Writing: How to Make Characters Believable

Believable characters can be people, creatures, or spirits. What makes them believable is how they are developed and whether or not they stay consistent with their nature. Believable does not mean interesting. Hopefully, characters can be both believable and interesting. Making a character believable implies that the circumstances of the character's existence can be grasped mentally by the reader.

Obviously, the reader needs to be interested in the type of content. This makes the writer's job much easier. Someone who does not like science fiction will never find the characters in such a story believable. The same is true of metaphysical writing or any specific genre.

You will not be able to make all readers believe your characters are real, but you should be able to convince the targeted reader. This process is began by researching how other works in the same genre deal with the various characters in similar circumstances. Take care not to mimic another work too closely. However, this should arm you with an understanding of how certain characters might react in specific environments and conditions.

Try not to make any character stand out too far above his or her counterparts. If you want to endow such a character with extraordinary abilities, the source of those abilities needs to be clearly revealed. An example of this would be a character like Superman. His powers far exceed everyone around him, but his powers are explained by his alien status.

Giving characters an origin or history adds a dimension of realism to their existence. In real life we make the assumption that everyone started the same way that we did. When writing, this may not always be the case.

Even for human characters, giving depth to the person's life makes them believable. Someone who has great wisdom can be more believable if he or she has gone through a great loss or trial. If the person has attained a great age, wisdom would certainly be an expected trait.