by Robert Lambert

Created on: December 15, 2009

In considering how to create interesting characters, we must of course first determine what makes a character interesting. Is it realism? Or perhaps conflict? Or uniqueness? Or is it complexity? Let us examine each of these, in turn.

Does realism help make a character interesting? For a character to be realistic means, of course, that they resemble real people. Not that they resemble any particular real people, but that they simply the patterns that we see in real people. They are potential people, which could exist but do not. Certainly it is the case that if a character seems unreal, if they act in ways that the reader believes no real person could act, that this will make the character less interesting. The reader will be unable to relate to a character whose behavior goes wildly beyond the limits of human nature (although, if the character is not human, different criteria may apply depending on how the author wishes to approach the issue).

However, one must remember that realism is defined by what is possible and not by what is probable. It is highly improbable that a person would have an IQ over 200, while at the same time being among the last of a dying Native American tribe, while at the same time being a Zen Buddhist monk who lives in Tokyo. None of these features are by themselves impossible, however, and they do not contradict one another, and so such a character is possible and no issue of realism would prevent them from being interesting. Similarly, realism must not be mistaken for normalcy. It is perfectly acceptable for a character to be normal or average in many or even all aspects of their life and personality, but this should not be viewed as a requirement for realism, and certainly if every character were entirely average this could be problematic for maintaining reader interest. So realism is a good concept to keep in mind when creating characters, but only if the real allows for the strange and improbable. Fiction writers sometimes have an unfortunate tendency to conflate the real with the dull and the mediocre, perhaps hinting at a regrettable lack of experience with the real world among us.

I will not ask whether conflict helps make a character interesting because conflict is plainly the heart of a story. If there is no conflict then no events are occurring which can be written about. There would be no plot and no character growth and simply no story. Conflict is typically separated into two categories: internal conflict and external conflict.

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