Creating Exceptional Main Characters for Children's Books

Kids read children's fiction to encounter characters who are exceptional, not mundane. They want their main characters to be prettier or uglier, more evil or sweeter, nobler or meaner, braver or more fearful than real people are. Even if the characters are boring, kids want them to be exceptionally, hilariously more boring than the average bear. That doesn't mean that the characters should be unrecognizable as human — but they should embody just a tad bit more of everything than a child or an adult would in real life — more doses of the curious, silly, funny, awkward stuff. Adding a little extra highlights the personality quirks that are important to the story and that make the character more memorable.

So how do you go about creating a character who is three-dimensional and real? You get to know him, that's how.

Recognize your main character's core

Sometime at the beginning of the writing process, or perhaps after you have finished your first draft and right before you start your first major edit, ask yourself just what makes your main character groove. What is he really about? What drives him to act the way he does and do what he does when other characters come into his life? What is his central defining attribute, the one that sets him apart?

Every main character needs to have a goal or something he wants very badly. This goal is the character's core; just as an apple without a core would collapse in on itself, a character without a discernible core is hollow and forgettable.

A character's core needs to be realistic so that many children can relate to it. Although you can spell out these desires in a straightforward manner in children's books, such as, "Harley wanted to be the best dancer in the entire world," you don't have to. You can opt for a subtler approach in which the reader discerns the protagonist's core by observing how he acts. In longer stories for older children, it is more interesting for your readers to figure out the core for themselves. But in order for readers to do this, you, the writer, must make sure to adequately flesh out the character.

Flesh out the main character

Giving your main character a set of physical attributes is important, but what makes a great character is all the quirks and desires and emotions that comprise a human being. Fleshing out, as this process is known, involves making your character real, just as the Blue Fairy made Pinocchio a real boy with his own little boy's agenda. You make a character real by planting clues throughout your story about how the character thinks and feels, by showing him reacting to other characters, by demonstrating his powerful desires as he takes steps to make them come true. It's all about nuance and what your character does. The old adage holds true here more than ever: What you do shows more about who you are than what you say. Readers need to see your characters doing.

To flesh out a character well, you need to work him through the basic plot or the action of your story. But if you don't know him well enough to do that yet, you can do one of two things: You can practice having him talk to another character, or you can make a character bible.

Create a character bible

A great way to really build a character, attribute by attribute, is to create a blueprint of him, or a character bible. A character bible is a type of character outline, in which everything about your character is laid out in one place so one can find answers to many questions about the character's personality and desires. Try this: Start a separate document from your story, in list or prose form, so that you can refer to it and amend it as you get more into your writing. It can even include visuals, if you are a doodler or illustrator. Some really good questions your character bible can answer include the following:

• What is his name? Whom was he named after and why?

• How old is he?

• What color are his hair, eyes, skin?

• What is his ethnicity?

• What does he look like (tall, thin, short, round, gangly)?

• Where does he live? Where was he born? (If not the same place, when did he move and did it affect him in any way?)

• How would you describe his personality?

• What are your character's physical quirks (bites nails, blinks when nervous, brushes hand through his hair, sniffles a lot)?

• What does he wish for more than anything?

• What are his character weaknesses or flaws?

• Does he behave the same way around his friends as he does around adults? Why or why not?

• Is he smart? Not so bright? In what does he excel? In what does he fail?

• Is he talkative or more introverted?

• Is he athletic? If yes, what are his favorite sports? If no, why not?

• What small details set him apart from others? (Does he wear a special totem hidden under his shirt? Does he speak only in a whisper? Does he always have a headset on in one ear?)

• Does he have brothers and sisters? What are their names and ages?

• Does he have a best friend? Name and age, please.

• What's his big secret that he keeps from everyone?

These questions incorporate the emotional, social, and physical — all aspects that contribute to making each one of us who we are. And because people can answer these questions about every child in the world, you should be able to do so for your main character.

Now not every character will be developed to this extent for every story in every format. But even in a picture book, where your word count is limited, it can never hurt for you to know lots of details about your characters. Character enrichment is all about adding layers of complexity with bits of text, phone calls, dialogue, and action. The more you have fleshed out a character, the more real you will make him or her (or it) seem to your reader. And the more memorable he or she will be in your story.