by Elton Gahr

Created on: May 13, 2009

There are four basic parts of a story: character, plot, conflict and background. Of those four the one that most connects the reader to the emotional side of the story is the character and so it is important to understand the basics of creating a character that will be interesting to a reader. There are seven basic ways to create a character that will draw a reader into the story.

1. The reader forgets who and where he is. He wants to be the protagonist

No matter how bad of a situation you put your character into at some basic level the reader wants to be him. He wants to be the hero of his own story the one who will save the day, the one who will be given the difficult decision and come out on the right side.

2.The character must have at least one major weakness while being likable in some way.

This can sometimes be a balancing act but both are important. A story is ultimately about a character making a difficult choice or decision. Characters that are conflicted internally are much more interesting than those that are not.

3. The Character must struggle

Without difficulty a character is boring. Find things in your story that truly challenge your character, use his weaknesses against him. Make it seem impossible that he will ever succeed. If you can do this and yet allow him to find a way to meet that struggle and survive you'll have a character people care about.

4. Avoid Stereotypes

It is sometimes acceptable to have a minor character who is instantly recognizable as a specific type of character, but not as a main character. If you want to use a stereotype then make certain there are things about the character that distinguishes him. People don't connect to stereotypes because they don't feel real.

5. Study people around you

The best way to avoid stereotypes and interesting characters is to understand those around you. The more you watch people and understand just how unique and interesting they are the more unique and interesting the characters in your story will be.

6. Use point of view to your advantage

Understand what it is you want to expose about your character and use the point of view and style of the story to bring that out. This sometimes means using a first person point of view and other times a third, but what is truly important is that you understand the point of view of the main character in some interesting way. Everyone looks at the world differently, ask yourself how your character looks at it.

7. Use all 5 senses

Every sense brings us closer to a character in a different way and though we often don't think about each of the senses carefully in our everyday lives we use all of them and it is difficult to connect to someone who doesn't do the same.

All stories are at the most basic a character overcoming a conflict, but in order for a story to be good we must care that the character has overcome. To do this it is important to understand the character and his motivations well because without that our stories will fall flat.

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