Character Development: 12 Steps, Arcs, & Guides

[Worksheet]
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As we often say, a bad plot can be saved by amazing characters, but the best plot in the
world will not save a book with bad character development.

What is Character Development?

Character development is the process and execution of creating a fully rounded, complex,
and lifelike character within your fictional writing with the purpose of making readers
invested in them and their life or journey.

Think of character development like the paper of your book. Without it, you simply don’t
have a book at all—you just have a mess of ink smeared between two cover.

But before we get into the extensive details, I’m going to cover what constitutes a well-
developed character as well as the different types of character development you may
consider.

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What is a Well Developed Character?

A well-developed character needs a full backstory, personality traits reflective of it, realistic
actions and emotions, along with being highly relatable to the average reader and as complex
as a real person.

If you can’t imagine your characters as a real-life person, they’re not quite
complex enough to be well developed. The key with character development is crafting
your characters to feel as if they’re people you know who just live far away.

Get comfortable with thinking of them as real and you almost always will have a well-
developed character.

Types of Character Development

When it comes to learning how to write characters – and write them well – you have to
understand which type of character you’re dealing with.

These are the different types of characters to write:

Protagonist

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 Antagonist
Secondary
Static
Foil
Stock
Dynamic/Round

Don’t be alarmed if you think this is a lot of different types of characters. After all, we all have
people in our real lives who would fill these character “types” and that’s why it’s important
for your book to include them.

Without them, you can’t go through with character development and expect a
captivating cast.

But let’s help you understand what each type of character brings to the story.

With this information, you can better understand which character development to focus on
with each of the fictional people you create.

Now that you know which type of character you’re focusing on here when writing your book,
let’s dive deeper into the character development methods you can use and exercises to help
you get it right.

#1 – Create a background for each character

Our realities are shaped by where we’ve been, where we are, and where we want to go.

That being said, the one with the most influence on our lives is where we’ve
been – our past.

The same is likely true for your character. Based on what their life was like prior to the start
of your novel, they’ll have different interests, quirks, fears, and more.

Your job is to fill out what their life has looked like up until the beginning of your book.

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 Character Development Exercise:

Fill out a character development sheet so you can understand your characters as full-fleshed
people instead of just two-dimensional beings you created. Cover these main ideas when
crafting your character’s background:

Their childhood (good, bad, poverty-stricken, spoiled, etc.)

Their parents (divorced, never married, one missing, both missing)
Their friendships
Their hobbies and interests as a kid versus now
Their motivations for feeling the way they do about any given situation
Their personality type and how it affects their actions
These are some basic elements you should understand about your character in order to
shape their personality, opinions, and actions that appropriately fit their background.

#2 – Know your characters’ strengths and weaknesses

One of the biggest means of influence over your characters will be their strengths or
weaknesses.

We, as humans, constantly face our strengths and weaknesses on a daily basis,
even in the smallest of forms.

What your characters are good at and what they’re not great at will affect how they perceive
different events, what actions they choose to take, and can affect their overall character arc
(which we’ll touch on later).

If your character’s strength is talking to strangers and gaining their trust, this might be an
asset for them throughout their journey. However, if that is your character’s
weakness and they’re forced to do so, it can cause conflict for them.

These strengths and weaknesses will shape your character arc and the plot as a whole, so
know them well before writing.

Character Development Exercise:

Create a list of 3 strengths and 3 weaknesses for your characters. Make sure these play into the
plot in order to cause conflict and gain sympathy from readers who can relate.

#3 – Create nervous ticks or habits

If you’ve paid attention to humans for long enough, you’re aware that we all have certain
habits we don’t even realize we’re doing when we’re nervous.

Me? I pick at the skin around my nails. It’s a pain (literally) and I never notice I’m
doing it until later.

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This can be a key characteristic that will make your characters feel more real and help make
them more relatable to your readers, which will make them want to give you those 5-star
reviews.

Character Development Exercise:

Make a small list for each of your characters. Write down 2 odd habits for each of them and
decide which is their go-to (the one they do without even thinking about it) and which is made
worse through nerves or anxiety.

#4 – No character can be perfect

It can be really hard to write your favorite fictional person as having flaws. After all, we want
people to love them, right?

But a “perfect” character is not lovable – they’re hateable because it’s not
realistic. These are often called Mary Sue characters.

The more you try to make your character “flawless,” the less readers can relate and therefore,
they’ll like them less. You have to build flaws into your character just like we all have
drawbacks in real like. You need to let your characters fail.

Character Development Exercise:

List 3 major flaws your character has that can actually become problems within your plot.
Think about any bad habits they have, situations they dislike, or even personality traits that
aren’t seen as “good” in order to craft these flaws in a realistic fashion.

#5 – All characters need realistic motives

No matter which character they or what they want in your story, they need to have a real and
valid reason for feeling this way.

Take He Who Shall Not Be Named from Harry Potter for example.

Voldemort (woops!) wants to kill Harry. That much we should all know – even if you’ve never
read or seen the movies. But if he was just trying to kill Harry Potter for the sake of
murdering a child, it wouldn’t’ make sense.

Yes, he’s evil, but he also has a valid reason for wanting him dead, right?

He has to kill Harry Potter because he’s the only person who was able to defeat him before –
and because the prophecy says so.

If your characters – no matter how minor they are – don’t have a motive that
makes sense, readers will be pulled out of the story and end up questioning
what’s happening, and not in a good way.

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This is largely how plot holes arise so in order to avoid them, stick to this character
development method.

Character Development Exercise:

When coming up with your antagonist’s motives, list at least 2 ways in which they’re valid. For
Voldemort, it would be the fact that Harry can kill him and that he wants to rule the wizarding
world. Your bad character has to have at least 2 strong reasons for opposing your protagonist
and they should make sense given their history.

#6 – Give each character a unique feature

This is particularly for those of you writing Game of Thrones-esque novels with a large
number of characters, but it’s important for others as well.

When writing a book, you want your readers to easily visualize and differentiate the cast. You
want each character to stand out as individuals.

A perfect way to do this is to give each person an identifiable feature.

For example, let’s use Harry Potter again because you probably know what the main
characters look like.

Harry has glasses. Hermione has buck teeth (up until she has them shortened a bit too much
– and this is only in the books for those of you about to argue), and Ron has flaming red hair.

These are very distinct features that can help you picture them as wildly different characters.

Now, you don’t have to give each and every character some crazy hair color or
style, but try not to have your entire cast look the same.

If you have a main character with brown wavy hair, have the next with blonde curly hair, etc.

Keep in mind that siblings can certainly look similar!

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 Character Development Exercise:

Create a spreadsheet or other document that lists all your characters and document their
features. If you have two characters who spend a lot of time together in your book and you see
they look similar, alter their appearance until they’re differentiable.

Take my own spreadsheet for my work in progress below as an example.

#7 – Develop a wide variety of personality types

Meaning, don’t create all of your characters to be the “dark and sarcastic” type or the “tough
guy” type.

You have to have a wide variety of personalities – just like in the real world.

You can even back up their personality with real-life psychology. As an example, I have two
characters who both have a tragic background.

However, they don’t process that trauma in the same way. One character takes on a very
withdrawn approach while the other hides his pain with humor. This gives them very
different personalities despite having similar histories.

Character Development Exercise:

Reference your character’s backstories and do a little research into possible coping mechanisms
and how that can affect their personality. Develop it from there in order to have realistic
personalities that differ.

Keep your characters feeling REAL and organized at the same time with a fully customizable
and printable character development worksheet designed to make your characters shine!

#8 – Match your character’s history with the effects of it

This is when some research will come into play, which should be required anyway. Looking
into some psychological effects of trauma can help you accurately and realistically dive into
character development.

Now, not all characters go through trauma, but there are other big life events
that can shape how they behave.

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If you have a character whose parents were very strict growing up, they may be a bit of a rebel
and lack the decision making abilities others have – mostly because they never learned how
since their parents made those choices for them.

Character Development Exercise:

Since you know your character’s backstory, do a little research into how those specific struggles
or realities can shape a person’s psyche in order to accurately and realistically craft their
behavior.

#9 – Make secondary characters foil types

This is largely to help with personality contrast within your novel. Most of the time, this will
happen naturally if you’re giving each character a unique personality but it’s great to keep in
mind anyway.

If you have secondary characters (characters who get a decent amount of page
time but are not main characters), craft their personality types to show the
opposite of the main characters’.

Why? Because you want to firstly create more diversity and secondly, create some non-plot-
specific conflict.

Character Development Exercise:

Pinpoint your secondary characters and development them in a way that makes them clash or
oppose your main characters in certain ways. Think about what could annoy your main
character the most and give your secondary characters some of those habits or personality traits.

#10 – Give each character a distinct voice

We all speak differently and that means your characters should too. Depending on where
they’re from, they could have different accents, slang, and even phrases they tend to use
regularly.

Think of a friend of yours for a minute. What are some specific phrases they use
a lot?

It’s likely you were able to think of something in just a few seconds because it’s so unique to
them and something they say a lot.

Your characters should be developed in the same way.

If you write two characters from very different areas of the world and they have the same
style of speaking, your audience will be pulled out of the story because it’s not realistic. Their
voices have to be consistent and not the same.

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 Character Development Exercise:

These tips can ensure your characters speak differently:

Choose a slang word each character likes to use

Use different wording for the same meaning like “apologies” versus “I’m sorry” or “my
bad”
Use unique sentence structures to give each character a unique speaking rhythm
Make sure your more educated characters speak like it and your less educated use simpler
words and phrases
Create phrases similar to “knee-high to a grasshopper” with unique meanings for your
characters’ specific regions
Read their dialogue out loud in the voice you image they have and make changes if
necessary
The point of giving your characters unique voices is to ensure your readers imagine them
as real people instead of two-dimensional beings living in paper.

#11 – Create a diverse cast in every way

I’ll be honest, there is a very real problem in literature when it comes to diversity.

You can debate this all you want, but coming from someone who reads many books, it’s a
very real issue that only you and other writers going forward can correct.

Your book should be just as diverse as the real world.

If you don’t have characters with varying skin, hair, or eye colors along with varying body
types, disabilities, and even mental illnesses, your characters are not diverse enough.

You do not have to write a book about these things in order for you to include them in your
novel.

For example, one of my main characters has high levels of anxiety. His storyline does not
revolve around this mental illness, but it is there, seen, and can affect his plot.

Character Development Exercise:

Look through your characters and their appearances as well as their personalities. If there isn’t
clear diversity amongst them, create it. You want to make sure you are allowing diverse readers
to feel included, heard, and represented.

#12 – Avoid stereotypes

This is really a “do not do” tip versus a “must do” tip. The reason for this is because so many
writers feel as though they need a “side character” (or even a main character) but is too lazy
to do the real work.

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Which means they create a stereotype of a specific type of person that can
oftentimes be harmful without the author even knowing.

A great way to ensure you never have offensive stereotyped characters is to use a sensitivity
reader or make sure you have a diverse group of beta readers who can speak on behalf of the
characters you’ve developed.

Watch Video At: https://youtu.be/MZZzND0SfGQ

What is a Character Arc?

A character arc is used to describe the inner and even outer journey, which can be physical,
mental, emotional, or otherwise that a character experiences throughout the duration of the
story or plot.

You thought you were done learning about character development, didn’t you?

You’re not! In addition to crafting well-rounded characters, you also have to think about
including arcs for them.

How to Create a Character Arc

But by the end of the movie, Harry has discovered he’s a wizard, learned of his prominence in
the wizarding world, and even taken on Voldemort himself (well, sort of).

This character arc is distinct in that his mental and emotional journey from start to finish is
wildly different. Harry Potter is not the same at the end as he was in the beginning – and this
remains true throughout each book in the series.

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When your character comes out at the end of the book as a transformed person
in certain senses, it’s a character arc.

Above is an example of what a character arc looks like on paper and how you can utilize plot
elements in order to further your character’s development.

Character development questions

If you’re looking for a way to further develop your characters in order to create lifelike and
realistic personalities, we have a way to help.

Here are 50 character development questions to ask:

1. What is their full name?

2. Why did their parents choose that name?
3. What are their parents like?
4. Do they have siblings?
5. What are their siblings like?
6. Were they bullied by their siblings?
7. What order are they in their family (first born, middle, etc.)?
8. What do they look like (full appearance)?
9. Do they have any quirks or nervous habits?
10. What do they do when they get mad?
11. What do they do when they’re happy?
12. Do they have close friends?
13. What are their friends like?
14. What’s their worst habit?
15. What’s their best habit?
16. What’s their biggest weakness?
17. What’s their biggest strength?
18. What is something they want to improve upon?
19. What’s something they excel in?
20. Did they go to school or an equivalent?
21. What were they like in school?
22. Do they like to learn?
23. Are they a rebel?
24. Are they an obliger (people-pleaser)?
25. Are they internally motivated?
26. Do they look to others for help in times of stress?
27. What is their stress response?
28. Do they think logically or emotionally to make decisions?
29. Are they able to make decisions clearly when emotional?
30. What are their beliefs on religion?

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31. Do they have a strong moral compass?
32. What do they value most in life (money, happiness, etc.?)
33. What is something that would trigger irrational behavior?
34. Are they introverted or extroverted?
35. Are they a troublemaker or do they play by the rules?
36. What’s something that fulfills them?
37. Do they know their life’s purpose?
38. Who’s someone causing emotional struggles in their life?
39. Who do they go to when they’re upset?
40. What type of weather do they enjoy most?
41. What are their sleeping habits like?
42. What are their eating habits like?
43. What’s something they could change about their world if they could?
44. Are they someone who speaks up for themselves?
45. Are they a passive person?
46. What are they like at their very worst?
47. What are they like at their very best?
48. What do they envision their life to be 10 years from now?
49. What do they want for their life when they’re old and gray?
50. What does the “perfect” life look like in their eyes?

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