Five Tips for Writing Realistic Characters

    Hello everyone! I hope you all are doing well! Today I get to give you another post on writing tips. I am giving you five of my tips for writing realistic characters who seem real to the reader. I did write another post on making characters, but this post takes you through the next steps of developing characters so they seem real when you are writing them!

1.  Emotion and Thoughts

    One of the best ways to have your readers connect with a character and to make your characters seem real, is to give them thoughts and emotions. Nobody likes a character who doesn’t feel or think of anything as they watch a battle play out before their eyes. 

    So give them emotion. Have the MC feel heartbroken about the battle and the deaths of innocent people, or have them feel anger towards the enemy. Or, if you want, you could write the battle from the villain’s perspective. Have them feel like revenge has finally come or excitement for the battle. 

    Emotion is everything, but a great way to play emotion is to go through the character’s thought process. 

    The thought process can really reflect a character’s personality and make them seem real. 

    I highly suggest writing out a character’s thought process. It can be a great way to portray emotion and personality. 

2. Backstory and Flashbacks

    Backstory shapes your character’s personality and the way they go through everything. So make sure that you have your backstory play a part in everything about your character, from thoughts to actions.

    You have to make sure to keep your backstory realistic, though. Make sure the readers can believe what has happened to your character. 

    There are some times you can get away with an unbelievable backstory by the way you worldbuild your fantasy world, if you are writing fantasy. Or if you are writing in another genre, you can use things like personality and arc to get away with it. 

    On the topic of backstory, make sure to include flashbacks. Flashbacks can bring up backstory and make your character seem real. In real life, you wouldn’t have your parents die and not think about them. 

    Flashbacks don’t have to be big, long paragraphs of the past. They can just be a quick thought here or there, reminding your character of their past. 

3. Quirks

    Who is a character, without quirks? Everyone has their quirks, from irrational fears to singing to themselves. 

    Quirks add comedy to the character and to your story. You don’t want to overdo quirks, but definitely give your character some, no matter what his or her personality is. Everyone you meet in real life has quirks, so if you want to write real characters, add quirks!

4. Arc 

    If your character doesn’t grow in your story, they won’t seem real. They can’t just go on a journey and come out exactly the same. 

    They have to grow and change. 

    For example, a bold yet somewhat of a jerk character can change and become softer. Or a timid character can turn into a brave, knight-like warrior. 

    And make sure when you are writing an arc, to keep it slow and subtle, yet still there. So that your reader barely sees it until the end of the story, when they can look back and see how much the character has changed. 

    There is too much about arcs I could say, it would take up a whole other post. So I will leave it here. Make sure to give your character an arc. 

5. Practice

    One of the things that helps me with writing realistic characters is practicing writing with them.

    What does this mean? Well, it means working with your character and writing them. The best way to develop and practice writing a realistic character is just to write with them. 

    For me, I usually write practice snippets with them. Short pieces of writing that give me a feel for how they say things, what their quirks are and how they react in certain situations. 

    This usually helps prevent you from having an unrealistic character in the beginning of your book and a good character at the end and then having to go back and fix the beginning. 

    But it is ultimately up to you. If you want to spend more time practicing with your character outside of your projects, go ahead! Or if you want to just get into writing them, do it! Both are amazing ways to practice writing a realistic character! So go write!

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    That’s all for now! I hope you can use some of these tips to write your next amazing character! Thanks for reading!

    Until next time, 

~A.J. Syngrafèas