Stories aren’t just plot points, they are characters. Characters carry the story and the readers through the twist and turns of your plot. Creating dynamic characters is the difference between readers reading your story versus caring about your story. Character development is building these unique characters and their character arc for your story. A character arc creates a dynamic character that adds significance to the story and sets the stakes in the story.
Developing Characters
In this post, I’m going to give you three different ways to think about developing dynamic characters. First, there is a standard questionnaire that I’ve pulled together from a few different sources. If answering straight questions works for you, great! Next, I have a list (also pulled from various sources) that gives you an idea of what you should be thinking about when creating dynamic characters. If you want a starting point, without directed questions, this will work for you. (Personally, I like this better than questionnaires.)
Finally, I’m going to introduce you to my quick and dirty astrology method (no astro knowledge/belief necessary!). I created this method because I always struggled with creating balanced flaws in my characters. This method takes out the thought/struggle because flaws are inherent in astrology. It has also helped me create dynamic characters by thinking about who they are, who others think they are, and how they respond to emotional instability.
Character Questionnaire
Personally, I do not use questionnaires—I find them overwhelming (and occasionally focused on the wrong details). I’ve boiled down a few different questionnaires to the basics but, if that’s not enough for you, I’ve also added three questionnaire sources below!
- What is their name?
- What is their gender/gender journey?
- What do they look like?
- How do they perceive themself? How do others perceive them?
- How would they describe their life so far? Happy? Sad? Traumatic?
- What are they focused on?
- Do they have any medical conditions?
- What would they never tell another soul?
- Where do they see themselves in one year? 5 years? 10 years?
- Who are they right now and do they want to stay that way or change?
Character Development List
- Goal/Motivation
- What is your character working towards?
- External/Internal Conflicts
- What is in the way for your character? Externally: other people, social obstacles, etc. Internally: self-doubt, fear, anxiety
- Strength and Flaws
- A note on balanced flaws: If your character’s flaw is that they can’t code a website, but the goal of your character is to overthrow an evil galactic empire—then your flaw isn’t balanced.
- Balanced flaws slow your character down in their pursuit to their goal. If your character is brave enough to face an evil galactic empire, but morally conflicted on whether the evil galactic empire is actually evil—then your flaw is balanced. That moral conflict creates an internal conflict towards the character’s goal. (It’s all coming together isn’t it?)
- Defined Past
- The easiest way for creating dynamic characters are to give them a past. Who made them who they are today?
- Physical Characteristics
- What do they look like?
- Distinctive Mannerisms
- Unique voice — slang, mannerisms, phrases they use, life lessons they follow and give
- Distinctive mannerisms are the easiest way with developing characters. The difference between John and Jim—John rubs his forehead when he’s stressed and Jim cracks his knuckles. Make these mannerisms unique to each character and consistent. (Don’t worry about using them too much in the first draft—reducing the amount of times Jim cracks his knuckles is for the second draft.)
The Even Quicker Astro Guide for Developing Characters
I’ve been using this quick, astrology hack to create dynamic characters with balanced flaws built right into their personalities. If you know nothing about astrology, 1) WOW that’s impressive, and 2) That’s okay. If you know something about astrology, this may actually piss you off—because I reduce the stereotypes of astrology even more.
First, a quick and dirty rundown of astrology for those of you living under a rock. There are twelve zodiac signs that correspond to specific dates in the year. This is called your Sun sign — everyone knows their sun sign. If you were born on April 2, you’re an Aries; if you were born on September 8, you’re a Virgo, etc. There are also two other signs you may not know of—Moon sign and Rising sign. Your Moon sign is the zodiac sign that was in position with the moon in the sky at the time of your birth (this changes every 2-3 days); your Rising sign is the zodiac sign rising from the eastern horizon at the time of your birth (this changes every hour or so). (Find a zodiac calculator if you are interested to learn yours.)
In my astrology hack, I pick the 3 Signs (Sun, Moon, and Rising) for my characters. Their Sun sign is their most obvious strength/flaw or the core of their personality. Their Moon sign is how they deal with their emotions and the emotions of others. Their Rising sign is how others perceive them (and maybe how they perceive themselves—creating a built in character growth arc for them to realize they are more like their Sun sign). (My last disclaimer: I’m playing fast and loose with astrology so don’t come here looking for a good astrology education.)
Further down, I’ve listed some characteristics of the Zodiac signs; I’ve attempted to create a good strength/flaw pair for you to start with as well as some complimentary traits. The key when using this system is to keep the flaw. It might be tempting to create a character who is an Aries Sun but not have them be selfish or arrogant, but that just means you’ve neglected a necessary flaw.
For example, if my character, Jane, is an Aries Sun, Taurus Moon, and Gemini Rising, then I can describe her as this: The core of Jane’s personality is that she’s ambitious and bold but ultimately very selfish. She is resilient when something affects her emotional stability but also too stubborn to actually work through the problem, opting to ignore it instead. Others see Jane as spontaneous to the point of erratic with some of her behavior coming across as quite two-faced.
Quick. Dirty. And an excellent starting point. If I’m writing a story about Jane trying to get a promotion, all of her strengths are easy to see (bold, competitive, resilient) as well as all of her balanced flaws (selfish, stubborn, erratic).
Using the Sun/Moon/Rising structure helps create dynamic characters for thinking about how the character sees themselves, how they handle emotions, and how others see them. Using the Zodiac signs creates a natural starting point for balanced strengths and flaws.
Here are the stereotypical traits of the Zodiac. Play with them as you will!
- Aries: Ambitious/Selfish
- Bold, arrogant, competitive
- Taurus: Resilient/Stubborn
- Focused, dedicated
- Gemini: Spontaneous/Erratic
- Playful, curious, ‘two faced’
- Cancer: Intuitive/Passive-Aggressive
- Emotional, protective
- Leo: Passionate/Jealous
- Loyal. Dramatic, prideful, charismatic
- Virgo: Practical/Perfectionist
- Logical, stubborn
- Libra: Diplomatic/Indecisive
- Extroverted, pleasing, tactful, thinkers, orderly
- Scorpio: Mysterious/Controlling
- Elusive, seductive, enticing
- Sagittarius: Curious/Blunt
- Passionate, adaptable, excessive, transitory
- Capricorn: Patient/Cold
- Determined, conservative, restrained, unemotional
- Aquarius: Innovative/Opinionated
- Progressive, revolutionary, eccentric, hard-headed
- Pisces: Empathetic/Delusional
- Intuitive, sensitive, flakey
Even quicker, even dirtier
Since this was a lot of information, here is an even quicker and dirtier run down for creating dynamic characters.
Protagonist:
Give them balanced flaws and create a character arc in which they learn something about themselves or grow out of a debilitating character flaw
Antagonist:
Give them a sense of morality—no one is all evil—and make them more powerful than the protagonist (which makes the protagonist need to learn skills or get help to defeat them).
Secondary Characters:
Make them complementary or oppositional to the protagonist and antagonist. Think foil characters from Lit class: a foil character highlights the strengths and flaws of another character.
No matter how you develop your characters, remember this: Your plot moves the story forward but your characters bring your readers along for the ride.
Sources:
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