Wattpad Block Party - Summer Edition IV

johannahefer Presents: Tips and a Sneak Peek

So the question now is, "How do I create a more Three Dimensional Character?"

Readers identify with these complex and unique characters that seems like real people. They engage our emotions and we buy into the story. According to Screencraft there are three aspects to ad to your characters credibility:

Physical

Male or female or transgender?

How old are they?

What is their race?

Are they athletic?

How is their health?

Are they graceful, clumsy, sexy or sickly?

Naturally attractive or ugly?

Do they have a high-pitched, squeaky voice or a deep, soothing voice?

This affects the characters attitude toward the world and the world's attitude toward them.

Psychological

Are they outgoing or shy?

Optimistic or pessimistic?

Patient or short-tempered?

Greedy, overly-sensitive, confident, competitive, charming, uptight, lecherous and/or kind?

What are they most afraid of?

What do they enjoy?

What are their political, philosophical, and religious beliefs?

Are they gay, straight, or somewhere in between?

Psychological traits are the elements of the character's personality.

Social

Is the character single, married, divorced?

Are they dating – if so, who and for how long?

Do they have kids?

Are their parents alive and do they get along with them?

Is the character popular, stylish, a jock, or a nerd?

What is their job?

What religion do they belong to (which may be different from their spiritual beliefs) and do they actively participate in it?

What is their socioeconomic class?

Education level?

What ethnicity, and are they a minority in their environment?

What social groups are they part of – friends, work groups, hobby groups?

Where do they live – what city and what kind of domicile? Whom do they live with?

Build multidimensional characters by listing traits under each of those three categories.

Use the following three exercises to help you make your characters more complex, realistic and believable:

Give them plans
If you want your character to seem real they have to have plans. Give them short-term, medium-term and long-term plans. The movie Little Miss Sunshine demonstrates this well. Richard isn't sitting around waiting for his daughter to get into a beauty pageant. He has plans. His short-term plan involves the inconvenience of taking in his brother-in-law, Frank, after Frank's attempted suicide. In the medium term he's trying to confirm a book deal for his "9 Steps" plan. In the long term he wants to be a motivational guru. Showing the characters' plans helps to establish who they are and what they want.

Make them really good at something and really bad at something.
We love exceptional characters. But a character who is perfect in everything is unbelievable and somewhat annoying. The best characters have an exceptional talent and a massive flaw. That's what makes Tony Stark one of the best characters in the Marvel cinematic universe. He's a brilliant inventor, but he's saddled with a massive ego that constantly gets him in trouble.