Creating Great Characters: A Guide for Fiction Writers

Great characters are the heartbeat of unforgettable fiction. Whether it's the brooding complexity of Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights or the moral ambiguity of Walter White in Breaking Bad, characters with depth, authenticity, and purpose invite readers into the emotional center of a story. Creating such characters is not merely about physical description or clever dialogue—it involves understanding motivation, contradiction, growth, and the quiet, often unseen internal lives that drive their actions. Here’s how to craft memorable characters, with examples from literature that exemplify these principles in action.

1. Give Characters Desires and Fears Desire is the engine of character. What a character wants—and what they fear—drives plot, decisions, and transformation. These internal drivers must be as specific as possible.

Take Jay Gatsby from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. Gatsby desires Daisy Buchanan, but beneath that desire is a yearning for identity, status, and a reclaiming of a romanticized past. His fear of being seen as unworthy—rooted in his origins—shapes his extravagant persona and choices. The power of Gatsby’s character lies in how his desire collides with an unreachable ideal, ultimately leading to tragedy.

Likewise, Katniss Everdeen in Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games wants to protect her sister, but she also comes to fear becoming a pawn of the Capitol—or worse, becoming indifferent to violence. This duality adds emotional stakes to her role in the revolution and deepens her character beyond just a dystopian heroine.

Writing Tip: Ask, “What does my character want more than anything—and what are they terrified of losing?”

2. Create Internal Conflict and Contradiction People are not consistent—and neither should fictional characters be. Complexity often arises from contradiction: a character can be brave and insecure, loving but manipulative, principled but occasionally dishonest.

Consider Severus Snape from J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series. Initially painted as a villain, Snape is later revealed to be motivated by love, loyalty, and guilt. He’s cruel, brave, selfish, and self-sacrificing all at once. His contradictions make him one of the most compelling characters in the series.
Similarly, in Beloved by Toni Morrison, Sethe’s internal conflict revolves around motherhood, memory, and trauma. Her most controversial act—killing her child to save her from slavery—is born from love and horror. Morrison doesn’t ask readers to forgive or condemn but to feel the weight of Sethe’s experience.

Writing Tip: Give your character a contradiction that complicates how they pursue their goals—and how others see them.

3. Show Character Through Action What a character does reveals who they are. It’s not enough for a narrator to describe someone as courageous or kind—the reader must see those qualities in action.
Atticus Finch, in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, demonstrates integrity and moral courage by defending Tom Robinson, a Black man unjustly accused of rape, in a deeply racist Southern town. His choices in the courtroom and the calm patience with which he teaches his children define his character far more than exposition ever could.
In Celeste Ng’s Everything I Never Told You, the actions and inactions of the family members—particularly the silences and the things left unsaid—reveal their personal limitations, grief, and unfulfilled desires. Lydia’s drowning isn’t just a plot point; it’s a culmination of a family’s failure to understand and communicate.

Writing Tip: Reveal character traits through behavior under pressure, not through adjectives or exposition.
4. Build a Rich Interior Life Characters become real when readers understand not just what they do, but how they think, rationalize, hope, and self-deceive. The interior monologue can turn even a quiet character into a vibrant presence.

In Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, Clarissa Dalloway’s external life—preparing for a party—seems mundane, but her interior thoughts reveal her longing, regrets, and reflections on life and death. The novel’s stream-of-consciousness style invites the reader directly into her mind, allowing empathy to form.

Similarly, Eleanor Oliphant in Gail Honeyman’s Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine initially appears strange, even comical. But as readers gain access to her thoughts—her loneliness, coping mechanisms, and gradual opening to connection—they grow to love her.

Writing Tip: Use free indirect style or internal dialogue to allow readers access to the character’s emotional and intellectual processing.

5. Let Characters Change (or Resist Change) Dynamic characters often undergo transformation. Their journey—from ignorance to awareness, from self-protection to openness—is a key element of character-driven fiction.
In Elizabeth Strout’s Olive Kitteridge, Olive is blunt, judgmental, and emotionally distant. Yet over the course of interconnected stories, she softens, grieves, learns to love again, and becomes more reflective. Her change is subtle but profound.

That said, a character’s refusal to change can also be powerful. In No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy, Anton Chigurh is terrifying not just because of his violence but because he remains resolutely consistent in his moral code. He is implacable—he believes in fate, and he does not grow. This static nature defines him and makes him a force rather than a man.

Writing Tip: Identify a moment when your character might change—and decide whether they do or don’t. Both choices reveal something essential.

6. Give Even Minor Characters Dimension While your protagonist may get the most focus, supporting characters shouldn’t be mere archetypes. Even walk-on characters benefit from a touch of specificity.
In The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz, even side characters like La Inca or Yunior, the narrator, are given rich backstories and distinct voices. Their vividness deepens the narrative world and makes Oscar’s story more resonant.

In Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng, secondary characters like Pearl and Moody have their own arcs and inner lives, demonstrating how different characters perceive and react to the same events.

Writing Tip: Give minor characters at least one defining trait, habit, or contradiction to make them memorable.

7. Use Dialogue to Express Character How someone speaks—what they say and what they don’t—can reveal class, education, emotional state, cultural background, and personality.

In The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield’s voice—sarcastic, disaffected, and sensitive—is unforgettable. His dialogue carries the full emotional and psychological weight of his adolescence and grief.

In Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens, the dialogue of townspeople versus Kya, the protagonist, illustrates differences in education, class, and experience. Kya’s few words carry weight, and her silences are equally powerful.

Writing Tip: Give each character a unique voice—through sentence structure, vocabulary, rhythm, or worldview.
Creating great characters takes time, empathy, and attention to detail. By grounding them in desire, contradiction, and action—and by revealing their inner lives—you allow them to transcend the page and live on in the minds of readers. The most beloved characters in literature are those who feel real, whose choices make us cheer or cry, and whose truths reflect something essential about the human condition.

​As novelist John Gardner said, “The writer’s job is not to solve the problem but to state the problem correctly.” The same applies to characters: your goal is not to explain them but to reveal them in all their flawed, fascinating humanity.

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