Using Character Sketches
in Writing
By Mary Kole
Mary Kole is a former literary agent, freelance editor, writing teacher, author of Writing Irresistible Kidlit, and IP developer for major publishers, with over a decade in the publishing industry.
Creating a character for your novel can be a daunting task, especially when you want to make your protagonist believable, memorable, and relatable. To do this, you need to dream up many relevant character elements, such as their personality, behavior, background, and motivations. Fortunately, this process doesn't have to be overwhelming or tedious. With the right approach and tools, you can craft character sketches that will breathe life into your protagonist and secondary characters, and engage your readers. In this article, I’ll explore the essentials of character sketches, what to include in them, how to execute them effectively, and some common mistakes to avoid. Whether you're a beginner or a seasoned writer, these tips will help you create multi-dimensional characters that will resonate with your readers.
What Are Character Sketches?
A character sketch is a detailed description of a character's traits, background, and goals that will drive their actions in the story, especially if you’re aiming to introduce a proactive protagonist, which is a major goal in writing fiction. Think of character sketches as blueprints or roadmaps for your fictional people. It helps you flesh out your character and make them more complex and realistic ahead of time. You are planning your characters, just as you would plan your plot with a novel outline. Thinking ahead will also help you avoid stereotypes and caricatures, and create more nuanced, multi-dimensional characters. When you have a clear understanding of your character, you can make them behave in a more authentic and believable way, and readers will empathize and care about them more. This leads to increased reader engagement with your entire story.
What to Include in Character Sketches
There are many elements you can include in your character sketches, but here are some of the essential ones:
Physical description: This is not just about appearance but also about body language, voice, and mannerisms. If you have a strong sense of character description, this helps readers visualize the character and connect with them on a sensory level. Various physical traits, like strength or height, can also impact the action of the story.
Personality traits: These are the character's behavioral patterns, temperament, strengths, and weaknesses. These important elements can affect how the character interacts with other characters and the world around them.
Background: This includes the character's family history, upbringing, education, social status, and cultural influences. Build out a backstory for your character sketches, even if you don’t end up putting all of the information you develop into the final draft. (In fiction, you sometimes have to kill your darlings.) A character’s background can shape the character's values, beliefs, and attitudes.
Motivation: This is what drives the character to act in the story. It should be related to their objective, goal, wound, need, and various conflicts they have with others. Whenever a character pursues their objective, this can create tension and suspense and make the readers root for or against the character (in the case of the antagonist, who should absolutely have their own character sketch).
Questions to Ask for Character Sketches
To create authentic and engaging characters, you need to ask yourself some probing questions about them, especially as you develop your character sketches for various people in your planned novel or memoir (yes, you should absolutely make character sketches for yourself as you will appear in a memoir!). Here are some examples:
What is their biggest fear?
What is their proudest moment?
What is their greatest flaw?
What is their ultimate goal in life?
What are their stakes if they don’t achieve it?
What do they want, and what do they need?
What would they die for, or what are they willing to sacrifice?
By answering these questions, you can flesh out your character's personality, backstory, and motivation more deeply. Now that you have your character sketches ready, and a strong blueprint for your most important fictional people, how do you use it to build the character in the story? There are several ways to do this:
Show, don't tell: Instead of telling readers what the character is like, show their behavior, actions, and dialogue, all of which should reveal their personality and motivation.
Use sensory details: Use specific and vivid language to describe the character's appearance, voice, body language, tone, and more, to create an immersive experience for readers. Don’t externalize everything, as you should be using interiority to get your protagonist or point of view characters across, but make sure your characters exist in space and in description, too.
Create contrast: Make your character's personality, behavior, or appearance contrast with other characters or their surroundings to create tension, irony, or humor. This is where a lot of plot conflict will come from, too, as well as various expressions of your theme.
Use subtext: For everything that a character says or does, try to embed some subtext beneath the surface, so that you create multiple layers of meaning.
Character Sketches Mistakes
Even if you follow all the tips above, you can still fall into the trap of creating one-dimensional or stereotypical caricatures that don't resonate with readers. Here are some common mistakes to avoid:
Making your characters too perfect or too evil: No one is all good or all bad in real life, so don't make your characters that way, not even your antagonist, if you’re using one. Give them flaws and virtues that make them relatable and human. Remember, even villains see themselves as heroes and believe in what they’re doing, or they’d never be able to stomach some of their own actions.
Writing characters that are too similar or predictable: Mix up your characters' backgrounds, personalities, and motivations to create diversity and surprise. Don't make your characters interchangeable or boring. If you have too many characters who are too similar to one another, consider combining them.
Telling instead of showing: Don't tell your readers what the character is like—show their personalities and motivations through their behavior, dialogue, and actions. Telling about character is one of the worst ways to get a person across on the page.
Neglecting the emotional impact: Readers want to feel something when they read your story, so make sure your characters have depth, motivation, and moments of vulnerability or triumph. Make sure to leave room for reflection in interiority, especially if you’re presenting a lot of plot or action during a specific sequence.
Failing to revise and refine: Character sketches are not set in stone, they are meant to evolve and grow as you write your story. Just like a plot outline becomes a living document that keeps changing as the manuscript does. Keep revising and refining your characters until they feel authentic and satisfying, even if that means having to go through your draft another time.
Crafting novel character sketches is not an exact science, but a combination of art and craft. By following these tips and avoiding common mistakes, you can create multi-dimensional characters that will stay with your readers long after they finish your book. Remember to include all the essential elements of character sketches, ask probing questions, execute them effectively, and refine them through revision until they feel authentic and engaging. With practice and persistence, you can become a master of character and take your storytelling to the next level.
Click here to purchase Writing Interiority: Crafting Irresistible Characters, my book on interiority and character creation. Explore your protagonist’s thoughts, feelings, reactions and interpretations, expectations, and inner struggles to create a rich, immersive experience. This guide will empower you to create characters who live and breathe on the page, fostering an unbreakable bond with your audience.