How to Create Characters Readers Can See, Hear and Believe
Kirsty Schumacher
9/9/20267 min read
A great character is more than a name, an age, a job and a list of personality traits.
Readers don't fall in love with characters because you've told them that a character is kind, stubborn, funny or insecure. They connect with characters because they can see them, hear them, understand their choices and recognise something human in them.
Creating memorable characters is therefore less about filling in a character questionnaire and more about bringing a person to life on the page.
In this first part, we'll look at some practical ways to start building characters who feel like real people rather than descriptions on a page.
1. Start with the right name
A character's name can do surprisingly much work for you.
A name can make or illuminate a character before they've even said or done anything. It can give us a subtle impression of their personality, background, era or social environment.
Think carefully about the image a name conjures up.
A name that feels perfectly suited to a Victorian mystery might feel completely out of place in a contemporary romantic comedy. Likewise, a character living in a fantasy world may need a very different naming style from someone living in modern-day Cape Town or 1920s New York.
As a general rule, short names can feel vibrant, energetic and immediate, while longer names can sometimes feel more formal, stuffy or traditional. This isn't a hard-and-fast rule, but it is something worth experimenting with.
When choosing names, consider:
Does the name fit the genre?
Does it suit the setting?
Does it feel appropriate for the era?
Does it suit the character's background?
What sort of image does the name immediately create?
Is it distinctive enough to be remembered?
Try to avoid choosing names simply because they sound "literary". You don't necessarily need an elaborate, unusual name to make a character interesting. Sometimes the most ordinary name belongs to the most extraordinary character.
You should also be careful about giving two characters names beginning with the same letter, particularly if they appear frequently. Having Sarah, Samantha and Sophie in the same story may be perfectly realistic, but it can create unnecessary confusion for your reader.
And don't feel compelled to name every person who walks onto the page.
If someone is simply the taxi driver, the waiter or the woman at the bus stop and doesn't play a meaningful role in the story, they probably don't need a name. Save names for characters who deserve the reader's attention.
2. Make your characters believable
Believable doesn't necessarily mean realistic.
A character can be a vampire, a wizard, an alien, a detective in a completely fictional city or a woman living in a dystopian future — and still feel believable.
What makes a character believable is consistency and humanity.
Give your characters desires, fears, contradictions, weaknesses, habits and opinions. Allow them to make mistakes. Give them reasons for doing what they do.
Most importantly, don't make every character behave exactly as you would.
Your character doesn't have to make the choice you would make. In fact, it's often much more interesting when they don't.
Ask yourself:
"If this person were real, why would they behave this way?"
Then keep digging until you have an answer that makes sense for them.
3. Don't introduce everything at once
One of the easiest ways to make a character feel artificial is to introduce them by giving the reader their entire life story.
You don't need to tell us everything about your character the moment they appear.
In fact, resist the temptation to info-dump.
Instead, give the reader enough information to become curious about the person in front of them.
You might tell us that your protagonist has a scar across one eyebrow. Later, we discover that they always wear gloves. Much later, perhaps we learn why.
Character development can happen gradually.
Think of introducing a character as getting to know someone in real life. You don't meet someone at a party and immediately receive a ten-page document containing their childhood experiences, political opinions, favourite food, greatest fear and relationship history.
You discover these things over time.
Your reader should too.
4. Build characters through the details of their lives
When you're constructing a character, don't only think about their personality.
Think about the person who exists around that personality.
How do they speak?
How do they walk?
How do they dress?
What do they do when they're nervous?
Do they make eye contact?
Do they constantly check their phone?
Do they bite their nails?
Do they keep their workspace obsessively tidy?
Do they live in a tiny flat filled with plants or a huge house that feels strangely empty?
Where do they work?
What do they use every day?
What objects do they keep close to them?
What do they eat?
What are their habits?
What does their home look like?
What does their lifestyle tell us about them?
These peripheral details can become incredibly powerful tools for characterisation.
You don't have to write:
James was an incredibly organised person.
Instead, you might show us James arriving at work five minutes early, straightening the papers on his colleague's desk and becoming visibly distressed when someone moves his favourite mug.
Suddenly, we know something about James.
5. Let objects tell us about people
Objects can be wonderful shortcuts into character.
A character's possessions can reveal things they would never say aloud.
A battered suitcase might suggest a lifetime of travel.
A drawer filled with old birthday cards might reveal someone who struggles to let go.
A meticulously organised bookshelf might tell us something about its owner.
A cracked photograph tucked into a wallet could raise questions about someone's past.
Look around your character's world.
What do they own, and why?
The answer can reveal far more than a paragraph of explanation.
6. Use atmosphere to build character
Characterisation doesn't exist in isolation.
The environments your characters inhabit can also tell us who they are.
A character standing alone in an immaculate, silent apartment feels different from one surrounded by overflowing laundry, half-finished projects and takeaway containers.
A character walking through a bustling market feels different from one sitting alone in an empty train station.
Think about atmosphere.
Where is your character?
What can they see?
What can they hear?
What can they smell?
What does the environment feel like?
And, perhaps most importantly:
How does your character respond to that environment?
The same thunderstorm might make one character feel exhilarated and another terrified.
The setting hasn't changed.
The character has.
7. Dialogue is one of your most powerful tools
If you want to reveal character, let them speak.
Dialogue can reveal personality, background, relationships, emotions, education, insecurities, humour and worldview — often without explicitly telling the reader any of those things.
Two characters can be discussing something completely ordinary while revealing enormous amounts about themselves.
Consider how differently these two characters might answer the same question:
"Are you coming?"
One says:
"Obviously."
Another says:
"Do I have a choice?"
Another says:
"I'll be there."
And another simply picks up their coat.
The words — and the absence of words — tell us something.
A note on adverbs
Be particularly careful with adverbs in dialogue tags.
"I'm fine," she said angrily.
"Leave me alone," he said sadly.
"I don't care," she said bitterly.
Adverbs aren't forbidden, but they can become a lazy way of telling the reader how to interpret a line of dialogue.
Whenever possible, let the words, actions and context communicate the emotion.
Instead of telling us someone is angry, show us the clenched jaw, the deliberately controlled voice, the glass placed too hard on the table.
Let the reader experience the emotion rather than simply being instructed how to read it.
8. Show character rather than simply telling us about them
This brings us to one of the most important principles of characterisation:
Show whenever you can.
Direct characterisation tells the reader what someone is like.
Indirect characterisation allows the reader to work it out.
For example:
Maria was generous.
That's direct.
But:
Maria slipped the last ten dollars into the old man's hand and pretended she hadn't noticed him watching.
That's indirect.
The second version allows the reader to draw the conclusion themselves.
And readers generally enjoy making those discoveries.
That doesn't mean you can never tell the reader something directly. Direct characterisation has its place. But when you allow actions, dialogue, physical details, habits and choices to reveal personality, your characters become much more vivid.
9. Read like a writer
One of the best ways to learn characterisation is deceptively simple:
Read. A lot.
Pay attention to how other writers introduce their characters.
Notice how a character is presented through:
Dialogue
Action
Physical characteristics
Interior monologue
Habits
Clothing
Objects
Relationships
Setting
The way other characters respond to them
Don't simply read to find out what happens. Study how the author makes you understand who is happening to it. Over time, you begin to absorb these techniques almost instinctively.
Eventually, you may find yourself noticing the way somebody walks into a coffee shop, the particular way they hold their cup, the nervous habit they have when speaking, or the way they react to a stranger — and thinking:
"That would make a great character."
That is part of becoming a writer: learning to observe the world with a storyteller's eye.
Creating a compelling character isn't about finding the perfect list of adjectives.
It's about creating a person.
Give them a name that belongs to them. Give them a world that shapes them. Let their belongings, habits, appearance, surroundings and dialogue reveal who they are. Give the reader the opportunity to discover them gradually rather than handing over their entire biography at once.
And above all, remember that characterisation is something you can practise.
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