Creating Powerful Characters for Your Character-Driven Novel or Short Story

Whether you are writing a novel, a short story, or a children’s book your story will fall flat on its face if your characters aren’t believable, strong, or engaging. One of the toughest challenges fiction writers face is developing characters that don’t seem like one-dimensional paper cut-outs.  As a writer, you want true characters not just people playing scripted roles.  But how do you create these kinds of characters? 

 

One of best ways is to give your characters quirks. This doesn’t mean that all your characters have to be absolute weirdoes, but it does mean that they need to be human in a non-superficial way. This is especially important if your novel or short story is character-driven. 

 

Take for instance two very different crime fighting characters—Sherlock Holmes and Barney Fife.  Both have what I would consider definite quirks.  Sherlock is a brilliant detective who has a habit of smoking a pipe and playing the violin while engaging in crime-solving deduction.  His obsession with solving crime keeps him from engaging in a typical life. Doyle created a character that was brilliant yet quirky, a character to remember. 

   

Then there is Barney, the big deputy of Mayberry.  The only problems: Barney is incredibly excitable, and he has delusions of being the big tough cop while coming across like the shakiest gun in the West when confronted with real trouble. What endeared Barney to viewers were his insecurities.  Both Sherlock Holmes and Barney Fife have quirks that set them apart yet make them relatable.

If you enjoy British comedy, you probably are familiar with the character Mr. Bean.  Here is a guy with quirks. Although his social ineptitude is sometimes hard to bear, it makes him the character he has become—Mr. Bean. His social ineptitude and rotten luck give us something to relate to or sympathize with (or even laugh at).  Everyone has an embarrassing moment now and then. If Mr. Bean was perfect and had no flaws, he would have no fans.  

Characters that have it all together aren’t memorable.  Readers want to know that the character has some of the same struggles they do, as well as those little quirks we hope no one notices about us.  Giving your character a quirk or two is the first step in creating a successful character-driven novel or short story.   

Two Tips for Beginning Your Character-driven Novel

Sometimes you will find yourself needing to establish the fact that your protagonist is different from the normal Joe.  So how do you do this effectively, without going into a long exposition of why this character doesn’t fit the norm?  One way is to use another character in the first scene along with the protagonist who fits what we would describe as normal.  Sir Arthur Conan Doyle did this with Doctor Watson in the Sherlock Holmes series. 

 

To illustrate, here is a passage from the first scene in “A Scandal in Bohemia” from Adventures of Sherlock Holmes:

I had seen little of Homes lately.  My marriage had drifted us away from each other.  My own complete happiness, and the home-centered interests which rise up around the man who first finds himself master of his own establishment, were sufficient to absorb all my attention; while Holmes, who loathed every form of society with his whole Bohemian soul, remained in our lodgings in Baker-street, buried among his old books, alternating from week to week between cocaine and ambition, the drowsiness of the drug, and the fierce energy of his own keen nature.  He was still, as ever, deeply attracted by the study of crime, and occupied his immense faculties and extraordinary powers of observation in following out those clues, and clearing up those mysteries, which had been abandoned as hopeless by the official police.

Here Doyle shows us Sherlock Holmes by contrasting him with Dr. Watson.  He lets the reader know upfront that Sherlock Holmes does not conform to the cultural norms of the day, as Dr. Watson apparently does.  Holmes has no desire for wife and family, but possesses an incredible passion for solving crime.

Another way you can establish that your lead character is different from the rest is by placing him or her in a situation and have that person react in an unusual way. Charles Dickens did it with Scrooge in his novel A Christmas Carol.  Dickens places him in the counting house on Christmas Eve where he gives his kind visiting nephew a bah humbug and two men collecting money for the poor a lecture on why the poor are not getting any of his money.  The following passage gives us even more insight into his rather unlikable personality.  Here we see how he reacts to a Christmas caroler and his clerk who wants Christmas day off:  

Foggier yet, and colder! Piercing, searching, biting cold. If the good Saint Dunstan had but nipped the Evil Spirit's nose with a touch of such weather as that, instead of using his familiar weapons, then indeed he would have roared to lusty purpose. The owner of one scant young nose, gnawed and mumbled by the hungry cold as bones are gnawed by dogs, stooped down at Scrooge's keyhole to regale him with a Christmas carol: but at the first sound of God bless you, merry gentleman! May nothing you dismay! Scrooge seized the ruler with such energy of action that the singer fled in terror, leaving the keyhole to the fog and even more congenial frost.

At length the hour of shutting up the counting-house arrived. With an ill-will Scrooge dismounted from his stool, and tacitly admitted the fact to the expectant clerk in the Tank, who instantly snuffed his candle out, and put on his hat.

``You'll want all day tomorrow, I suppose?'' said Scrooge.

``If quite convenient, Sir.''

``It's not convenient,'' said Scrooge, ``and it's not fair. If I was to stop half-a-crown for it, you'd think yourself ill-used, I 'll be bound?''

The clerk smiled faintly.

``And yet,'' said Scrooge, ``you don't think me ill-used, when I pay a day's wages for no work.''

The clerk observed that it was only once a year.

``A poor excuse for picking a man's pocket every twenty-fifth of December!'' said Scrooge, buttoning his great-coat to the chin. ``But I suppose you must have the whole day. Be here all the earlier next morning!''

Dickens shows us what kind of character Scrooge is by having him react to the people around him.  Through his reactions and comments we get an excellent idea of who he is.  Dickens leaves no question in the reader’s mind that Scrooge is, well, a scrooge.
  
Character-driven plots are often driven by characters that are different in some way.  So if you find yourself needing to establish this difference, either create a normal character you can contrast your protagonist with or place your character in a situation that allows his or her idiosyncrasies to shine through.