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As humans, we’re always telling stories.
We tell stories to understand our world, make sense of our lives, and accept the challenges that life brings.
Often, we do this by making up events and people: the technical term for a made-up story is fiction.
In fiction, we use made-up people or animals as vehicles for the stories we’re telling. These are fictional characters.
But why do we love to spend time with invented characters, and why are they so important in our stories? And how do we, as writers, go about creating characters?
In this article, author and writing coach Alice Kuipers defines what we mean by ‘fictional character,’ offers examples of famous characters, and demonstrates exactly how to create your own fictional characters, including the protagonist and the supporting cast.
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Fictional characters: what they are, why they’re important, and how to write them
Why are made-up characters so important to readers?
Psychologist Maja Djikic says:
When we read fiction, we are asked to temporarily exit our identities and mentally step into different ones.
—Maja Djikic
This means that, for writers, learning how to create characters is vital when it comes to populating our novels and short stories, helping readers bring the events and plot to imaginative life. Readers love to have someone or some creature in their minds to experience the story alongside—we dive into a novel wanting to step into the lives of other human beings.
As bestselling writer Jason Reynolds explains:
Stories are baked in empathy machines.
—Jason Reynolds
We connect with and empathize with the made-up people and animals in stories we love, experiencing the story as they do, feeling their feelings, perhaps crying when they cry, or urging them to hide from something frightening in the story. We peep up from the pages of the novel we’re reading, our hearts beating faster.
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This experience of empathizing with others gives us clues about how other people might live, helping us to understand and relate to different ways of being in the world.
Psychologist Maja Djikic continues:
The invitation to put aside our identities and enter a space where we can simulate different ways of being can already be transformational. Then, by exploring other minds, we are given the opportunity to practice experiencing different emotions, thoughts, and behaviors than what we otherwise live. When you find yourself re-engaging with the story and characters after you have finished reading a book, that’s when growth happens.
—Maja Djikic
So, now that we understand why fictional characters are so transformational for readers, learning how to write characters who feel real enough for a reader to make this transformational leap is vital for writers.
Learning how to write fictional characters gives our stories the hook that will pull in a reader because, ideally, readers have strong feelings about the characters we’ve created. But first, let’s pause to learn what fictional characters are not.
What are fictional characters not?
Real people aren’t fictional characters. Usually, when we read about people who exist in reality (or who have existed), we’re reading either memoir or autobiography. Not a novel.
One genre of writing where this isn’t the case is historical fiction (which we’ll explore shortly). First, let’s check that we’re working with fictional characters and not writing an autobiography or a memoir.
Autobiography
An autobiography spans an entire life. While some great autobiographies have been written by the author, like Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave by Frederick Douglass (1845), many are written by someone else, often after the subject’s death.
Autobiographies often feature famous people or people who have lived through extraordinary times. Sometimes, they’re ghostwritten, which means that someone else writes the book but doesn’t have their name on the cover.
In an autobiography, a reader would expect to learn about the events of a full life—birth, education, key relationships, work and achievements, etc.
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Memoir
A great memoir shares an intimate portion of the author’s life with a reader, illuminating a truth.
This means that a memoir does not cover an entire life, nor all the adventures within, but only a period of someone’s life. This can be a relief to a potentially brilliant memoir writer, taking away the worry that they’re supposed to write about everything that’s ever happened to them. (This is what is expected in an autobiography but not in a memoir.)
The expectation of a memoir reader is that the memoir covers a period of time or an aspect of the author’s experiences, illuminating something about life. Sadé Omeje, one of our editors here at The Novelry, explains:
Memoir is a first-person account of your own story, and emotional truth is often the basis for this genre. There are many types of memoir, such as confessional, transformational, travel, profession-based (i.e., life as a treasure-hunter), celebrity, grief, illness, etc.
—Sadé Omeje
Non-fiction vs fiction
As we noted above, all the characters in these forms of books really existed or are still alive now because autobiographies and memoirs are rooted in facts and true experiences. One term for these books is non-fiction, and it’s a wonderful place for writers to explore.
When we’re writing fictional characters, we’re writing novels or short stories (or screenplays for a fictional movie or stage play!).
These forms of writing give us permission to make up the story and the characters inside.
Examples of fictional characters
It’s useful to think of examples of characters we love or fear personally before we start creating our own.
To help you, we’ve created a few lists of good examples of main characters we’ve grown to adore—or abhor. As you look through these lists, you can ask yourself why you loved these characters (or hated them!). This will give you clues as a writer about the type of characters you might want to write.
Another question to ask yourself is: which of these fictional characters have come to feel like they are real to you, and why?
Ten examples of fictional characters in classic literature
- Anna Karenina in Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
- Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
- Jay Gatsby in The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
- Victor Frankenstein in Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
- Jane Eyre in Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
- Young Pip in Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
- Orlando in Orlando by Virginia Woolf
- Don Quixote in Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
- Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
- Holden Caulfield in The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
- Robinson Crusoe in Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
Sometimes, it’s easier to think of the books we loved as children in order to remember those feelings of love or hate that invented characters can inspire.
Ten examples of fictional characters in children’s literature
- Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
- Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy March in Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
- Harry Potter in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling
- Peter Pan in Peter and Wendy by J.M. Barrie
- Paddington Bear in A Bear Called Paddington by Michael Bond
- Alice Pleasance Liddell (in Wonderland) in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
- Anne Shirley (of Green Gables) in Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery
- Nancy Drew in the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories by the pseudonymous Carolyn Keene
- Matilda in Matilda by Roald Dahl
- The Berenstain Bears in the Berenstain Bears series by Stan, Jan, and Mike Berenstain
- Tom Sawyer in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
And we have to add Waldo from the Where’s Waldo series by Martin Handford!
Another way to think about this is to think about characters in various genres of writing.
Ten examples of fictional characters in science fiction and fantasy novels and movies
- Tyrion Lannister in A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin
- Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
- Luke Skywalker in Star Wars by George Lucas
- Yoda in Star Wars by George Lucas
- Buffy in Buffy the Vampire Slayer
- Godzilla in the Godzilla franchise
- Boba Fett in Star Wars by George Lucas
- Ellen Ripley in Alien
- Optimus Prime in Transformers
- Paul Atreides in Dune by Frank Herbert
Ten examples of fictional characters in detective stories, crime and suspense novels, and movies
- Sherlock Holmes in the Sherlock Holmes series by Arthur Conan Doyle
- Miss Marple in the Miss Marple series by Agatha Christie
- Hercule Poirot in the Poirot series by Agatha Christie
- Inspector Morse in the Inspector Morse series by Colin Dexter
- Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris
- Lieutenant Columbo in Columbo
- Cormoran Strike in the Cormoran Strike series by Robert Galbraith
- Arsène Lupin in the Arsène Lupin series by Maurice Leblanc
- Mr. Mercedes in Mr. Mercedes by Stephen King
- Amy Dunne in Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
Ten examples of fictional characters in romance novels and movies
- Romeo and Juliet
- Rick and Ilsa in Casablanca
- Jack and Rose in Titanic
- Alex Claremont-Diaz and Prince Henry in Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston
- Fitzwilliam Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
- Jamie Fraser and Claire Randall in Outlander by Diana Gabaldon
- Dev Deshpande and Charlie Winshaw in The Charm Offensive by Alison Cochrun
- Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler in Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
- Jackson and Ally in A Star Is Born
- Viola and Will in Shakespeare in Love
But what about historical fiction?
Our writing coach and bestselling author Kate Riordan says:
Historical fiction is a captivating literary genre that weaves fictional elements with actual historical events and settings, emphasizing historical accuracy. At its core, historical fiction is defined by its setting in the past, adhering to the norms and realities of the time period it portrays.
—Kate Riordan
How does this fit in with what we’ve learned so far about fictional characters?
Writers of historical fiction have many choices. You can use fictional characters (characters you’ve invented) in a well-known event like a war. In the novel In Memoriam, Alice Winn writes about the love affair between Henry Gaunt and Sydney Ellwood during the horrors of World War I. Both boys are made up, but the setting is realistic, and she uses facts and research to make the writing of that era as vivid and truthful as possible.
In her novel The Girl Who Came Home, Hazel Gaynor uses the sinking of the Titanic as a background for her fictional characters in a real setting.
Use real people and imagine fictional events
The other option is to use real people and imagine what their lives would be like. An example from popular TV would be the series The Crown, which imagined the lives of the Royal Family in the U.K. over decades, creating scenes and inventing personalities of people who are real and who have existed, but using the tools of fiction to explore their world.
Kate Riordan continues by asking:
Are you comfortable telling a story based on historical figures?
—Kate Riordan
We regularly see two groups of writers who are writing historical fiction at The Novelry. There are those writing stories about actual events that have captured their imaginations, and there are those who are fictionalizing lives from within their own family histories.
As an author, your overriding objective should be to tell a story, and in fiction, the facts need to bend a little to serve the story. It is much easier when you can allow your main character to take their own path within the narrative of the story rather than having to slavishly follow actual events of less interest so as to please the family!
Now that we have a sense of why fictional characters are so valuable to readers, what they are, what they are not, and the different types of characters in various genres, we can look at how to write one.
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How to write a fictional character
Writing a fictional character involves making a leap of the imagination. You need to create an entire being from thin air—but don’t worry, there are lots of tips and tricks to make this easier for you.
In The Ninety Day Novel Class at The Novelry, we say:
Be very careful to ensure the main character is not you. This is so you can care for them properly. Change age, gender, hairstyle. See the back of their head, bend over their shoulder as they sit at a table, and see them the way a parent sees a child... To the mix, give them physical attributes that are different to your own but might have touched you in others.
—The Ninety Day Novel Class
Create some distance between your main character and you
When we’re creating a fictional character, having this distance helps us have an overview of who they could be. This distance also makes it easier to place our invented people (or creatures) into challenging situations, raising the stakes and giving our story legs.
But don’t worry! You can still write what you know. As we explain in another lesson in The Ninety Day Novel:
Consider other pieces of your experience that you can gift to your main character: seasons and places, interests, occupations, temporary work. Write down the variety of occupations you’ve had, however briefly. The clubs you joined. The hobbies you had. The sports you played. Just lift a little part of your life here and there.
—The Ninety Day Novel Class
When you create a character, you can infuse their personality with your experiences, quirks, loves, and hates while discovering how someone different might travel the world. But how do you even begin?
At The Novelry, we teach this by starting with a character interview—sitting down with our characters and ‘chatting’ with them as if they’re real. By asking questions and inviting the made-up characters in our heads to answer, we start to get to know who they might be and if they could earn a place in the story. We have a list of 20 questions that we encourage aspiring writers to use in our course. Here are a few of those to inspire you.
Eight questions to ask your character in an interview
- What is their date of birth?
- Their star sign?
- Employment?
- Income? (Important in real life but overlooked in novels. Why? It’s a main feature of life for most real people. This could be a major problem for your character. Is it?)
- How do they sleep? In what position? In real life, our sleep patterns concern us. Are they a good sleeper? What do they do before turning in for the night? How do they get to sleep?
- What is their secret fear or dread?
- Guilt? What are they ashamed of having done or not done in the past?
- If given $10,000 or a large amount of disposable cash, what would they do with it?
When I’m starting a book, I like to test-run some possible people to be the main character, almost as if I’m the casting director of a movie or a stage play.
Writing coach and bestselling author Katie Khan suggests that you:
Choose someone who is worst-placed to deal with the challenges of the plot.
—Katie Khan
This advice helps me create a fictional character who has to change from who they were at the start of the novel, which means I’m using crucial storytelling elements.
At The Novelry, we teach this journey of change that a fictional character needs to go on as The Five Fs®—a uniquely simple but elegant story structure that begins with looking at our character’s flaw(s).
Character flaws
Story structure comes from the journey your fictional character makes. At The Novelry, our creative writing courses focus on ensuring your reader is completely immersed in the moral journey of the main character. This writing exploration begins by looking at one big question:
What is something about your main character that needs to change, or else they’ll never get what they want?
As writing coach Katie Khan says in her comprehensive blog post on this subject:
Character flaws are one of the most important ingredients for a gripping story and a memorable protagonist. Whether they’re honorable, ethical good guys or down-and-out criminals with a wicked streak, they need some major flaw. And in the world of the character flaw, meaning stretches far beyond the all-important task of creating a believable cast. How we’re introduced to our hero character (and their flaw) will define the shape of the story.
—Katie Khan
Character development
The main character propels novels, but the cast of characters within infuse the book with a sense of reality. As writers, we need to know our characters intimately so we can render them vividly on the page with a turn of phrase, a detail, or a quirk.
In The Ninety Day Novel, we share that:
Character development in fiction is the art of bringing people to life with words... Try to originate your quirks from human truths, from knowing the origins, wounds, and weak spots of your minor players. In fact, dwelling on their frailties is a good shortcut to character development. When painting their portraits in words, think too about why they are a certain way. Your compassion or feeling for characters, even the unlikable, is so much at the heart of good writing.
—The Ninety Day Novel Class
The two key aspects of character development
In our blog post on character development, we define the two aspects of character development as:
- The process by which you create characters you’ll write about.
- The way a character changes through the course of a novel.
We’ve looked at how to think about this for our main character, but as you move forward with the writing of your novel, you get to have fun by thinking about the secondary characters and creatures who populate your work.
Get to know your characters’ quirks, mannerisms, hopes and dreams
The more you know about these characters, the stronger your writing will become—even if you don’t share every detail on the page. Your knowledge of these characters’ backstories, motivations, goals, desires, quirks, dreams, and hopes will infuse your novel, making the world of your book feel real, even as you invent and create the characters.
Paula Hawkins, who has written complex, page-turning plots like that of her blockbuster novel The Girl on the Train—the New York Times bestseller which has sold over 23 million copies—maintains that characters are the crux of her works.
Now that you know more about how to write a fictional character and what they are, you have a strong path to get to this crux in your own work. And that has a deeper resonance because—as we’ve explored—fiction helps your reader make sense of the world.
As referenced in Psychology Today :
If the writer decides the fate of his heroes and villains, we, as readers, have the final word on how the story resonates between the lines of our own lives.
—Psychology Today
Stories are exercises in empathy
Made-up stories give us ways to see how other people or even other beings might live. This helps us learn to empathize by deepening our connections to others, even when those others are invented. When we fall in love with or have other strong feelings about characters in novels, we’re moved and changed by that reading experience, just as writing about those characters moves and changes us as writers.
When Samantha Harvey won the 2024 Booker Prize, she said in her acceptance speech:
We are, as Carl Sagan said in his book Cosmos, ‘The local embodiment of a consciousness grown to awareness. We are starstuff pondering stars.’
—Samantha Harvey
Use what you’ve learned here about writing fictional characters, and make your characters the stars of your stories to tug readers deeply into your writing.
I’ll finish with a quotation from novelist E.M. Foster, which beautifully sums up what writing invented characters can be for you as a writer:
I’ve only got down onto paper really three types of people. The person who I think I am, the people who irritate me, and the people I’d like to be.
—E.M. Forster
Welcome home, writers. Join us on the world’s best creative writing courses to create, write, and complete your book. Sign up and start today.
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