How to make realistic characters

As I’ve read a lot of literature over the years, I’ve slowly picked up different traits that have affected my own writing. I realise that I might not be the best person to do this but I still wanted to share one thing which makes your writing become more real: Realistic characters.

• Imperfect is Perfect

The best thing to get a realistic character is to make them imperfect. No-one is perfect in real life so we don’t want to see this character on paper who seems so unrealistic. They can be imperfect in a way that they try and show everyone they’re perfect but then they find someone who knows they’re not perfect but still loves them nonetheless. Or they can be imperfect in a way that shows along with their other different qualities.

• Be Different

Make your own characters, don’t follow what every other author has made their characters like. Make those characters different from each other, their relationships to their parents and teachers, different from each other. In the end everyone in this world is different so if you want your characters to stand out from the page, you have to let them be their own self.

• Develop

It’s no use all the characters being different if they won’t affect each other. In life, your friends, your parents and everyone you know, affects who you turn out to be. This is how your characters develop and change. Let something bad happen to a positive person and something amazing happen to a negative person. Let them change, even if it’s a slight change.

• Diversity

This kind of links to them being different from each other, but this time instead of in personality, let them look different too. I know sometimes this isn’t completely possible depending on where they live but still try to give everyone different features. If they live in a more open and advanced society, give them different skin tones, let them come from different cultures, different heights, different weights, different hair colours and types of hair(mousy, wavy, curly etc.). What I’m trying to say for this one is, let people be different because in the end, people who are going to read this story are different.

• Pairing

This one is a hard one yet kind of an easy one for me to do. You see, this one is just what I would like a couple to have from reading so many books, so if you don’t think it would fit your characters, that’s completely fine.

When making a couple, let them be opposite and let them find flaws in each others armour otherwise it feels like for the reader that their relationship is based on something fake. Let them take a while to  trust each other and love each other because in real life, it doesn’t happen in a day. A good example of this would be: Percy Jackson and Annabeth Chase. They were just friends and it took them a whole series, which would be about four years, to start dating.

Comment below if you’ve got any more ideas on how to make your characters more realistic and if this was helpful or not.

Ciao