 | The Secrets of Character is a solid overview of the writing elements that help make characters compelling: painful struggles, grit and resourcefulness, and believable, idiosyncratic details: “Universal details we can identify with, and oddly specific details that seem so unusual that they must be real, because no one could make them up.” The author also suggests front-loading situations to reveal character early in the story: “Give your hero five different opportunities to show their character in the first ten pages, and readers will love it if they can already start to guess how heroes will react by the time they get to page ten.” |
1. BELEIVEABLE CHARACTERS have friends. They have personality and a unique voice (created by choosing words specific to this character, culture, and world: for example, a laugh “like a pile of dishes breaking”).
 | Dialogue and internal monologue should also be unique and specific to each character and their individual point of view. Give them distinctive syntax (word order). Use short, terse sentences to make them sound “badass.” Example: “I was arrested in Eno’s diner. At twelve o’clock. I was eating eggs and drinking coffee. A late breakfast, not lunch.” (from Killing Floor by Lee Child) The author also says, “We want our heroes to have free agency, to choose to be great, and earn their place in our hearts, without a prophecy telling us (or them) how special they are.” |
2. MAKE READERS CARE: The events of the story (plot) force characters to confront and overcome their internal flaw(s). “[A] great flaw is often the ironic flip side of a great strength. … The challenge they’ll face in this story will ultimately transform them, but they should resist that change as much as possible.”
Very human to resist change!
Very human to resist change!
 | Writers are often advised to make our characters suffer. The author suggests we wound them in a way that reveals their flaws and in a way that would only hurt this individual hero. A hero who sacrifices also elicits reader empathy. Jo in Little Women is a good example of a hero made to suffer and sacrifice in away specific to her character: “Her long, thick hair was her one beauty.” … of course, she will feel compelled to cut it off and sell it to help her father. Give your hero one gift, and then make them sacrifice it.” |
Another way to test our characters is to “show that they lack something essential that others around them have. We’ve all felt disadvantaged and our hearts go out to people feeling the same, especially if their suffering is a little bit bigger than the version of it we’ve experienced.”
Other ways to engage readers:
- Reveal internal fears and vulnerabilities: “Jason Bourne’s open fear is that he’ll be killed or captured. His private fear is that he’ll discover he’s not a good person.”
- Disappoint the character: “Irony is the meaningful gap between expectation and outcome, and it’s the source of all meaning in storytelling. The bigger the gap for the hero, the harder things will hit [her], and hit the reader. We will care more if we know [her] heart was set on the opposite outcome.”
- Let them fall in love: “We’re never more vulnerable when we are in romantic situations. … Unrequited love is one of the most universal and emotional experiences of all.”
3. CULTIVATE READER INVESTMENT. Characters with intriguing strengths revealed early on should “rely on those strengths throughout the story. … We want a hero who can see more angles than those around them. We want a hero who is more aware of the intricacies of their world. … When a door is shut in their face, it compels them forward all the more strongly. … Heroes often have everything going against them, but we want them to brave that with good spirits.”
 | Jack Sparrow (Pirates of the Caribbean) is a perfect example of a heedless hero whose cocky confidence “is a superpower that can turn any liability into an asset.” Another type of heroics is staying silent as a form of defiance. Jack Reacher personifies this in Killing Floor: “Again I didn’t respond. Long experience had taught me that absolute silence is the best way. Say something, and it can be misheard. Misunderstood. Misinterpreted. It can get you convicted. It can get you killed.” Whenever possible show the character being resourceful. MacGyver is a great example of how “resourcefulness goes a long way to get us to like a character ...” He’s so capable that we just can’t help but invest in him. |
The overall takeaway is to create characters that are “compelling and intriguing. Everything we read should make us want to read more. This character should get us on the hook. We should think, I just have to see what this hero is going to do.”
The Secrets of Character provides many fun examples for each element of character-building. Despite the author’s caveat that he’s using the word “hero” as a gender-neutral term, he pairs it with a masculine pronoun more often than not, which undermines the universality of the text. Yet it’s a good resource for basic characterization and demonstrates well the importance of integrating specific and unique character details in our stories.
The Secrets of Character provides many fun examples for each element of character-building. Despite the author’s caveat that he’s using the word “hero” as a gender-neutral term, he pairs it with a masculine pronoun more often than not, which undermines the universality of the text. Yet it’s a good resource for basic characterization and demonstrates well the importance of integrating specific and unique character details in our stories.
Read other craft books on characterization: Characters, Emotion, & Viewpoint; Character;
Writing for Emotional Impact; The Emotional Craft of Fiction; The Art of Character
Writing for Emotional Impact; The Emotional Craft of Fiction; The Art of Character
