Some characters leap off the page from the moment you first mention them. Some characters start off flat and boring. And no matter how hard we try, a few characters need a whole lot of coaxing to come to life.
Never fear! Characters can be resuscitated and invigorated. You might just need to freshen them up and give them a makeover.
So after you’ve diagnosed a flat character, here are 9 ways to spice up a character.
Make sure they want something
Every character, even the minor ones, has to want something. You have to show the reader what they’re going after and why it matters to them.
By far the #1 reason a character will feel flat in the novel is that they don’t seem to want anything. They’re just a passenger.
For the more important characters, they should want multiple things. Even better if these things are at odds.
I always write down what all of my characters want, and I try to make sure the reader has a sense of what the protagonist is going after at the start of every chapter.
For further reading:
Make them more active
It’s not enough to just want something. A character needs to actively go after that thing.
It’s confusing when we’re told a character really wants something but they’re not actually doing anything about it. We start to think less of them and wonder why it is we’re reading a book about them.
If a character feels like they’re receding into the background, it might be because they’re not taking enough control of their own destiny.
For further reading:
Throw obstacles in their way
We learn the most about characters when they are tested.
If a character feels flat you might just need to give them a greater test that brings out other facets of their personality. Start thinking about how to make their life difficult and they might just rise to the occasion and show you sides you didn’t realize they had.
For further reading:
Give them a unique voice and gestures
Often you’ll find that two or more characters in a novel kind of end up sounding the same.
Or you might be capturing everyone’s gestures with very similar hearts beating out of chests, meaningful glances, and sighs.
If your character is blending into the background it might be because you haven’t captured their unique physical presence and speech patterns.
For further reading:
Figure out their backstory
Sometimes when I’m having trouble cracking open a character it’s because I haven’t engaged with their life story. I don’t know where they came from and thus I don’t have a clear enough sense of where they’re going.
You don’t have to get overly detailed with this, but make sure you know where your characters grew up, who their parents were, and the overall trajectory of their life.
For further reading:
Show their emotions
Emotions are universal. Everyone has them and feels them. But the way we express them and channel them are unique.
First, make sure you know the emotions your character is experiencing. Second, make sure they are expressing them in a unique way.
While I don’t think “show don’t tell” is the universal dictum it’s made out to be, I do think it applies to a character’s emotions. Show people reacting to things, don’t tell us how they’re feeling.
For further reading:
Show their strengths and weaknesses
If a character feels one-note it might be because we’re not seeing the full range of their strengths and weaknesses.
If a character feels too good or strong, try showing their bad side. If they’re morose or petulant, give them something on the good side of ledger to balance them out.
Even villains and antagonists should have some good qualities and positive intentions, even if they’re bad and misguided on the whole.
For further reading:
Give them a sense of style
What kind of clothes do they wear? What kind of art hangs in their house? What does their hair look like and what kind of music do they listen to?
The things we like and how we present ourselves to the outside world both reflect and shape our personalities. So too with characters in novels.
Just keep writing
Sometimes it takes a while for a character to come alive. Just keep going!
Keep trying to unlock them. Keep putting them in new situations and see what comes out.
But once you figure them out, make sure you go back and layer their personality back into the stretches where you didn’t know them as well.
While it might have taken you a while to get to know the character, you don’t want to make the reader do that same amount of work to figure them out.
For further reading:
Do you have any tricks for spicing up characters? Take to the comments!
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Art: Mariana of Austria by Diego Velasquez
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