How to Define Characters in a Story

The characters are what define your short story, so they should be made to be as alive as possible. In other words, they should be very real in their own fictional world, but also draw the attention of readers in our world. Here is how to define your characters.

Instructions

1. Avoid names and physical descriptions at first. This will help you to avoid any preconceived ideas about names and types of bodies. Characters demand substance and not just surface. Get to know your character intimately from the inside.

2. 

   Each story character must have purpose and dramatic needs. Give him or her a specific problem or goal to solve. It is the character's individual compulsion or motivation to solve his problem or attain a goal that will build the story's action.

3. Do not forget to introduce the thing or person that the character fears the most. This antagonist will try to stop the character from achieving her goal or solving her overall problem.

4. Make your characters as lifelike and as human as possible. Model your fictional people after those who occupy the real world. Give them strengths and weaknesses that mirror others. Also, give them their own voice through your mind and imagination. They are the ones who tell the story compellingly to the reader.

Tips & Warnings

• Characters should be fashioned in such a way that the reading audience is able to identify with a particular character and his goal.

• Characters need to be introduced to readers in such a way that it allows readers time to get to know said character and his problem personally.

• The actions that characters perform throughout a story should also propel the story's action.

• .Characters do not just need definition. They also need explanation.

• Characters should not be designed from cardboard. They need to have feelings and express their emotions, as their human counterparts do.

• Characters must have a dramatic purpose and purpose for being dramatic. Their presence in a story must contribute to the plot. If they do not contribute to the story in any way that is significant then they do not belong in the story.

Resources

• Fictionwriting.about.com
• Fictionfactor.com
• Storyispromise.com