What Makes a Character Interesting?

What makes a character interesting? Think about some of the great characters in literary history: Don Quixote. Captain Ahab. Jane Eyre. Madame Defarge. Mr. Darcy. The Scarlet Pimpernel. Sherlock Holmes. Anne of Green Gables. Miss Marple. Samwise Gamgee. Harry Potter. Tyrion Lannister. You might not know all of them, but I’ll bet you know at least one. These are characters written years ago—hundreds of years ago, in some cases—who are still familiar to many readers today. Characters are the most critical element for authors to get right in a novel. If the characters are interesting enough, readers will go on the most absurd journey or visit terrifying worlds with them. But if the protagonist is a snooze, they’ll most likely put the book down and reach for a better companion for the evening. So what makes a character interesting?

What makes a character interesting? Here’s a hint: It’s more than a glossy exterior.

They Want Something—and Do Something

A content character is not going to shake things up and bring about a compelling situation. But characters who yearn, desire, lust, ache, crave—those are characters who make fascinating choices. Not every character needs an all-consuming or world-saving desire, like Captain Ahab and Samwise. Miss Marple and Sherlock Holmes want to solve mysteries (for very different reasons). Anne of Green Gables and Harry Potter are orphans who want a home. But these characters want something enough to set a story into motion. They are active.

“Active” means that the character is making choices, causing events to happen, and driving the story forward. Choices are what makes a character interesting. Sometimes, when writers begin, they imagine a fascinating setting or situation and then plop down an Everyman type of character into the situation to describe it for the reader. These Everyman characters can fall flat if they’re not invested in the story, making things happen. We don’t need a dispassionate observer—we want someone intimately involved and invested in the story, who has skin in the game, who will act instead of only narrate the actions of others.

Compelling Characters are Larger-than-Life

One phrase that writers hear often is to write a “larger-than-life” character. This advice can be confusing. Does my villain need to roast children’s bones for her to be memorable? Does my protagonist need an obsession about a white tiger that drives everything he does? Does every side character need a quirky hat and a distinctive accent? Is that what makes a character interesting?

Maybe.

Part of the fun of reading is experiencing the world through another’s eyes. Do we want to offer a worldview to our readers that is typical, bland, expected? Or do we want to sketch a character who sees the world through their own distinctive lens, whose voice permeates every sentence, who offers us a new perspective on life? Here are more questions to help construct fascinating characters.

Different stories call for different amounts of larger-than-life-ness, and not every side character has enough time on the page to be a full, fleshed-out character. Think of all the inhabitants of Hogwarts—Luna Lovegood, Hagrid, Professor Trelawny.  J.K. Rowling had seven long books to fill with characters, and she made the most of it. Very few of her characters are forgettable or boring. But not every writer makes that choice. Captain Ahab and Sherlock Holmes are so larger-than-life themselves that Ishmael and Doctor Watson can be toned down. This can be a tricky balance. But I will say that I see more writers err on the side of constructing too many bland, forgettable characters, not of being too distinctive.

Sometimes the hats and accents need rationing out, however.

Plot is what makes a character interesting

The last, and perhaps most crucial, element in what makes a character interesting is how entwined they are personally with the plot. The best characters are the only ones who can save the day, accomplish the goal, solve the crime. We love Miss Marple because she unravels mysteries that stump the police through her own quiet observations as a single, elderly woman who is often overlooked but is a great student of human nature. We love Mr. Darcy because his snotty arrogance is challenged by Elizabeth Bennett. Would we cheer so loudly for him falling in love with the woman he despised at first if he were a polite, well-mannered gentleman who immediately saw her virtues? No way! We love the Scarlet Pimpernel because he risks his own privileged position to save lives during the French Revolution—and with such flair. Linda Howard said, “If your hero’s a firefighter, your heroine had better be an arsonist.” This applies to all genres, not just romance. Our protagonists must be the only one—in spite of, and because of, their own quirks and challenges and dreams—whose actions bring the plot to a satisfying resolution.

Each of these active, larger-than-life characters drives the story onward because of who they are, the choices they make, and how they act over the course of the narrative. Building unique situations and tailoring a plot to push our specific protagonists to their breaking point can be hard work—but the result will be characters that the reader keeps thinking about long after a book ends. And that’s what makes a character interesting.

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