Creating believable characters

This one’s pretty easy, actually.

It’s all about depth and layers. What is it that makes you who you are? You’re not one-dimensional, and neither am I. Don’t write your characters like that.

We all have preferences, fears, hobbies, goals, insecurities, and weird little quirks. It’s your job as an author to make every character feel real.

I once heard a quote, can’t remember where, but it stuck with me:

“Every character needs to think the story is about them.”

These secondary characters exist to support your protagonist, sure, but they also need to feel like they’re living their own lives off-page. The dynamic between your hero and even the most disposable character helps make the world feel real. We all have people who irritate us, inspire us, humor us, or intimidate us. We’re social creatures, and your story shouldn’t be any different.

Your protagonist.

You need to know them inside and out. Spend an entire day just writing details about them. What’s their favorite color? What are they likely to order at a diner? How would they react in different scenarios?

Unless it’s important for the reader to know your hero’s favorite color, that detail doesn’t belong in the book. But you, the author, need to know it.

Understanding your protagonist on a deep, personal level helps maintain consistency, especially when building tension. You want their breaking point to feel natural.

Secondary/Supporting characters.

The character’s friends, family, co-workers, etc. The other people in the story, basically. The amount of tropes you can use with secondary characters is endless. They can help support your hero, work against them, hold them back, reveal crucial information. Again, endless possibilities. They are still crucial for building a believable story.

Let’s use the classic, ‘old wise man,’ trope. In this example, we’ll say the main character and his sidekick are having a clandestine conversation at a dimly lit, grimy diner. A couple feet away sits an old man, alone at the bar rail. Back turned, sipping coffee, pretending not to listen.
Suddenly the old man turns and finishes the sentence the sidekick was saying. The hero and the sidekick gasp, “how do you know that, old man? Who are you?”
The old man lets out a small laugh, takes a swig of coffee, and shakes his head with a smile. “You boys don’t know what you’re up against…”

You know the story.

The old wise man suddenly becomes a crucial player in the story, giving the hero the last bit of information he needs to defeat the villain. He has a sad backstory, a cute little quirk that makes him lovable. And then you fucking kill him.

The death of the old wise man is one of the best ways to shock your audience and make sure they’re on your side. Now the hero, who’s already armed with sacred knowledge, is enraged and unbeatable.

I could do a whole blog on the old wise man trope. It’s a classic for a reason. But, it only works if you make him believable. If that small diner scene was the only time we heard from the old wise man, no one would give a fuck that the bad guy killed him. He became a crucial part of the story, and his death is tragic. How do you make his death so powerful?
Simple - make him so loveable that he nearly hijacks the story. His death crushes the hero and propels the necessary transformation.

Foil characters.

They exist to contrast your hero. That’s it. But don’t treat them as throwaways. Foil characters highlight traits in your protagonist the way shadows give shape to light. They can be rivals, opposites, or even allies who see the world completely differently.

It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia does this brilliantly. They use the “straight man” trope to highlight how ridiculous the main characters are. Simply by being the rational, normal person in the scene, it reveals how absurd the scenario is. You can use the straight man to show just how unhinged your character is.

There are multiple ways to use foil characters, but the straight man is probably my favorite.

It’s all about contrast. The yin to the yang. Good cop, bad cop. One character is a hardened, no-nonsense type, while the other is comedic relief. People know not to fuck with the comic relief because his counterpart will crush you. The flip side: people learn to tolerate the hard-ass because they love the comic relief so much.

But why is the hardened badass relatable? Why should anyone care about him? After all, he’s a jerk. But why is he a jerk? What happened to make him that way? Do we ever see glimpses of him loosening up, letting his guard down?

And the comic relief…everyone loves comedy. But you can make him more relatable by showing his flaws. Deep down, maybe he’s incredibly insecure and desperately needs everyone’s approval. That’s why he’s constantly making jokes.

You know, something like that. Just highlight their flaws to make them believable.

Villain / Antagonist

The fucking bad guy. The pissed off, evil monster who just wants to shit all over the hero. If done correctly, the villain will steal the show and make the audience wonder if he was right all along.

That doesn’t happen by making your villain purely evil.

That never works and it’s lazy writing.

What’s his motive for being evil? How does he justify what he’s doing? Is it just for pleasure? Well, that’s pretty one-dimensional and boring. It doesn’t matter how gruesome he is, how many people he slaughters—if there isn’t a good reason behind it, no one will care.

The fastest way to ruin your story is to go overkill with your villain. Gore won’t make up for lack of motive or backstory. Explain why he wants to kill everyone. If you can’t think of a good motive, you need to go back to the drawing board and ask: Why would someone want to stand in the hero’s way?

Being completely evil is the mirror reflection of perfection, just in the opposite direction. People don’t like perfect characters, and they don’t like purely evil ones either.

What makes a great villain is understanding where he’s coming from. Giving him a compelling personality is a major bonus.

“The child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth.”

That line says it all.

It doesn’t matter what kind of story you’re telling—your antagonist needs to be somewhat likable, or at least understandable, with a backstory that makes sense.

Closing Notes

Give your characters flaws and inner conflict. Give them personalities, a realistic backstory, and an arc. We need to see them change - improve, or in a tragedy, worsen - over the course of the story.

Get familiar with motifs and use them. They’re brilliant for subtext and symbolism, but you can also tie them to characters. These small subtleties are what make your characters jump off the page and bring your story to life.

Be careful when writing about schmucks and losers. You can lean so far into their flaws that they become unlikable. They still need some joy - something that pulls them through their horrible disposition. Maybe it’s a fantasy, and the real story takes place in their daydreams. Maybe it’s visiting grandma, where they finally feel safe. Something.

No one wants to read about a hopeless loser with no redeeming qualities, never getting a break from the grief.
For fuck’s sake, go to a nihilist open mic if you want to talk about that shit! The rest of us don’t want to be bummed out from start to finish.

Honestly, I’d argue that’s another inverted version of “perfection.”

If you get nothing else out of this extremely long rant, it should be this:

People aren’t one-dimensional. Your characters shouldn’t be either.