Do you want to learn how to create characters so rich and complex that they feel like real people to your readers? Do you want them to stay hooked, flipping pages late into the night, just to find out what happens to each and every one of your characters? In this post, I'll guide you through everything you need to craft deep, layered characters that your readers won't be able to resist!

Before diving into the how-tos, let’s talk about why it’s so important to have complex characters in your novel. Unless you’re writing fairy tales, you don’t want your characters to be purely good or purely evil. That approach often feels flat. Instead, aim for morally gray characters—those who live in the middle ground. Readers love peeling back the layers of a character, slowly discovering the traits, flaws, and motivations that make them real.

This depth is at the heart of every great book, movie, or TV show that makes a lasting impression. What they all have in common are incredible, layered, and irresistible characters. And today, I’m going to show you how to bring this into your own writing.

Here are 3 Common Mistakes to Avoid:

1. Flat Characters: Characters who lack depth or complexity tend to be forgettable.

2. Stereotypical Characters: Avoid leaning on clichés or making your characters feel too predictable.

3. Plot-Driven Characters: Don’t make them exist just to move the plot forward. Characters should feel like they have lives and desires outside of the story's events. 

Instead, your goal is to create characters who feel like real people—individuals your readers genuinely want to know. Readers should understand what makes them tick, be curious about their backstory, and yearn to discover more.

By crafting this intimate connection between your characters and your readers, you create a story that doesn’t just entertain but deeply resonates. That’s how you turn casual readers into devoted fans and truly bring your story—and your characters—to life.

Internal Conflict

Let’s dive into something that everyone loves and is super familiar with—internal conflict! Am I right? Seriously, though, if you haven’t heard of internal conflict, where have you been? It’s all the rage in the writing community. Without it, you don’t really have a character, and more importantly, you don’t have a story. Internal conflict is essential. It’s the core reason we connect with a story as readers.

Internal conflict is the driving force behind every single character's journey. It's not just important; it's the reason your character exists. You’ve probably heard plenty of writing coaches and YouTubers go on about this, but it’s worth repeating because of how crucial it is to your story. So, let’s break it down.

Internal conflict isn’t hard to understand. It’s giving your character a flaw, a struggle, or a past issue they’re carrying with them. Your story is where they’ll work through it, and ideally, overcome it. In simple terms, internal conflict is the character’s journey. It’s the whole reason your story matters—because your protagonist, hero, or main character has something they need to conquer.

This struggle or flaw is something they’ve been dealing with long before we even meet them in the story, and your novel is the moment where they face it.

Finding your character's internal conflict is easy. Just think about what burdens them at the start of the story and how they’ll work through it by the end. But to really get this right, you need to ask yourself three important questions:

• What is the character’s struggle?
• Where does this struggle come from? (This is where you dive into their backstory a little.)
• How will they overcome it (or not) by the end of the story?

And here’s the kicker—you can’t skip this! Internal conflict is the foundation of your character. It’s not optional. Without it, your character has no purpose, and your story has no reason to exist. This is the most crucial aspect of any well-developed character. If your character doesn’t have internal conflict, you’re missing the emotional heart of your story.

Backstory

As the author, one of the most important things you need to know is who your character was before the story begins. Your character should feel like they had a life before page one, and you, as the writer, need to understand that. This is crucial, especially when it comes to developing their internal conflict.

Remember the question we asked earlier: Where does their struggle come from? You need to know this backstory inside and out. But here’s the thing—while backstory is important, you don’t need to map out every single detail of your character’s life. I’ve seen many new writers get caught up in this, creating exhaustive histories for their characters that go all the way back to childhood, including every crush and pet they’ve ever had.

The truth is, you don’t need to know everything about your character’s past. What you do need to know are the key events that shaped who they are at the start of your story. These are the moments that influenced their personality, behavior, and—most importantly—their internal conflict. Focus on what matters.

What Really Matters in Backstory?

The most important thing to uncover in your character’s backstory is this: What happened to them that made them the way they are now? While many events in their past might be interesting, not all of them are relevant to the internal conflict driving your story. The key is to identify the moments that have a direct impact on how they act and think when we first meet them.

By figuring this out, you avoid the trap of creating a character who exists only to serve your plot. Characters with weak backstories often feel like they’re being dragged along by the events of the story, instead of being active participants in it. That’s a red flag for flat, one-dimensional characters. When characters exist solely for the purpose of advancing the plot, you lose the opportunity to give them agency and make them feel real.

Why Your Character's Agency Matters

Characters with agency have their own motivations and desires, which shape their actions in the story. They make choices, and those choices influence the plot—not the other way around. If you want to create complex, relatable characters, this sense of agency is key. It gives them depth and makes your readers care about their journey.

So, in short, knowing your character’s past is essential—but only the parts that shape their internal conflict and the way they interact with the world at the start of your novel. This is where their emotional core comes from, and without it, your character risks feeling like a pawn of the plot rather than the heart of the story.

Character Leading Plot

A complex character should never fall victim to the plot. One of the most important things to remember as a writer is that your characters should guide the story, not the other way around. Your job is to recognize when a character doesn’t want to follow the plot you’ve laid out for them—and that’s okay! In fact, it’s essential to creating authentic characters and stories.

I had a personal experience with this in my current project, Statue of a Woman. Some of you may already know about it from my writing Instagram, @writingbychar (feel free to check it out if you want to follow my writing journey!). But back to the story: I had planned for one of my characters, Jamie, to be a supportive figure for my protagonist, Liv, a 12-year-old girl. Jamie, an adult groundskeeper, was supposed to be the one person who truly understood Liv, offering her comfort and support. That’s how I had outlined the plot.

But when I started writing, something interesting happened. I reached a chapter, around a third of the way into the book, and Liv simply refused to connect with Jamie the way I had planned. She didn’t like him—at all. I was trying to write her as being open and receptive to his support, but she wasn’t having it. Every time I tried to steer the story toward a bond between them, Liv resisted.

So, what did I do? I stepped back and listened to Liv. I realized I needed to let her guide this part of the story. Instead of forcing a connection, I allowed her to feel uneasy around Jamie. I let her express her discomfort and reluctance, and I wrote from that emotional place. By the end of the chapter, I understood where her feelings were coming from—and it completely shifted the dynamic I had originally planned.

In that moment, Liv’s internal conflict revealed itself to me in a way I hadn’t anticipated. It wasn’t just that she didn’t like Jamie; she was jealous of him. This discovery opened up new layers to the story and showed me a path I hadn’t even considered. It was a revelation about the direction my project needed to take—and it only happened because I let the character lead the plot.

Why Letting Characters Lead Works

This was a huge lesson for me: even though I had outlined a plot, my character knew better. The story became more authentic and emotionally rich because I let Liv act and react in a way that was true to her character, rather than what the plot demanded.

As writers, we can’t predict every turn our characters will take. Plotting can only get us so far, and while it’s a useful tool, it’s important to leave room for your characters to breathe and evolve. Once you’re deep in a character’s headspace, you’ll see the story more clearly from their perspective than from a distant, structured outline.

Balance

One more essential element when crafting complex characters is balance—specifically, the balance between their virtues and flaws. You've probably heard plenty of advice about adding flaws to make your characters more relatable, and that’s absolutely true. However, many writers forget a crucial part of this: balancing those flaws with positive traits. Without balance, characters can become too flawed or too perfect, and either extreme can disconnect readers from the story.

Avoid Overly Flawed Characters

Yes, we all know that perfect characters are boring, but a character that’s too flawed can also be off-putting. If a character is nothing but flaws and struggles, readers can get overwhelmed, and instead of rooting for the character, they might feel frustrated or disconnected. You don't want readers to lose sympathy for your character because they seem irredeemable or unrelatable.

It’s also important to remember that overly flawed characters can make the overall tone of your story heavy or depressing. If that’s what you’re aiming for, great! But if you want a more balanced or hopeful tone, it’s essential to ease up on the flaws and give your readers something good to latch onto.

Beware of "Too Perfect" Characters

On the other end of the spectrum, you also want to avoid creating characters that are too perfect. Perfection makes characters flat and uninteresting. Think about it: if a character can do everything perfectly, where’s the tension? Where’s the growth? Readers won’t stay engaged if the protagonist never faces any real struggles or insecurities.

It’s equally important to show, not tell. If you claim a character has flaws or insecurities but never actually show them wrestling with these issues, readers won’t buy into the struggle. Likewise, if you tell us they have certain virtues but never give us a moment to see those traits in action, they won’t feel real. A character’s actions are far more powerful than simply describing who they are.

Avoid "Blank Page" Characters

Another common pitfall is creating blank page characters—characters that feel like empty vessels with little personality, written in a way that allows the reader to project themselves onto them. While you might think this will make a character more relatable, it usually has the opposite effect. Readers will feel like the character isn’t fully formed, making them less engaging.

These types of characters often emerge when writers don’t give enough thought to who their character truly is. Instead of being specific and intentional with their personality, they leave them as blank slates. While the intention might be to make the character more universally relatable, the result is often a character that feels hollow and unmemorable.

How to Achieve the Perfect Balance

So, how do you find the sweet spot between flaws and virtues, creating a character who is neither overwhelming nor too perfect? My advice is to give your character one major flaw—the one that drives their internal conflict—and sprinkle in a few minor flaws to round them out. These minor flaws should add depth but not dominate the story.

Once you’ve established your character’s main flaw, you need to balance it with virtues. Virtues are what make readers root for your character, so they’re crucial. These aren’t just qualities you mention in passing—like “they’re a great friend” or “they do charity work”—you need to show those traits in action. If your character is truly kind or generous, give us scenes that demonstrate those traits. If they’re a loyal friend, let us see them being that loyal friend.

Show, Don't Tell

To make a character feel real and relatable, it’s important to show readers their positive and negative sides in action. Don’t just tell us about their flaws or virtues—give us moments that make us feel their struggles and strengths. It’s this balance of light and dark, of strength and vulnerability, that makes characters truly compelling and memorable.

Summary

Creating compelling characters involves balancing their virtues and flaws to make them feel real and relatable. Overly flawed characters can overwhelm readers, while characters that are too perfect feel flat and uninteresting. To strike the right balance, focus on giving your character one major flaw that drives their internal conflict, along with a few minor imperfections to add depth. At the same time, ensure their virtues are clearly shown in action, as these positive traits are what help readers root for them.

Internal conflict is the heart of a character’s journey. It's essential for shaping their motivations and growth throughout the story. Understanding your character’s past, particularly the events that shaped their internal struggle, is crucial. This not only provides depth but also prevents your characters from existing solely to serve the plot, giving them agency and authenticity.

Ultimately, crafting great characters is about finding the right mix of flaws, virtues, and internal struggles. By showing both their strengths and weaknesses in action, you create characters that readers will connect with on a deeper level, making your story unforgettable.

Char Anna

Char is the author of the writing guide ‘Finish Your First Novel’ and the founder of The Plottery. She’s been in the biz since 2021, and holds a BA in Film & Screenwriting as well as an MA in Creative Writing from Edinburgh Napier University.

Char resides in rainy Scotland with her pup Lavender (who is anything but calm, contrary to what her name suggests), and she writes darker fiction that focuses on unusual family dynamics and lots of queerness.