Your Novel's Most Important Character (Explained)

There’s a lot that goes into successfully creating a character for a story. You need to know who they are and what their motivations are. More importantly, you need to know how these two things relate to each other in order for your reader to understand what’s happening and why.

In this article, we’ll discuss some of the most important elements of character development so that you can create characters that resonate with your readers on an emotional level, even when they’re not physically present on the page!

How to Create a Strong Goal for Your Novel’s Main Character

Takeaways
1. Characters drive the heart of your novel’s narrative.
2. Understanding a character’s significance enhances storytelling.
3. Well-developed characters contribute to plot cohesion.
4. Effective character exploration helps avoid plot inconsistencies.
5. Crafting dialogue and interactions deepen character engagement.

Table of Contents

Include Your Protagonist In The Opening Scene

Your protagonist is the most important character in your novel.

You need to make sure that your reader knows as much about your protagonist as possible before he or she begins reading.

This can be achieved by introducing the main character in the opening scene of a story, which will give readers an idea of who they are dealing with and what kind of personality they have.

By doing so, you should show their goals and motivations, strengths and weaknesses, background, relationships with other characters (if any), and knowledge of the world around them.

Crafting memorable characters is a cornerstone of successful novel writing. Our article on Top 10 Tips for the Aspiring Novel Writer provides valuable insights into developing characters that resonate with readers, helping your story come to life.

Don’t Get Too Attached To Your Characters

Character development is one of the most important things in a novel, but it’s also one of the most difficult. You have to make sure that your characters are relatable and believable without making them too perfect or flawed.

If you get too attached to your characters, you’re going to have a hard time killing off any of them and will start having them take over the story.

Be careful not to fall into this trap: if readers can’t relate to your main character, they’ll lose interest in the book quickly. You need someone who has flaws that others can identify with but still has some redeeming qualities so they don’t feel completely hopeless.

Create A Believable Cast Of Characters

You should also consider the character’s name, age, gender, and appearance. You need to know their occupation and status in their community so that you can establish their relationship with other characters.

If they are married or have children then this will affect how they interact with others.

Character personality can be determined by how they treat others and whether they have any hobbies or interests that set them apart from the rest of society (e.g., collecting stamps). What relationships do they have with other characters? Do they get along with everyone?

Or do some people hate each other? What was their past like? Did it shape who they are today? Did something traumatic happen like being bullied at school which led them down a darker path as an adult?

Finally, what motivates them – how is it different than other people’s motivations which makes them unique in your story world;

Also what flaws does that character possess which may negatively impact their life choices later on down the line such as alcoholism or gambling addiction.”

Dialogue is a powerful tool for character expression. Discover 10 Ways to Write Great Dialogue that can captivate your readers and deepen their connection to your characters, enhancing the overall storytelling experience.

Give Your Characters Unique Voices

One of the most important things to consider when writing a novel is how you’re going to make sure that your characters are distinct from each other. It’s not enough for readers to be able to tell them apart, though; they need their voices too.

There are so many ways in which you can do this, but these are some of my favorites:

Use dialogue. Characters should speak differently depending on who they are and what kind of person they are, so give them each their distinctive way of speaking and make sure that their speech patterns don’t overlap with anyone else’s!

If one character uses lots of slang terms (like “oh well” instead of “okay”), then another should never use those same words (or if she does use them it’ll sound weird because she doesn’t normally talk like that).

Make Your Characters Relatable

If you want to make your characters relatable, they have to be likable. This is a no-brainer, but it’s important to remember that not all parts of the story need to be told from a character’s point of view as long as they’re still important to the plot. If it takes too much time away from where the action is happening, then why bother?

If you can’t figure out whether or not your character is likable: ask yourself if he or she would be someone you’d want to go drinking with or invite over for dinner with friends and family.

Because those are two scenarios (and there are many more) in which this person would probably come up in conversation at some point during the evening. And if so… do people talk about him/her favorably? Or do they talk about him/her unfavorably?

Make Physical Description Part Of Who They Are

When you’re writing a novel, you have to make sure that the physical description of your characters is consistent and specific.

In other words, when you describe one character as having red hair and freckles, that should be how they look throughout the entire story. (Otherwise, it’s hard to keep track of who’s who.)

Also, try to find a way of making each character unique so they stand out from all their friends and family members. This isn’t necessarily easy it takes practice! But if you want your characters’ descriptions to come alive in readers’ minds, it can help them stick out like sore thumbs.

Another aspect of physical description is whether or not it fits with their personality traits (which we’ll talk about later).

Do they look strong? Are they friendly? Does their appearance match those traits? It might seem like an obvious thing to do on paper but I’ve seen many novels where this wasn’t taken into account at all!

Make Sure Your Character Has A Goal And A Motivation To Reach It

The character’s goal and motivation are what will drive your story forward. It’s a simple concept: the goal is what the character wants, and their motivation is why they want it. The two are separate but can be interrelated in various ways.

The main goal of most stories is to defeat some threat or problem that affects everyone in some way (or just one person).

This might be an evil dictator threatening humanity with destruction at the end of the day, or it might be something smaller a bully who has been tormenting your hero since grade school, for example.

A good motivation could be “revenge,” because this gives your hero a clear reason why he or she would want to stop this destructive force from hurting others any longer. Another good motivation could simply be “recognition.”

Maybe this enemy has wronged your hero’s family before now and never paid for his crime? Perhaps he was caught red-handed by security cameras when committing another crime against humanity?

Whatever drives your character into action should have real consequences attached to it as well; otherwise, there won’t be enough weight behind them when writing dialogue between characters discussing these motivations later on!

Novels are rich sources of storytelling wisdom. Learn about effective storytelling techniques, including character development, in our post on Things I’ve Learned About Storytelling from Years of Reading Novels to elevate your narrative skills.

Let Them React Naturally To What Happens To Them

It’s important to let your characters react naturally to what happens to them. It’s one thing if they’re knocked down by some unexpected twist in the plot, but it’s another thing entirely when you don’t give them any reaction at all.

Characters can be allowed to feel as strongly as they want about events in a story, but their reactions should always be consistent with who they are as individuals and their own goals for themselves.

This means that you need to know your character inside and out so that when something happens in your story (or someone else does something), your character can respond according to how he or she would react under normal circumstances.

Allow Your Characters To Make Their Own Decisions, Good Or Bad

A common mistake many authors make is to let the author make decisions for their characters or to let the characters make decisions based on what they think the author would have them do. This can create a flat, unrealistic story that lacks complexity and depth.

Think of your novel as a conversation between you and your reader: You’re speaking very clearly with actions and words, but the reader has to figure out what’s being said from those actions and words. What does it mean when a character makes a decision?

Why did that person decide this way? How does this affect anyone else? These are all questions you need to answer for yourself so that your readers can understand how each choice affects everyone else in the story.

Give Your Characters Different Motives For Their Actions

Your story’s most important character is the one who drives the plot forward. The protagonist, antagonist, or supporting character could all be considered the story’s most important character.

But if you want to make sure that your novel has a dynamic and engaging narrative and grabs readers you should give your characters different motives for their actions.

For example: In Ernest Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants,” two people meet at a train station in Spain while they wait for the train: An American man and his girlfriend discuss their relationship over drinks at an outdoor café.

She wants him to get married; he doesn’t think it’s necessary yet because they have plenty of time together before they’re ready to commit themselves to each other permanently as husband and wife.

Unraveling the layers of your characters is a thrilling process for writers. Dive into our guide on How to Learn New Things About Your Characters to uncover methods that will help you explore and understand your characters on a deeper level.

Allow Your Character To Show, Not Tell, Important Personal Facts About Themselves By Way Of Inner Thoughts, Reactions, And Even Dialogue

The best way to get inside your character’s head is through their actions. The best way to show who they are and what they want is for them to show it, not tell it.

This means that when you write a character’s inner thoughts or monologue, you should make sure that this doesn’t come across as exposition. Instead, find ways of showing the reader what the character is thinking without telling them outright.

Write A Backstory For Each Character

Backstories are important because they help you to understand the character, even if they don’t appear in the novel. You might be tempted to think that you can just write a one-sentence description of them and leave it at that.

But if you want your readers to relate with the characters, then you need to flesh out their backstories.

Here’s how:

Pick an important life event for your character and write about how it made him/her who he/she is today.

How does his/her past affect his/her personality? What was going on at that time in history? What were other people doing then? Why does this event leave such an impact on your character now?

How did this event shape his values or beliefs? If not for this event, would he be different today? What lessons did he learn from this experience (or what did she learn)?

Know How Much Of Your Character’s Backstory You Need To Include In The Story

The most important thing to keep in mind is that your story should be the star of the show, not your character’s backstory. A reader doesn’t want to read a novel at all if they feel like they’re being lectured or told too much about how things were before we met our characters.

It’s crucial that you only include those details of backstory that are relevant to what is happening in the present-day—that is, right now as you’re writing this scene.

Let’s say your main character has been abandoned by his father since birth and has never known any other family than his mother and sister.

He’s also always lived under a bridge because he can’t afford rent or anything else but garbage from dumpsters on which he can survive for free (because he has no other choice).

You don’t need to write all this out if it isn’t pertinent to the current storyline; instead, focus on showing us how much hurt this abandonment caused him through his actions throughout the book instead of telling us about it with exposition!

Don’t Let The Backstory Overwhelm The Story Itself

Your characters should be a little mysterious. A well-rounded character should not just be a living, breathing person but also an enigma a person who is intriguing and compelling enough for readers to want to spend time with him or her, even if that means spending time trying to understand them.

That’s why it’s so important for you to stay true to this idea when it comes time for you to include backstory in your novel.

If too much backstory is included in the novel, then the story itself gets lost amidst all of its details; if too little backstory is included, then it may give readers no reason at all as far as why they should care about this character (or what makes them tick).

It can also make things feel rushed or forced because there isn’t enough time spent explaining why something happened or even just showing us how something happened for us to believe that before we get right back into another scene where some new piece of information comes up again.”

Develop More Than One Side Of Your Character’s Personality

So, your character is a good person. Or a bad one. Or maybe he or she’s just somewhere in between. But what about his or her personality? I’m not talking about the obvious things like “he’s funny” or “she’s nice.” I mean: what makes your character unique?

As the writer, you know more about this person than anybody else and that means your job is to make sure he or she has more than one side of their personality (or at least some traits that are less positive than others).

Make sure your protagonist has a variety of emotions: if they’re always angry and upset, readers won’t care as much as if they were both happy and sad sometimes; angry and hopeful; or anything else besides bored because there aren’t enough feelings being shared!

If you want them to feel sorry for him/her when something bad happens later on in the story (like death), then make sure they’re not too happy beforehand so readers don’t think “oh well! If only…”

A well-developed character can contribute to a seamless plot. Prevent common plot holes with guidance from How to Avoid the 9 Most Common Plot Holes in Your Novel, ensuring your characters’ actions and motivations remain consistent throughout your narrative journey.

Conclusion

In short, characters are what make your story truly great. By giving them a chance to live and breathe on the page, you can bring your readers into the world of your novel and give them a reason to keep turning pages.

FAQs

What are the key character archetypes in storytelling?

Character archetypes are recurring personas that fulfill specific roles in narratives, such as the hero, mentor, or antagonist. These archetypes contribute to the dynamics of a story’s plot and character development.

How do I create well-rounded and relatable characters?

Crafting relatable characters involves giving them depth, motivations, and flaws. By understanding their backgrounds and aspirations, you can create authentic characters that resonate with readers.

What’s the significance of character development in a story?

Character development adds realism and progression to your narrative. As characters evolve through challenges and experiences, readers become more invested in their journeys.

How can I avoid common pitfalls in character creation?

Avoiding stereotypes and one-dimensional characters is essential. Focus on creating characters with unique traits, motivations, and arcs to keep your story engaging and avoid clichés.

How do different character types impact the overall story?

Different character types, such as protagonists, antagonists, and supporting characters, contribute to plot development, conflict, and theme exploration, shaping the story’s structure and impact.

Costantine Edward

Costantine Edward is a digital marketing expert, freelance writer, and entrepreneur who helps people attain financial freedom. I’ve been working in marketing since I was 18 years old and have managed to build a successful career doing what I love.

Your Novel’s Most Important Character (Explained)