by Simon Wright

Created on: March 19, 2007   Last Updated: May 14, 2007

You want your characters to come across as interesting, realistic and having depth. Rather than just launching into writing your character's dialogue, you should first give thought to what the character's motivations and background are? Also, what are their mannerisms and quirks? How do they speak? What do they look like?

These are all fairly basic things that you need to have given thought to before you can start to write your character's dialogue. Here are six additional tips that you may find useful:

Tip 1
Give your baddies redeeming qualities, and your goodies bad habits. Making the distinction between good and bad blurred will help to make your characters more believable.

Tip 2
Make your heroes vulnerable. In Lord of the Rings, Frodo is all the more the hero for being so little; his heroism is magnified.

Tip 3
Where you have a group of characters, give them traits that make them stand out from each other. If you think of Friends, Joey was the goofy one, Chandler the funny one, and Ross the quirky one.

Tip 4
Have an event happen that turns your character's life on its head. This gives you the opportunity to show how they react to a crisis.

Tip 5
If you have a character that displays a notable trait, such as anger or depression, or paranoia, explain or hint at why they behave that way. This will add extra depth to your character's persona.

Tip 6
Let your character show growth during the course of your story. People change as they grow older and face up to changing circumstances and responsibilities. A character who is a carefree joker in his twenties may be quite different in their forties once they have a mortgage, a wife, and three kids!

Hopefully, this will enable you to create and develop excellent characters that your readers (and a publisher!) will enjoy. Good luck!

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