Making Memorable Characters

What’s this I hear about you wanting to make a memorable character? What have you got? Wait…wait did you say…a cynic who actually has a heart of gold? The books will literally fly off the shelves into people’s hands at that point. You also have a brooding bad boy; why are you only just now telling me this? Put him there next to all the others. 

Cut.

Print.

Bestseller.

Enjoy the limelight, there’s a cocktail party at my house later.

It’s unfortunate that we live in the literary apocalyptic wasteland that is 2014, where just about every character archetype has been done to death and has faded into cliché. It forces up and coming writers to ravage the carcasses of other characters just to make their own, stitch two together and call it a new one. Think of it like Mad Max, except everyone’s a more financially successful writer than you are.

There he is kids. The sweaty, bloodstained author of The Maze Runner. Don't look it up; just take my word for it.

                                    

                              

Everyone wants their characters to have impact. On a smaller scale, we want them to mean something to somebody. We want our audience to laugh when they laugh, to cry when they cry or for the very least, feel for them as they do so. On a much larger scale, we want them to be remembered. We want what they say and what they do to transcend generations. We want to put pen to paper and scribe the next Tyler Durden but we live in world where we try so hard to be original that we forget all about the execution. You are Jack’s conscientious use of recycling.

Sorry to say, that we can’t make the next new character because they’ve been updated and reused time and time again. Instead of conveying originality to your readers, you should be convincing them that the people they’re reading about have a beating heart. Your character needs to know joy, they know to sadness, defeat, envy, hatred, loss. This is less about making something new and more about making something believable.

Put your brooding bad boy under the spotlight. What scares him? Who does he love? What does he love? Go shopping for your character: what does he wear? Where does he shop? Put him in situations:

• A job interview.

• A first kiss.

Make him succeed, make him fail. Each response will resonate as your own, these simple quirks and traits that make your character real and believable. Rinse and repeat with your cast, of course you’ll go into more depth depending on their significance to the plot- so what you do with each will vary. A different take on something familiar allows you as a writer to make the best of what you know. It convinces your audience that there’s still millions of ways to breathe life into something that’s been done time and time again. It’s not about making your character compete with greats, it’s about making them your own.