The BEST Way to Craft Complex Characters (Easy Exercise!)

[@megorra]

Wow. I've just given myself a firm pat on the back after watching this as I feel I've nailed every part of creating my characters. I have 15 pages to go in the final edit before I submit it for proofreading and begin seeking an agent. Thank you, Alyssa. I've been watching your videos for a long time now and you've given me tons of helpful advice, motivation and even a few laughs - I truly feel you've helped me reach this point and I'm very grateful. Now comes the truly hard part, to get it seen, get it published, and make all the hard work (hopefully) allow my dream of becoming a writer full time come true. Thank you again for everything 🙂.

[@AlyssaMatesic]

I’m so happy to hear that my videos have helped you on your writing journey - that’s why I do what I do! Thank you for the kind comment. Wishing you all the best with your final edit and the querying process!

[@cndbooks]

I love that your videos not only provide writing tools and exercises but also explain the reasoning behind them and what they do for both your story and your readers.

[@InvestigatingDavidCrowley]

This video was beneficial. Now I realize the novel I thought was finished needs to be fine-tuned to include some of these concepts. Will it be a pain to rewrite some of the story? Yes. Will these revisions make the story stronger/better? Absolutely!

[@elainaandre322]

All your videos are truly so helpful - thank you!!

[@AlyssaMatesic]

I’m so glad you find them helpful - thanks for the kind comment!

[@jimgilbert9984]

My favorite authors are masters of characterization: Mercedes Lackey, Anne McCaffrey, Jim Butcher, Patricia Briggs. There are only so many plots/tropes out there, so that makes the need for strong characterization very important.

[@larssjostrom6565]

I think that this can be bended depending on character and story. In A Song of Ice and Fire, Tyrion is at the beginning a man of leisure whom do not want anything in particular, but he wants to see the Wall like any tourist, and feels compassion for Jon Snow and Brandon Stark. Later he is pulled into things not of his own choosing, were he wants to survive and help his family survive and finally get his revenge. He doesn't exactly have a deep secret, but a trauma from his youth that wasn't exactly what he thought that it was. He is an extremely compelling although a bit dark character, maybe because how good and bad qualities are mixed in him.

[@enxman7697]

Nice points! I have almost all of them already sorted out for the story I'm working on, but a re-check has been helpful!

[@w.cooksy421]

This is definitely helpful. I feel like I've hit a lot of these points with my science fiction story's characters (protagonist and antagonist), though I do feel like I need to examine a couple of those points to make sure they are clear to my readers.

[@tylerheitmann1758]

Excellent video editing!

[@b.howard4526]

Thank you! Your videos leave me feeling accomplished and satisfied with one of my favorite novels. I've been working on it for years now... My character arc is hard to attack. She is thrown into a world she can conquer, but her fatal flaw is empathy. (I know, I know.) When she is troubled with a "broken mind", after becoming "powerful" we wonder if she can cope, or if she will become a villian. It's tough to use the structure when, I hate to say it, she is reacting to what has become of her. Her flaws are a part of the 'don't tell=show' trouph. It's literally like hearing the mind of a kind and loving, peace wanting hippie thrown into being the only one to kill the antagonist. Her thoughts deepen with her reality.... Thoughts anyone? I'd love to hear feedback.

[@62202ify]

There are two complex characters in my story, one is a human/Demon Hybrid, she is one of the heros but is still a dark and brooding and, at times, sadistic and ruthless character. This helps thank you, I learn so much from you. ❤

[@TheEccentricRaven]

Part of what I like about this method is that I personally feel life is this way. In life, we have objectives that we believe will bring us happiness. We fail to realize what we really need. We have to overcome our flaws and transform to discover what really will bring happiness. That's why great stories have characters go on these journeys.

[@BbGun-lw5vi]

This was video was so helpful! You make incredible character videos.

[@AlyssaMatesic]

So glad it was helpful! Thank you for the kind comment!

[@5BBassist4Christ]

In both writing and real life, I've been having difficulty understanding "Specific Want" for some time now. As an example I'm familiar with: music. I went to college to study music, and there had some interesting conversations with fellow musicians. What do we want as music students? It seems obvious if you're studying music you want a career in music, but what does that mean? Do you want to be a famous artist? Just play local gigs? How famous is "famous"? Do you really have the boldness to say that you want to be as big as Queen or Taylor Swift? Or would you be content just being as big as somebody like Yellowcard? "Wanting to make it in music" turns out to be a vague goal. How do you create clarification? In broader context, I'll talk about the main character in my book. His goal is to be a world-traveler and hero in the current war going on. He plans to move to City A for a time, then move to City B, then finally make it as far as City C. He leaves home with a farewell speech ending with, "So long my friends, you shall find me in the pages of history!" (his main flaw is his pride.) So he's got his specific goals of moving to certain cities, but his ultimate goal of "traveling the world and being a hero worthy of the pages of history" are in themselves vague. He does ambitiously move to City A, and there meets and falls in love with a woman. A fight breaks out at one point, and a man is trying to harm the woman, so he is forced to kill the man to save her. For this they have to flee City A, where they then set their gaze on City B with the man's sons seeking vengeance. So there's clear characterization and plot happening which is actually quite deep, but still feels like the character motives are week despite their active pursuits of their goals. The story feels more like a journey through wherever life leads you, instead of a quest from point A to point B, which may not be a bad thing.

[@TheEccentricRaven]

To answer your question, a "want" is what someone believes will bring them happiness. This is explained well in the Save the Cat works by Blake Snyder and Jessica Brody. The answer to the questions, "Why does the character want this?" and "Why does the character believe what they want will being them happiness?" can be found in the character's background. What made a character want and believe this? To make a story be character driven rather than plot driven, conflict comes when the character doesn't get what they want and they fear they won't find happiness, or they get what they want but they're still not happy. This leads to main characters changing their plans at the midpoint. In the end, the character goes on a journey to find out what they wanted wasn’t what they needed, so they transform by learning what they actually needed. For your story, I would ask, "Why does your character believe going to these cities will bring him happiness?" "What happened in his background to make him believe so?" "What happens when he doesn't get what he wants?" "What does he actually need that he doesn't yet realize?" Is he going to have to choose between the woman he loves or going to the city that he believes will bring him happiness? I hope that helps.

[@futurestoryteller]

Whenever anyone gets confused by concepts like these I would always recommend watching LocalScriptMan, who tends to dislike them. I'm not sure I'm remembering this correctly but I think he describes what most writers would call the "want" as something more akin to a comforting assumption about how the world is supposed to work. "If I work hard, I will be successful." A coping mechanism I guess. Coping mechanism exist to subvert potential trauma, and may be, and perhaps should (in a story) invented by trauma.

[@rosieradcliffe5578]

I think you just helped me figure out what's wrong with my WIP first draft - the characters just don't feel real, even to ME!

[@larssjostrom6565]

I prefer leaving how they will change open until I have the end of the book and draw my conclusions about how they will change when I know exactly what they have gone through, since my story will change many times during the writing process. It is never good when the character change feels forced or a premise the story didn't live up to in the end.

[@frankhernandez1995]

This is very informative and well structured I gave you thumbs up and subscribed.

[@AlyssaMatesic]

Thank you so much - I appreciate the sub!

[@PaySalix]

Thank you so much for making these videos! Luh ya ❤

[@Xaglacionn]

I know some people who try to define their characters with questionaires and models of personality archetypes but I never found them super useful because often it flattens a three dimensional object (a human being) into a two dimensional image (the idea that you could possibly know everything about them--Like a Kantian "the thing itself"). I think the most important part of capturing character is in the core of their humanity (in Lacanian terms, humanity is what spills out of the box, not what fits neatly in the box). First I try to hear what they sound like, then I imagine their reason for being on the page in the particular moment they arrive in, then I discover their dilemma. And then, the real ingredient that makes them human, is contradiction/paradox. Somewhere in the triangulation of dilemma, voice, paradox, an interplay of opposing forces forges a character. And as the story progresses, more gets revealed. What truly defines them is the choices they make along the way. We aren't brain scans, we are sacred texts that point in four or five directions, and the truth of us lies somewhere in the middle.

[@astevenswrites]

I thought my characters were complex, and I hit many of the marks, but as I work on all my edits, I will surely keep all this in mind. Because if I can nail my characters, that will really help drive my story as I continue to work on all of the rest. Thanks as always for the tips!

[@ilangom2208]

That was excellent Alyssa 🎉❤

[@BeyondDivested]

This was wonderful, thank you!

[@veritasaequitas9277]

Excellent content as always. Well done

[@rowan7929]

I'm certainly taking your consideration to represent my characters through their mind. I know this will keep me busy to fix it all.

[@kaeilia]

This was really fun to write out for the protagonist of my first novel of my series. (I have the roughest draft done but it's nowhere near ready for querying! XD Your videos are getting me ready and hyped up for it though as I work on edits!) I understand there's a whole lot more to creating a complex and compelling character than 5 simple questions, but asking those definitely help get you in the right direction! Thank you for the fun, informative videos. Always a pleasure to watch them! 1. What do they want? Jamie wants to live up to her father's expectations and become a great werewolf hunter like he is, to protect innocent lives. 2. What's her biggest flaw? Her blind faith in her father, her unbreaking independence that doesn't allow her to lean on others, and difficulty in thinking critically for herself. 3. Her deepest secret? That she is beginning to question her father's teachings when she meets a 'werewolf' family who is not at all like the monsters that her father describes. It has her questioning everything she's ever learned in life. 4. How did she get here? She has been trained (and groomed) by her father to become a killer and to shut everyone out of her life. Now, being entrusted in gathering information for her first hunt, she attacks the task with gusto but doesn't know how to process how different they are from what she imagined. 5. How will she change by the end of the story? Jamie will learn the atrocities that her father is committing and see them in a whole new light. That while yes, he has taken out some dangerous people, he has killed a great many innocents as well. She will learn to trust that her judgment is correct and stand up for both herself and the innocents that she was tasked to kill.

[@AlyssaMatesic]

Such thoughtful answers - it sounds like you’ve done a great job developing a compelling protagonist. I’m so glad you enjoyed the exercise, and thanks for the kind words about my videos!

[@BudsCartoon]

Working with a "Based on True Events" manuscript about someone's (otherwise unheard of) interesting life, though not a biography, the early STRONG OBJECTIVE is something that I've been slightly struggling with. I know it should be laid out early. I have plenty of options, but as she goes from 17 to 34, her objectives become bigger and higher stakes. Even though my story couldn't be any more different than Scarface, I look to Tony Montana's arc often. What was his "goal" in the movie? Pretty vague, "I want the world and everything in it, Chico." But his goals progressed throughout the movie. First, he just wanted to get into the country. He had a shitty dishwasher job, didn't want to stay, showed he lusted for upward mobility. He gets low level courier jobs, but wants something bigger... he presses and gets a bigger job dealing with the Columbians. THERE he gets thrusted into a situation, by the Columbians setting him up and killing his friend, but getting away with the yayo and the money. Now he's got a little power, but bows down to the boss, Frank, gives it all back to be loyal. Seemingly his early goals are completed 1/3 of the way into the movie. But as he grows, his goals do, and the stakes do as well, and we all know how the last 2/3 of the movie plays out. So... did an early goal like, "I want the world and everything in it," though vague, and ultimately telling, serve as a good early goal for the entire story? Seems like it did. And yes, his actions were all leading up to that ultimate goal, I guess.

[@bookworm_of_heaven]

just wanna give a thank you for including time stamps in the description of your videos! my neurodivergency appreciates it lmao

[@cosmicprison9819]

An overarching goal such as “defeating the tyrant” (such as in The Hunger Games) often only seems to work with… well, tyrants. My antagonist only becomes a tyrant over the course of the story, so I’ve now come up with a way to escalate the protagonist’s goals, along with the antagonist’s slide into tyranny: From “stop one authoritarian law” to “swap out the leader” to “redefining the goals of the society as a whole”. The trade-off is that my protagonist doesn’t have one overarching goal - only an overarching value she upholds (individual freedom), which causes her goals to change (=upscale) as the plot progresses.

[@Nezumi--]

lol already from the first one, i'm fascinated by "rules" and by our need or... percieved need... to follow them, so once i heard too much about characters needing a goal, i made a character whose goal was to not have a goal. he just wanted to live in peace and not get dragged into anything annoying. the twist--the other characters around him had clear goals, even if they didn't explain it fully, you know they had their goals. he didn't, they did. his attitude clashed with theirs... my beta readers were all like "he didn't really stand out" but when i said "what do you think if he had his own goal?" the immediate response was "oh no, he can't, dont do that" and then they realised why he didn't stand out. that WAS HIS GOAL. it just wasn't a.. clearly active one >u< soooo there are... tricky sneaky ways to play with that. (...also please be mindful, coz this goal thing is tainted by culture and only a western preference. not everyone writes for westerners-only, and.. not everyone is only influenced by western preferences. for some cultures, a theme is the central thing of the story, and the plot around that, instead of goals. it means a character can have no goal, but how they interact with the theme is what makes the story interesting) -Agree with flaws, not necessarily needing to overcome. some flaws can also just exist because we're complicated people and we don't generally have perfect humans. so we can mix plot-flaws and just... character flaws. don't over rely on plot-flaws. -Deepest secret is a cool thing to do, although the description makes it seem like it has to be earth shattering. that's not always realistic, but it's a nice start. if the story is slice-of-life, a big secret might just be "has a sweet tooth" or something lol but basically the deep secret should definitely scale to the story.. -backstory is so important, 100%. knowing the backstory is important, even if only a little bit of that gets into the book, it helps guide the character and keeps their personality more cohesive throughout. definitely like this one. -change is an interesting one. again, depends which character and how much, but also WHY. I gotta use an excellent example for this; Uncle Iroh has just completed his growth BEFORE ATLA's story begins so he doesn't really change and he doesn't have to, but we do get fed the backstory over the course of the series. WE'RE the ones who changed over the course of the story, OUR knowledge of him changed, not Iroh. Change usually is more for the main character, i think.. although.... playing around with an unchanging character could be interesting. i've read some good stories that have unchanging main characters, but those often do rely on the reader changing, the reader's opinion or understanding has to shift...

[@tayh.6235]

Your character whose goal is to not have a goal sounds interesting, but I'm also guessing that he is not just passive in the story. His goal is to stay out of it. That is a goal, and as long as he is actively taking action to avoid the drama around him, that can still be very interesting to read. An alternative way to phrasing her advice might be that the character needs to want something and make choices in response to what they encounter - even if that choice it is to keep their head down. As long as we understand why they're doing that and we see them choosing that, it works.

[@Jus-X]

Great video. I think I nailed it. I have a character named Roxie who has a superhero boyfriend, Austin, and her desire is to simply live a happy and fulfilling life with him all while deciding her university major. She keeps his secret from her family and friends, which weighs down in her. Additionally, she keeps a secret from Austin: her random dreams that seem to be coming true, in addition to a desire for Austin to forsake the world in favor of her alone. Inciting incident has the antagonists kidnap Austin. Since he's a vigilante, Roxie can't go to the police, so she takes it upon herself to get to him, learning that she, too, is a person of power, destined for a life greater than a romantic partnership with Austin, all while making enemies with her closest friends once they learn she's been lying to them for so long.

[@SaraDunn-fw5xh]

This is great advice!

[@futurestoryteller]

When it comes to character complexity, sometimes I think it's more important for the audience's perspective on the character to evolve rather than the character _changing_ per se, and I think an easy way to do this is to repeatedly say "not necessarily." Say you introduce a character who is a rich philanthropist. He does so much obvious good, that he appears even to us, to be an altruist. But privately he reveals his charity work is more about tax write-offs. So we say "Okay, I get it now, he pretends to be nice, but he's a guy who thinks only about himself." So if later on in the story he risks his life to save some stranger, we go "I didn't expect him to do that." Then maybe we learn that decision was instinctual, and that if his money was on the line, and not his life, he's not sure he would've saved that person. But after all, everyone dies. Money: they say you can't take with you, but he'd rather have it as long as he's still here. Realizing this about himself does make him feel guilty though. But what if we discovered that he would give up his money for somebody he loves? That's a character who has not necessarily undergone any changes, yet his characterization seems very windy because his motives are legitimately complex.

[@Simpleandslowliving]

Another question for the secret part is "does anyone else know? How does this change the way they act towards them?"

[@futurestoryteller]

*What do they want? (It should be clear, not nebulous and we should be able to say whether they accomplished their goal or not by the end.)* Isn't Batman's goal to clean up Gotham? Can we say whether he's succeeded or failed because he stopped one to three super criminals? Tony Sopranos goal is ostensibly to improve himself is he ever doing that? Is he _definitely_ not doing that? Again - Batman is often depicted as potentially if not necessarily causing crime by the psychological oppression of his mere presence. That is mutually exclusive to the idea that he's cleaning up the streets. It feels to me like these characters goals are abstract, and the abstract answer of whether or not they're accomplishing them is exactly what's fueling the narrative?

[@gotmikl3075]

Batman has the goal, in any given film/novel, of stopping the specific bad guy. So often the Prot. will have a overarching "want" that drives the smaller, more specific want ... but it's the smaller, more specific want that is clearly either achieved or not achieved by the end. You could think of it as long term (abstract) and short term (specific). It's ok to have both as long as they're related, but if you only have one it must be the short term, specific.

[@author.gabrielavrivera]

Can you explain more about the character's secret?

[@PetProjects2011]

No more Ask Alyssa Anything?

[@soccerguy325]

I have a very important question Alyssa: can a character's objective *change*? For instance, if something happens around the midpoint of the plot to alter the story, could the protagonist's journey change too? Not too drastically, but enough that they realize their goals shift.

[@AlyssaMatesic]

Great question! Absolutely - in fact, a character’s objective often will shift over the course of the story. The key is to make sure that the reader is always oriented to the protagonist’s goal as it evolves. I touch on this a bit more in this video: kzbin.info/www/bejne/fWacmpaij7d2ebc

[@soccerguy325]

@@AlyssaMatesic Thank you! I was pretty confident the answer was yes but figured I'd ask :)

[@suburbangorilla5515]

What about stories that hand off characters along the plot (i.e., the story is center stage)?

[@ProfAge]

Hello, Matesic! Could you suggest an agent I can send my mystery novella's query letter to?

[@deba6468]

Hey Alyssa have you haver made a video about writing in your second language and sending your book to publishing houses abroad? I am scared that I wont be able to publish my books in my own country because of censorship and I don't want give up on my dreams and I want to look up for alternatives.

[@AlyssaMatesic]

Hi there - I do have this video on international publishing: kzbin.info/www/bejne/gWO4ZH58jbmefM0 I hope that helps. Wishing you all the best!

[@janeyrevanescence12]

Okie-Dokie, let's give Captain Jim Marlowe (born Seamus O'Malley) from my project "The Strange Curse of Carrie Carroll" a try. What does he want: He wants to get himself and his men back home safely. What's his flaw: His stubbornness and difficulty in trusting the Changeling who is granting him and his men shelter for the winter. What's his deepest secret: His growing feelings for Carrie, putting them down to the fact that, as a Changeling, Carrie's magical nature makes him want to both adore her and yet kill her at the same time. How did he get here: Jim and his troop were part of a planned invasion of the Confederate state of Regina (created for this story), which failed and now they're all lost and trapped hundreds of miles behind enemy lines. As thanks for saving a friend and because he was friends with her late brother before the outbreak of the war, Carrie grants him and his men shelter for the winter with the expectation that they'll move on when spring arrives. How will he change: Jim realizes his feelings for Carrie are genuine and not a result of the curse and even saves her life when he learns she sacrificed her life for his after a Dullahan tries to kill him. In her, he's found home. What do you all think?

[@familycorvette]

First!

[@woodshark1]

Quite informative, yet how is new ground broken, if everybody is following the same rules. This is creative writing, not publisher pleasing, yes?

[@oldguyinstanton]

Air conditioning not working?

[@sycariummoonshine7134]

I wonder what my characters biggest flaw is. I don't think he has that kinda area in his life. Or maybe more along the lines of... his flaws are his tools. It's not necessarily about "failing" because of his flaws, more like, because of them and because they keep piling up... He becomes a person who "if wins" cannot be allowed to. Tbh it's maybe only seen post book end. The hubris of thinking he could be what he believes, and the end result of that belief turning to ash in his hands? The naivete to think the world would allow such bullshittery without costing him everything? The childish notion to believe no others like him could exist, so he can't see their actions behind the scenes? All of these aren't "fair" to him, for he is just a person and not a God. But that's the cost of a god complex, and I think after that it just becomes a question of living up to that legacy.

[@giuf175]

I wouldn't exactly call Rhaenyra a complex character

[@xChikyx]

I don'r believe the secret is actually crucial. Not everyone has secrets

[@Douglas-dr8ke]

Rhanerya is definitely not a perfect protagonist if you’ve read Fire and Blood

[@whycantiremainanonymous8091]

This feels like cookie-cutter litterature, and it's no wonder the two examples from "the cannon" are from recent best-sellers. Nothing in this exercise is "wrong". Great characters usually check some of these boxes, and some check all of them (Oedipus in _Oedipus Rex_ would have been a great example). But then other great characters skip a few, and are still incredibly compelling (consider, for instance, Dostoevsky's Alyosha Karamazov, or the protagonist of Dante's Divine Comedy). More generally, a lot of this kind of writing advice should be taken with a grain of salt. Balzac famously begins his _Father Goriot_ with a 30-page-long description of Parisian real estate. What an amateur!

[@TheEccentricRaven]

If you read Jessica Brody's Save the Cat! Writes A Novel, she points out how this complex character crafting technique is used in many classic novels, such as Jane Eyre, Pride and Prejudice, Emma, Frankenstein, 1984, and The Grapes of Wrath.

[@whycantiremainanonymous8091]

@@TheEccentricRaven ...and is _not_ used in many many other classic novels...

[@TheEccentricRaven]

@@whycantiremainanonymous8091 And the classics that use this method are among the best books ever.

[@whycantiremainanonymous8091]

@@TheEccentricRaven As are the ones who don't.

[@TheEccentricRaven]

@@whycantiremainanonymous8091 So?