is tricky. There is no doubt about it. If you are feeling frustrated with your own character, it might be time to turn to someone else’s.

Choose a character you think is intriguing and pick it apart, journal on them, discuss them with a friend. What is going on in these characters’ lives? What are their burdens, and their successes? What makes them relatable to you?

The goal of this step isn’t to copy the character, but rather it is to help you understand how dynamic characters are depicted.

Plus, sometimes it just helps to get out of your own head. Chances are this might help give you your own ideas on how to add some more depth to your character’s psyche.

7. Write them out. The best way to find them is to spend time with them.

You will find your character by being them. The more time you spend with them, the better you will understand them.

Think of it as a new friend. In the early stages, there is so much for you to learn. You need to spend a lot of time getting to know each other in a unique setting to understand them.

So, what does this look like in the text?

One of the best ways to highlight the difference this can make is to show an example. The following sentences will show the difference a strong character can make to the readability of the story:

Lilac Lavender sat down for breakfast. It was toast and cereal again, her mom had made it. She took a bite, feeling it turn to mush in her mouth. She ate slowly because she didn’t want to go to school today. The boys who teased her would be there. She didn’t like being teased. Lilac was a loner, which made her a target. But as long as her parents forced her to go to school, she would have to put up with it. She stood up. Time for another day.

Lilac definitely-a-real-name’s thoughts are surface level, and her actions are static. She reacts to the plot and has her own opinions, but she isn’t convincing to the reader.

Here is the same passage with Lilac’s more interesting sister, Lily Lavpender

When Lily sat down for breakfast, she was presented with toast and cereal, for the third time this week. Lily hated cereal. If only she had told her mom… oh wait, she had. This was probably penance for forgetting to do the dishes again. Lily loved her mom, of course she did. But could that woman ever hold a grudge. Lily was the same way. Which was why most people had learned to stay away from her. Lily’s lack of friends and stylized wardrobe choices -her mom called it goth, but she refused to be labeled- had gotten her a reputation as a loner. Usually, that would be fine by her, since people were a hassle, but it made her a target. Some boys in her class had taken to teasing her. So far, she had been putting up with it for her parent’s sake. How long that would last was anyone’s guess. She finished her breakfast, rising from the table. Time for another day.

A simple paragraph about breakfast set up Lily’s character more than Lilac’s.

Lilac dislikes toasts and being bullied. On the other hand, we know Lily has a love-hate relationship with her mother, whom she takes after. She has an attitude, her own ideas about who and what she should be doing. She is also being bullied, but there is more context on why.

Ultimately, what you do to find your character isn’t important. What matters is that you take the time to explore them in any way that works for you. If your character feels flat, that just means you haven’t finished forming them yet. The rest just takes work, lots of work.

There is good news. Through writing, editing, re-writing, and re-re-writing, you will gain a deep understanding of who they are. As Ray Bradbury said, your character should lead the story. That means you are just along for the ride.

Your character is already in your head, you just need to find them. And once you do, it’s only a matter of getting to know them.

To get you started, explore some of my favorite quizes!

Check out more writing tips here!