Credible, believable characters with dramatic arcs make for the best, most memorable fiction you can imagine. When you build compelling characters and set them in motion, the story takes care of itself. Character development is the act of developing a convincing and unique fictional character by providing them with emotional depth. For example, a writer could decide to explore the effect of a catastrophic storm on a city before writing a main character. But how, precisely, do you get your readers to become emotionally involved with your story people? Character development exercises are a great way to give yourself a better understanding of the person you are creating with pen and paper (or “fingers and keyboard,” more likely). I find my most compelling characters are the ones who do a complete 180 … The best fiction writing is at the intersection of voice and character. Character development is the process of creating this persona, then changing and adapting it in correlation to the events of a story. Creating fictional characters requires skill and practice, but the following steps will help you get started in giving your fictional character depth: 1. Creating characters, like I said above, boils down to making the audience care. Five Traps and Tips for Character Development by C.S. Characters are an extremely important part of making that happen. What Makes a Good Fictional Character? Character Arc Worksheet. Depicting convincing relationships could just be the key to writing better characters. But Pantsers (like me) will not likely have the patience for it and might rather dive right into the writing. Every character has thoughts, opinions and a past that has shaped them into who they are. This character arc worksheet can help Outliners get to know their hero. Here are five ways to get you started… 1) Make the characters likeable. Character development is the process and execution of creating a fully rounded, complex, and lifelike character within your fictional writing with the purpose of making readers invested in them and their life or journey. This applies to all things you can create a character out of – be it humans, toys, animals, etc. The plot-first approach starts by defining the major conflicts the writer wants to include in a piece of fiction and then builds a character who will be motivated by those conflicts. As readers we get to know and understand characters, watching them deal with a multitude of situations. How to Create a Character in Fiction. Obvious, right? Marks. We all have the same goal as fiction writers—we want to transport our readers inside the pages so that they feel like a part of the story. Sure, you can draw your readers in with action, mystery, and romance, but thirty years from now, your readers will remember your characters the most. They also help you create resources that you can pull from during the writing process. An … The first step toward creating believable characters is to understand it’s OK for unplanned aspects of your character (or characters) to emerge. Think of character development like the paper of your book. The very first novel I, aged 20-something, wrote, is unpublished and will stay that way. Try these 8 ways to write better characters from novelist Elizabeth Sims. You cannot plan out a story any more than you can plan out your writing voice. That’s why it is very important for you to master the skill of creating believable fictional characters. Good Characterization is why most people read fiction. Develop a backstory. In fact, it’s not only OK, it’s awesome.