Three Things Your Character Needs from the Beginning

Note: this post originally appeared on MetaStellar’s Writing Advice of the Week column. Check out Three Things Your Character Needs from the Beginning.

Figuring out your main character is just as important as figuring out your world and worldbuilding. This is especially true for your main protagonist. You want your character to be complex while also having them stand out from all the other characters you’re going to create. But how do you set your character up for success?

To begin, you need three things that allow your character to set themselves apart. Check out the list below to get started on creating a masterful character.

Motivation

First things first, your character needs motivation. To give your readers the chance to root for your character and give your character something to do, they need to have a goal in mind that they want to achieve. This goal could change over time as the character and the plot evolve, but regardless, your protagonist needs to start off the story with something they want to achieve and the drive to make it happen.

Ask yourself the following questions when you start creating your character:

1. What does my character want? This could be the motivation to do something like completing a goal or to become something, which jumpstarts their development and contributes to their complexity. Get to the heart of the problem and meet it head-on. When you create your character, immediately ask yourself what that character wants. Next,
2. How is my character going to get it? Next, you need to figure out how your character moves through the plot to get what they want. You have an idea of what your character wants, but what are the obstacles that get in the way that stop your character from getting them? How they handle these situations ties into your character’s personality and how they handle the situations they get themselves into. Speaking of your character’s personality,
3. How does my character’s personality tie into their motivation? Do they like to meet their goals head-on, full confrontation, or are they scared and lacking courage the entire time?

Now that you have the motivation down, along with the obstacles that get in their way in your plot, your character needs to exhibit traits that complicate matters. They need traits that get in the way of their goal.

Fears that Get in the Way

To create a layer of complexity within your characters, you need to throw things in front of them that will get in the way of their goal and their motivation. This could be external things that occur in the plot, of course, but your character also needs something that they battle internally that gets in their way.

Imagine, for example, that you are writing a fantasy about someone who is on a quest to find a magic elixir. This elixir is important because it will help heal their village of a deadly disease. However, the elixir is guarded by a deadly dragon. Your character is motivated to get this elixir and save their village, but they also have a deadly fear of dragons, and they have no idea how to use a sword.

On the one hand, their development comes from learning how to use their sword and allowing their courage to grow on their journey. On the other hand, their fear of dragons contributes to keeping them from their goal.

To figure out your character’s fear that remains their obstacle, ask yourself:

1. What’s the biggest obstacle your character could possibly face? This could be something that the reader might think is something simple, as long as it’s huge for the character. For example, your character could be agoraphobic, and their goal is to go down to the store, but they have a phobia of going outside. The goal is big for them. This could also be something insurmountable, like a massive fire-breathing dragon.
2. How do you want your character to overcome their fear? This contributes to their development and their overall sense of complexity. Because once you put an obstacle in front of the character, you need to figure out how they’re going to overcome it. Just write something down. It can change over time. The important thing is that you have an idea.

Both motivation and fear work to give your character depth, but there are other aspects to your character that you need to start developing from the beginning as well. It’s time to look at the external qualities that your readers will notice the minute they’re introduced to the character you created.

Quirks

Lastly, your protagonist’s motivations and fears all stem from the character’s inner complexities. However, you also need external qualities that your protagonist exudes to other people and to the reader. This could be a whole range of different things, but the key is that we’re not focusing on physical characteristics. You can work on that later. Right now, we’re focusing on the different aspects of your character’s personality that make them stand out from your other characters.

Quirks in a character’s personality can come from different things, including:

1. The way they speak. When your character has a unique voice, they stand out from your other characters in dialogue. However, this also crafts a unique perspective when you stick to this person’s POV. This makes your character more memorable. Next,
2. The thoughts they typically have. Another internal quirk in your character comes from their thoughts and worries. This partially connects to the fears that get in their way. But these thoughts also provide a gateway for readers to learn more about their personality. Are their thoughts typically anxious? Angry? Do they overthink? Deciding this right away sets the stage for your character and their subsequent growth.

All three of these aspects work to create the foundation for your character. If you figure these things out before you start writing, you’ll begin your draft with an amazing character. Happy writing!

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