Create compelling characters
- Give your characters opinions. Passive or malleable might seem likable to you as you writer, but it’s poison to your readers.
- Give readers a reason to root for your character. We admire characters for trying more than we do for their successes.
- You have to create ways for your readers to identify with your characters and their situations.
- What is your character good at, comfortable with? Put them in an uncomfortable position. Challenge them.
- It’s okay to stack the odds against your characters.
- What is at stake for the character? What happens if they don’t succeed?
- Do the main character’s goals remain clear and strong throughout? Make sure that not only do readers see your character’s goals, but that in each scene they have a clear, strong immediate objective.
- Do readers understand why your character wants each goal, and do they see those reasons vividly and compellingly throughout?
- Does the development of the story make sense for the character’s journey, or are you being a puppet-master? Depending on how they develop, a character’s goals may need to change, or their feeling about them may shift. Don’t stick to a predetermined path that no longer fits their story.
- Creating coincidences to get characters into trouble are great. Coincidences to get them out of trouble are cheating.
Doing this takes time and work
When I was drafting Love and Other Incurable Ailments, I had to determine why a woman would give up her life and her job and move to another state in pursuit of a man she didn’t know–it wasn’t enough that Serenity was simply unhappy or lonely. It had to make sense to the reader.
I also wanted Serenity to be a prickly character with boundary issues, but I quickly realized had to make her relatable. I had to give readers a reason to cheer for her. I had to allow them to see her emotional growth.
Along her journey to find a mystery letter writer, she realizes she’s actually trying to find herself. As a writer, I had to create a journey with constantly mounting challenges.
My goal is that the end is a payoff for the reader, as well as Serenity.
Thank you for visiting.
Linda K. Sienkiewicz is a wrangler of words and big messy feelings in fiction and poetry.
In the Context of Love | Gordy and the Ghost Crab | Sleepwalker
Love and Other Incurable Ailments, coming 10/27/2026 from Regal House Publishing
Connect with Linda on social media: LinkTree