Hello and welcome back.

Today I will talk about creating believable characters.

This is in addition to previous posts on Creating Heroes and Villains, this would be about secondary characters. While you might not have to go into as great a depth with your secondary characters as you do with your main characters you still don’t want one dimensional secondary or supporting characters. As with one dimensional heroes who are supremely good with no flaws and villains who are supremely evil out for blood lust, it will create a bland and boring story.

So to create believable supporting characters one way is to give them some sort of quirk. You don’t necessarily have to give them an in depth flaw, but something that can be fun for you to write and for your audience to read.

For example, maybe the character is vain beyond belief. But don’t use the cliche of the female character who’s always checking her makeup in the vanity mirror of her car or in the store windows. Try having a male character who’s always checking is hair in the window or vanity mirror.

Another thing you can try is the character always has a certain expression they use. Something like “what a load of hooey!” That’s just an example of what you can use.

Those are two ways that you can create believable secondary characters. Hope this helps, and have a great day.