If you are a fiction writer and have often found yourself in a hole when it comes to developing interesting characters for your fiction book, you are not alone!

A book’s characters are the honey that draw the bees to your book! To put it another way, without interesting characters, your book could become a drab, grey experience that does not excite you as the writer – and certainly will not excite your readers. Readers who are unexcited about the writing would likely not complete reading the book – and this may color their perception of future books that you write.

While this is unfortunate, it is the reason why you want to create some fun, amazing characters that will make your readers keep turning the pages of the book all the way to the end.

How can you develop amazing characters for you book? The best way to do so is to make your characters as human as possible with relatable emotions, challenges and stories to the audience that will be reading about them! Let me expound on this in a few steps.

Develop a Human Being!

This is the simplest way of putting it – Your character has to be a relatable human to the reader! It is oaky if you are writing a book about a super hero. Maybe your hero is a Superman look-alike, or someone who is pretty hero-like so that their strength makes it seem as if they are superhuman. While it is okay to have such characters, you may also want to incorporate some human emotions into their psyche! The reader cannot relate to a person who does not have feelings like the person who is reading the book!

What Emotions Are Your Characters Known For?

As you identify your characters as humans with certain emotions, you want to be specific about what those are. Is Character A someone who is often sad? Angry? Maybe by the end of the book, they would have a character arc that would have developed them into a better person. However, the journey of their getting there is going to be part of their story that will pull the reader in.

What is The Character’s Back Story?

Everyone has a past. So should your character! You want the reader to meet someone who has had some back story, some events that molded them into who they have become by the time the book picked up their story. This will enable your reader to see how the back story will relate to the present or the future. It gives the book a more concrete feel and “believe-ability.”

What is the Challenge?

This is more related to the plot of the book. What is the challenge that your character is experiencing in this book? The challenge will be interwoven with the emotions and the backstory that you have already developed for them.

These steps will give you a well-developed, rich story that has a three-dimensional person which your reader can relate to!

Follow these steps , and develop your next really amazing characters and stories.