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A flat character is a bad character, right? Having one in your story means you haven’t done your job as a writer. You haven’t given enough detail or injected enough personality or backstory so your readers will fall in love with them. And that must mean you have to improve or rewrite them, right? Wrong.…

Strong characters are the foundation of any great novel. There are many ways to make your characters seem more real and more human. In our character development resources, we offer a detailed process for building characters from the inside out, starting with a nugget of a personality, then layering it with detail. We advise looking…

You’ve heard of character archetypes, but do you know about character tropes? More specifically, do you know how to use them to write stronger stories? Archetypes inform your characters and the roles they play in your novel, but tropes can help you round out your characters’ personalities. Why you may already be using them without…

Creating characters who feel real and knowable can be a daunting task. So,  you’ve devoted a great deal of time researching and developing incredible characters you’re sure readers will love. They’re definitely not weak – they’re skilled, empathetic, they have goals… Problem is, they’re still falling flat. You’re frustrated. Have you considered that your characters may be too perfect? You read…

People may be drawn to your novel for the idea, or the plot, but the characters are what keeps them reading. If the reader likes your main character, roots for them, rejoices in their successes and feels the pain of their defeats, they will be immersed in your story. But if your main characters are…

This is a guest post by Rachael Cooper of Jericho Writers. For centuries, women have had the opportunity to read about the world from a man’s perspective. This often gives us an insight into the male psyche and therefore, a way into writing believable male characters. There is an absence, or indeed a limited field of,…

In this article we’ll examine the introduction of the character Rose in the latest Star Wars film – The Last Jedi – and see how the writers create an interesting, sympathetic character with a few deft strokes. The Star Wars franchise has had its ups and downs – the original movies created some of the…

We all know that a good story needs a good antagonist – someone to push the hero to their very limits. But have you considered that you might need multiple villains? Note – as an analysis, this article necessarily contains multiple spoilers for Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. If this is going to be…