How do you write strong fictional characters?

Write about them in such a way that you find yourself caring for them.

You have to care about them. They have to be real to you, as real as people who you know in reality.

Not only do you have to care for them, but you have to believe them to be real. You need to get deep inside the why’s and the what’s of the characters past, present and future. You need total insight and unlimited access to the characters mind. You need to get to KNOW them.

Although, never ever write what they think. Just write what they say and do, but with enough explicitness that the reader can infer what they are thinking. Makes em alot more alive as the reader puts his own thoughts into the characters.

If you observe real people living their lives, you notice details them that can be incorporated into creating fictional characters. Focus on what happens in the space people occupy.

Read this book “Sol Stein on Writing – A Master Editor of Some of the Most Successful Writers of Our Century Shares His Craft Techniques and Strategies”

do a thoroughgoing analysis of what the characters want, fear, what they know about themselves, don’t know about themselves, what makes them angry, what relationships and values matter most of them, what they do and do not understand. I would point you to an excellent PDF on this though since I forget the author, I wouldn’t know how to find it. visualize the most extreme situations and mentally put them through it and see in your mind’s eye how they would react to those circumstances.

most importantly, draw deeply from yourself, though you should make the character sufficiently different from yourself that they differ from each other. (if they all act, think and feel alike, that would make for a dull book.)

lastly, don’t hesitate to replace a more dull foreground character with a fascinating background character.

I build them up by writing in first person, which allows the reader a look inside the characters head. While first person is not the best POV to write, it worked for Anne Rice and H.P. Lovecraft, both of which are awesome authors.

Like a few people have said, making your characters “alive” is crucial. When I create characters, I spend a long time developing them. It has gotten to the point where I can ramble off the entire life story of my 4 major characters.

One thing that I find to be helpful is going through your daily life and occasionally wondering, “What would my character be thinking in this situation? How would they react?” That makes it easier for you to get to know your own character and make them more convincing.

Another thing that might sound pretty nerdy but is also extremely helpful: roleplaying. Similar to what I said previously, roleplaying is a great way to see how your character acts and thinks in their life. My strongest characters developed the most due to a role-playing game that I played with my friend almost every night for about 4 years. That might be a little excessive (I was an anti-social high schooler at the time), but throughout the role-play my characters were faced with myriad situations that they dealt with in various ways, creating strong, believable personalities.

It’s easiest to do the role-playing thing if you’re doing a character from a fantasy novel, but you might be able to find ones for more realistic situations. Believe me, it helps immensely.

@Psychedelic_Zebra: first or third person could either work, depending on the story you want to tell.

@ParaParaYukiko: it does help immensely. the genre doesn’t even matter. it comes down to learning to improvise while at the same time thinking, speaking and acting as a person unlike yourself. given that, the character should have social and moral choices to make, not just how to defeat the giant viper.

@Ria777 Agreed, defeating a giant viper isn’t exactly what I’d call character development, haha. My role play game was pretty much a giant soap opera: my characters had to deal with relationship issues, sexuality, death, children, religion… and the occasional zombie.

I do remember creating a character that was so life like that I cried real tears (okay, I sobbed like a baby) when I got to the point where I had to kill him off, in order to maintain the story line.

oh, I’ve cried over my fiction. I almost think that if your fiction doesn’t mean that much to you that you shouldn’t write it.

give them flaws

Be very specific in your description, and give them quirky details.
(Observing people in real life is really helpful)
Put your character in situations where the stakes are really high for them.

This might already be well known and maybe not even worth mentioning, but interesting characters are never all-positive, or all-negative. They’re more complicated than that.

@Kraigmo any writer worth his salt loves his villians best.

I write like I know the reactions of my characters, like we are such good friends that we finish each others thoughts. Lots of dialogue and describing their body language is key for me. Also, pick up On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King.