Creating 3D Characters

As writers, we must create worlds on pages and people on a 2D surface. When I say "3D characters" I mean real people that your readers are going to believe in and understand and sympathize with. You characters, in my opinion, are the most important elements of your story. And creating characters that your readers love, good or bad, is going to draw them into your story.

If anyone is guilty of creating stereotypical, 2D characters it's me. When I first started writing, I had one character who was angry, one who was nice, one who was mysterious, and one that was just along for the ride. If I would have killed them all off, no one would have blinked an eye (not even me!) because they weren't real. They weren't interesting. They weren't relatable. And they weren't actually people. Readers want to read about real people, flaws and all!

When I went back and developed my characters, everything suddenly changed. They story became more enthralling. I was choking back tears with sympathy for my characters and swallowing down lumps in my throat when one of them died. Even when it was the antagonist that was suffering! THAT'S what you want your readers to do.

So, the difference between 2D and 3D characters is that 2D characters are mechanical stick-figures and 3D characters are real. 2D characters will bore your readers to death and 3D characters will draw them in.

                                                      Don't be satisfied with 2D characters!

Now how do we take the step that makes our characters real people? This is a question that I struggled with for a long time. I was really against character profiling and outlining my story because I always wanted to just jump right into the nitty-gritty of my story. Writing is exciting for me, and I didn't want to waste my time on the dull stuff. If I just jumped right in everything else would fall into place, right?

WRONG!

I had to rewrite my entire story almost from scratch because I started with the 2D characters. Having a plan and following it is what makes a story that hangs together and has good flow.

I would suggest from personal experience that you take the time to fully develop your characters before you even start. That brings us back to the question, how do we make our characters seem real? Everyone has a different system for this. I worked out my own. You can work out your own too. Think about all the people in your life. They don't always react the same to different things. In some situations, they flourish under stress, in others, they fall apart. To make your character a person, you need to know how they react in different situations, and you need to know why.

For example, maybe you have a girl in your story that is tough. Really tough! She never buckles, never asks for help, never seems to be out of her league. Why? Why is she like that? Did something happen to her early on that made her become furiously independent? Maybe this girl with the resolve of a tank can handle anything, but she can't talk in front of crowds, especially if her peers are there. Why? Was she embarrassed once in front of class?

If you come into your story knowing these things, your characters (even the ones that aren't particularly likeable) will become interesting. And please don't have a character that is tough all the time or really nice all the time. People aren't like that. Just like the tough girl couldn't talk in front of her peers, every character has layers. They will not always act the same. But that doesn't mean there isn't a reason for how they respond in different situations.

Here is a list of things that I fill out in order to give my character depth. You can use mine or figure out your own:

     Appearance
     Background
     Habits
     Ghost (the thing that haunts them, that they wish they could change, that causes some sort of self-destructive behavior)
     Fears
     Lie (every character should believe a lie, one that is going to hinder them until they find out the truth)
     Wants
     Needs (your character's wants might not be the same as their needs. In fact, they might not even know what they need!)
     Loves
     Hates
     Quirks (what makes this character unique from everyone else?)
     Cool factor (what makes this character butt-kick awesome?)
     Best qualities
     Worst qualities

Besides these, I would write down how the character changes throughout the story.

Now an effective system that I like to use brings the character's "ghost", "fears", "lie", and "needs" together. Now let's say that you have a male character who was abused and bullied when he was younger. That is his ghost. Because of this, he fears relationships with people because he thinks they are going to hurt him. The lie is that he believes he will always be hurt in relationships. But what he needs is to let people in again, to learn to trust.

You see the system? He needs exactly what he fears, but he can't quite get there because he believes a lie that was planted in his mind by his ghost! That's some deep stuff! I usually use this system and then build everything else off of that. So this character in your story could go from being distrustful and friendless to realizing the importance in relationship.

It may seem like a lot of work -- and it kind of is -- but I would take the time to make really good characters. You won't be sorry! They will drive your story and create something that will be really memorable for both you and your readers. If you have anything that you think is missing from my list, please comment. I would love to hear your input.