How to Develop Characters. Create a memorable hero/worthy villain

If you’re going to have a story, have a big story, or none at all, Joseph Campbell.

The most interesting plot and structure, filled with ups and downs, twists and turns, won’t matter much to readers unless your characters are believable, relatable, and memorable. Memorable characters have motivations, backstories, and goals, face great obstacles and challenges, and strive to overcome their past wounds, inner conflicts, and external obstacles.  

How to write a compelling character arc

A character arc is an essential part of writing a fully-fledged character. It is the evolution, change, or transformation a character undergoes through a story. They involve internal, personal change and make our characters relatable, interesting, and meaningful. Characters have goals and carry past wounds that prevent them from experiencing joy and happiness.

Shocking and traumatic wounds are often kept secret and haunt our characters (that’s why they are also called ghosts) because embedded within them is a lie. This is a deeply-rooted misconception or untruth that the character believes about himself or the world that keeps them from reaching their true potencial, destiny, or happiness.

There are three main types:

• Positive Change Arc. The plot’s events push the character to acknowledge the lie, overcome external obstacles, their flaws, shortcomings, dark areas, and inner conflicts, and grow, they become a better person. They are typically built using story structures, such as the Hero’s Journey. In A Christmas Charol, Scrooge starts out as a rich old miser consumed by greed, he is forced to confront the truth (money cannot buy happiness), and becomes a benevolent and charitable person.  
• Negative Change Arc. It is the opposite, a good or benevolent character makes bad decisions and moves to the dark side. They are disillusioned by the truth and sometimes, they embrace their lies completely. In Breaking Bad, Walter starts out as a chemistry teacher with a pregnant wife and a disabled son, and finds out he has terminal cancer. By the end, Walter has betrayed his values and principles. He becomes a drug dealer and a full-fledged anti-hero.
• Flat or static character arc, e.g., Indiana Jones, James Bond, Sherlock Holmes, or Wonder Woman. Events around them change while they remain the same, stable, consistent, and committed. They don’t change their values, principles, or ideas, but maintain a calm, powerful, selfless, and cool character regardless of the danger and situation in which they find themselves.

  Flat character arc tend to be stereotyped, one-dimensional characters.

How to create a memorable hero?

1. Introduce him/her very early in the story.
2. Make them memorable by giving your readers a hint of what they look like and their inner lives (secrets, passion, fears, values, purpose) through dialogue and action.
3. Give him or her a backstory, explore what has made your character into the person they are.
4. Do not make him or her perfect, a hero should be human, vulnerable, and have flaws.
5. However, they should also have the potential to be heroic.
6. Heroes need to be authentic, believable, complex, and all-rounded, like we all are. We are sometimes unpredictable. Besides, we also evolve and learn from our past mistakes.
7. Show (do not tell) your hero’s personality, qualities, attitudes, values, and inner conflict, amidst the external conflict and plot, in your scenes and dialogues.

How to write a worthy villain

1. There are many one-dimensional villains we just love to hate, e.g., Dolores Umbridge and Bellatrix Lestrange (Harry Potter), The Terminator (Terminator), Darth Vader (Star Wars), Cruella De Vil (101 Dalmatians), Scar (The Lion King), The Joker (Batman), etc. However, a one-dimensional villain, a disgusting human being who does bad things because he is just the reincarnation of pure evil is generally not realistic, nor believable.
2. A worthy antagonist must have a realistic and sympathetic backstory so he is believable and even occasionally kind, attractive, virtuous, and likeable, at least in some ways.
3. Therefore, they should be genuinely relatable and sometimes likeable, a genuine human being with realistic reasons and strong motivations (fear, curiosity, power, justice, revenge).
4. They believe their actions are justified, i.e., they are convinced they are the good guys or their actions fall into the morally grey category where everything is relative, there is no absolute, and the ends justify the means.
5. Besides, he will stop at nothing to get what he wants or deserves. He is strong, powerful, and committed to fullfil his destiny or purpose. He forces the hero to make difficult decisions, to face their main flaws, fears, self-doubts, and inner conflicts that hold them back, to rise to the challenge, fight harder, and never ever let down their guards.
6. Finally, do not forget that he is still a villain, so he is proud, arrogant, deceitful, persuasive, manipulative, jealous, vengeful, and merciless.

How to Create Characters in Scrivener

There is a Character folder in your Binder to add character profiles to your project or novel. In most of the Scrivener’s built-in project templates, there is also a Template Sheets or just Templates folder in the Binder containing documents that have a small T icon affixed to them.

Any document you place in those folders will be categorized as a template, so when you create a new document (Add, New From Template…), you will be able to select a document from the template’s folder, then procede to create your character’s profile using this template.  

If your project does not include a Templates folder, create a new one or select the desired folder, then go to Project, Set Selection as Templates Folder or Project, Project Settings, Special Folders and select it from the Templates Folder dropdown menu. The icon of the folder will change and the documents in that folder will get the small T that marks them as document templates.

The character template has basic information you can fill out about your characters. Besides, you can edit your character template and personalize it to your heart’s contempt and needs.

Futhermore, you can drag and drop an image over to the synopsis card. When you are in Corkboard mode with your Characters folder selected in your Binder, you will be able to see your characters’ pictures.

One of the fun and cool features of Scrivener is its Name generator. It is accessed by going to Edit, Writing Tools or Tools, Writing Tools, then Name Generator. A free alternative is Fake Name Generator. It creates fake identities; it is perfect for filling online forms or writing a fiction character.