登录查看更多内容

How do you craft believable and relatable characters that your audience cares about and empathizes with?

由人工智能和领英社区提供技术支持

Creating believable and relatable characters is one of the most important skills for any storyteller. Whether you write novels, scripts, comics, or games, you want your audience to care about and empathize with your characters, so they can follow their journeys, root for their goals, and feel their emotions. But how do you craft characters that are realistic, complex, and engaging, without falling into clichés, stereotypes, or flatness? Here are some tips to help you develop your characters and make them come alive.

此文章中的业界达人

由社区从 4 条内容中精选。了解更多

1 Know your characters

The first step to crafting believable and relatable characters is to know them inside and out. You need to have a clear idea of their personality, background, motivation, flaws, strengths, fears, desires, and relationships. You can use tools like character sheets, interviews, profiles, or questionnaires to help you flesh out your characters and discover their traits, quirks, and secrets. The more you know your characters, the more you can make them consistent, coherent, and compelling.

添加您的观点

Pummi Marodia (Agarwal)

LinkedIn Ghostwriter | I can help you grow on LinkedIn organically.
举报内容
I would have read at least a thousand stories. Most of them look fake. Why? Because what they write doesn't align with normal beings. Humans understand failures more than successes, crying more than laughter, fear more than passion, and mediocrity over superiority. Success might not knock at all doors: failures do. If I write about what more people go through, they will instantly feel connected. Why? Because I am writing their untold stories. They would emphasize because they had faced it. Write the authentic journey, write raw, write unfiltered, write what you feel and see the magic.

已翻译

赞

2 Show, don't tell

The second step to crafting believable and relatable characters is to show them through their actions, words, and reactions, rather than telling the audience what they are like. Showing your characters allows the audience to infer their traits, emotions, and motivations, and to form their own opinions and judgments about them. It also creates more suspense and tension, as the audience wonders what your characters will do next, how they will cope with challenges, and how they will change and grow. Showing your characters also means avoiding exposition, info-dumps, or narration that explain or justify your characters too much.

添加您的观点

3 Give them goals and conflicts

The third step to crafting believable and relatable characters is to give them goals and conflicts that drive the plot and their development. Your characters need to have something they want, something they need, and something that stands in their way. Their goals and conflicts should be clear, meaningful, and personal to them, and should challenge them to overcome their flaws, fears, or limitations. Their goals and conflicts should also create stakes, consequences, and dilemmas for them and the story, and should make the audience care about whether they succeed or fail.

添加您的观点

Adam Davidson

Created NPR's Planet Money; business writer for the NY Times and The New Yorker; author, "The Passion Economy."
举报内容
Develop a deep motivation is vital. The more the character desperately wants something, they more an audience will relate to them. It doesn't really matter what they want, so long as they want it deeply, powerfully, and all-consumingly. Often, there is a surface desire that is a stand-in for a much deeper need. That deeper need is, typically, a fairly universal human need: to be loved, to be respected, to feel safe. So, a kid might want that new toy, a world leader might want to win the election. Often, the surface desire is specific to a certain time and place. What a 10-year-old kid in medieval France wanted was different from a 65-year old Thai man today. But those deep needs are eternal.

已翻译

赞

4 Make them flawed and vulnerable

The fourth step to crafting believable and relatable characters is to make them flawed and vulnerable. No one is perfect, and neither are your characters. Your characters should have weaknesses, mistakes, regrets, doubts, or fears that make them human and relatable. Their flaws and vulnerabilities should also create obstacles, complications, or opportunities for growth for them and the story. Their flaws and vulnerabilities should also make them sympathetic, as the audience can empathize with their struggles, frustrations, or failures.

添加您的观点

5 Give them voice and agency

The fifth step to crafting believable and relatable characters is to give them voice and agency. Your characters should have a distinct and recognizable way of speaking, thinking, and expressing themselves, that reflects their personality, background, mood, and attitude. Their voice should also convey their emotions, opinions, and values, and should reveal their character to the audience and other characters. Their agency means that they should have the ability and the will to make choices, take actions, and influence the story, rather than being passive, reactive, or dependent on others.

添加您的观点

6 Make them dynamic and surprising

The sixth step to crafting believable and relatable characters is to make them dynamic and surprising. Your characters should not remain static or predictable throughout the story, but should change, grow, learn, or transform in some way, as a result of their experiences, challenges, or decisions. Their change should be gradual, plausible, and meaningful, and should reflect their arc and theme. Their surprise means that they should have some unexpected or contradictory traits, behaviors, or revelations, that add depth, complexity, or intrigue to them and the story.

添加您的观点

7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?

添加您的观点

Jem Bevan

?? Just a dork, OBSESSED with social media trying to help others find their way??
举报内容
When you're creating a story that you want people to buy into, it needs to be real. Instead of creating fictional characters for the audience to feel for and relate to, use actual real-life examples. Use conversations with clients, use conversations in the teams. Use relevant news pieces that affect you and your sector, and talk to people about how you feel! Being in high-powered positions in business isn't easy, and people want to know what it's really like, so give them the good, the bad and the ugly so give it to them, tell them how you would tell your friends, use the same terminology and language, don't fluff it up, let your personality really shine through.

已翻译

赞
Adam Davidson

Created NPR's Planet Money; business writer for the NY Times and The New Yorker; author, "The Passion Economy."
举报内容
At base, great storytelling is simple. X wants Y. They try to get it. They fail. They try again. Eventually, they either get it or they don't. Along the way, they learn something about themselves and they change. Think of any great story. It is probably, at base, that simple. If you can't identify X--the hero--or Y--the thing they want--then you probably don't yet have a story.

已翻译

赞

Storytelling

+ 关注

给文章评分

我们借助人工智能创建了此文章。您认为这篇文章怎么样？

很棒不太好

举报此文章

查看全部

How do you craft believable and relatable characters that your audience cares about and empathizes with?

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

1 Know your characters

2 Show, don't tell

3 Give them goals and conflicts

4 Make them flawed and vulnerable

5 Give them voice and agency

6 Make them dynamic and surprising

7 Here’s what else to consider

Storytelling

给文章评分

感谢您的反馈

更多Storytelling相关文章

更多相关阅读内容