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Writing Believable Characters: Even in Unbelievable Worlds!
- Eva Greene
- Oct 20
- 4 min read
As a writer (and reader) who is passionate about character-driven stories, I’ve picked up ways in which writers are able to write characters who stand out and stick with you. These characters are memorable, compelling, and feel holistic, as if they exist beyond the pages in front of you. To illustrate these tips in a way that’s most valuable, there will be examples of how they apply to different genres—because no matter what genre you’re writing in, characters are a key element!
Tip 1: Your Reader Is Not a Mind-reader
Designing original characters from scratch is an opportunity to let your imagination run wild. In an attempt at avoiding being generic and making a strong original character, you may spend a lot of time character building and creating deep lore.
Many fantasy stories are heavy on lore because you’re essentially building an entire world (be it a kingdom, a village, etc.) from the ground up. However, keep in mind that while this may feel helpful to you during your writing process, the reader can only know as much as the story gives them. You may find yourself leaving out valuable information about the character because it’s already so ingrained in your mind that it’s easy to forget that your reader doesn’t have access to your mind. You don’t write it, because you already know it, it’s already been established to you. Make sure the character details are essential to the story in some way. If there is a part of their backstory that influences the way they act, the reader will only know if you tell them.
Bonus Tip:
A great way to make sure you’re being the right amount of explicit is having someone else read your story. It’s very helpful to see what questions the reader asked and can help you realize that you’ve forgotten to include something that was in the back of your head.
Tip 2: Blah Blah Blah…
You can learn a lot about people from the way they interact with others, the same way you can learn a lot about a character from their dialogue. Dialogue builds tension and includes both what is said and what is left unsaid.
The romance genre is all about the dynamic. Is your character cold and serious with everyone else but softens when talking to their love interest? The key to a romance story is the feeling—the sensation of the developing romance, of the love. When reading dialogue, we get a sense of the characters’ voices, which adds a sensory element. Are they whispering? What is their tone of voice? It’s just as much about the way they speak as it is about the words being said.
Tip 3: You Just Can’t Make This Up! (and you don’t have to)
This is a conversation I overheard the other day:
Some of the most memorable, unique content in fiction is inspired by the writer’s real-life experiences, or experiences they’ve heard of in real life. These are details that you genuinely could not possibly make up, because you didn’t! Life is quite absurd, even without embellishments. Great character traits can be picked up all around in observation. This isn’t to say that you should pull someone directly from life and plop them into a story, but you could rather collage different things you take note of from your day-to-day interactions, stories people tell you, and people you come across. Maybe you overhear someone say something hilarious at a coffee shop that fits one of your characters perfectly. This applies to all genres, as does the other advice, but I’ve found this type of observation to be particularly helpful in my preferred genres: literary fiction and comedy.
Tip 4: Lay Down the Law
The subtitle of this blog post reads “Even in Unbelievable Worlds,” which brings me to my next piece of advice: make sure you establish the rules of your world to give context to your characters’ reactions and behavior. Even if you’re writing science fiction, where there’s a genius talking animal hybrid, or an invasion of sassy aliens, for the emotional root of the story to feel real and immersive, you need to make the world consistent. Establish what is “strange” for the world. Is a character responding to the events in a way that is considered atypical, or are their absurd actions perfectly standard and accepted in this world? What is normal? What isn’t? On the flipside, you’re at liberty to make time stop, to bend the laws of physics: is this just another day for your characters, or are they totally freaking out?
Tip 5: Let Them Live
As a callback to the first tip, which touches upon the character-building process and coming up with lore, creating a complete character before getting into your story may not always be the best route. Allow the writing process to reveal the character to you. Just like in real life, where we get to know people by spending time with them, you have to spend time with your character to understand them. For example, horror stories are often centered around a high-pressure situation. You’ll discover how your characters respond under pressure as you develop the story. Don’t worry too much about drafting out their whole personality before you pick up a pen or sit down at a computer to write!
To conclude, the process of writing characters is a time to be creative and experiment a little. I hope this advice was both entertaining and useful. Happy writing!
About the author: Eva Greene is a student at Syracuse University studying Creative Writing. She writes short stories, flash fiction, and poetry, most of which are of the ‘comedy’ genre. Her poetry and short prose have been published in Syracuse University’s undergraduate literary magazine, "Perception", for four semesters. Some of Eva’s favorite writers to read are Evelyn Waugh, Ottessa Moshfegh, and Shakespeare. She is currently working on her first novel.
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