How to write three-dimensional characters
BY Emily Powter-Robinson
25th Apr 2024
Characters need to be more than just vehicles for your story. They must be living, breathing and real, with believable motivations and compelling arcs.
Every action and every moment must belong to the character fully – we need to believe in their behaviour as being a product of who they are – of their history and of their context. That’s what makes us care about them and invest emotionally in their story.
Plot, setting, quality of prose – all are important. But it’s characters that stick in the mind long after you’ve closed the book.
Here are five tips with examples from our brilliant tutors to help you write captivating three-dimensional characters.
Show, don’t tell
Like any other rule of writing, this is a flawed rule. If all writers introduced their characters in the same sort of way, fiction would be boring! But as a general rule of thumb, when you introduce your protagonist to your reader, you need to communicate whose story you’re going to tell while simultaneously setting the story in motion.
- ‘If you practise economy in your way of writing, if you introduce your character early and move them straight into the story as they arrive on the page, and if you seek to smuggle across information without stopping the story in order to explain it, your reader will be all the happier for it. Readers like to work, and to build their own ideas about your character.’
This advice was taken from Anna Davis tutor of our four-week online course: Character Development – The Deep Dive.
Use dialogue to get character across
What sort of vocabulary does your character have? Is your character chatty? Monosyllabic? Do they have verbal diarrhoea? And does this change in different contexts and depending on who they’re speaking to? You can use the way a character talks to show us their emotions – for instance, when they’re feeling shy or nervous.
- ‘Remember that every relationship has its own character and is driven by different forces. Figure out the specifics of this significant relationship and you will bring it to life much more fully. We become different when we are with different people – and we are changed as characters through our relationships.’
This advice was taken from Anna Davis tutor of our four-week online course: Character Development – The Deep Dive.
Give your protagonist at least one friend
Unless it’s a very specific feature of your story that your central character is utterly friendless. Most of us do have someone that we chat with and turn to when in trouble. And perhaps that sidekick or friend can shed an interesting light on your main character.
- ‘No character is an island – or, if they are truly alone in the world, then that isolation looms large in their emotional landscape, and can, in itself, become another kind of relationship to explore: with themselves, and, perhaps, with the people and connections they have lost.’
- ‘Each of us, in real life, operates within a series of circles of connection, starting with the people closest to us, and spanning out to encompass an ever-expanding network of acquaintance. Fictional characters are no different… they are at the centre of a nexus of relationships and connections that help define their sense of who they are, who they have been, and who they might go on to be.’
This advice was taken from Laura Barnett tutor of our four-week online course: Relationships in Fiction – The Deep Dive.
Be clear of your character’s motivations
Don’t make them do things just for the convenience of your plot – we have to buy in. Action must flow from character. If your character behaves in ways that the reader doesn’t believe in, you will lose that reader.
- ‘The relationships between characters are specific and unique – they are like characters in and of themselves. The dynamic of a relationship will encourage different aspects of the personality to come to the fore. And if you throw obstacles in front of your characters and their relationships – romantic relationships, but also friendships, parents and children etc. – you are driving story. If everything’s fine and everyone gets on really well, there’s no story. Story comes from the things that go wrong, the mishaps, the failures to connect – whether these are comic or tragic or both.’
This advice was taken from David Nicholls tutor of our five-week online course: Writing Fiction with David Nicholls.
Look at the role of backstory
Backstory can make a valuable contribution to your story, when used well. But inessential backstory can interfere with the forward momentum of your story, slowing it right down and leading to the reader skipping ahead or abandoning the book altogether.
Show us your character and your character’s history through their actions and behaviour and experiences – rather than giving us long descriptions which tell us flatly about them.
Key events and momentous days in our lives are capable of changing us forever, as well as shaping your character’s psyche.
- ‘What is your character’s earliest memory? They’ll have had losses and wounds – and actually we are more formed by our painful experiences than by the lovely ones. Frankly, if we’ve only really had happy experiences, it may mean we have not learned how to adapt to difficult circumstances. We may not have understood that it’s actually important to be mistrustful sometimes – it’s something that can be useful.’
This advice was taken from Marian Keyes tutor of our five-week online course: Writing Fiction with Marian Keyes.