What makes a character feel real?

Have you ever read a book where you were rooting for the main character? Maybe you cried and laughed along with them? In other words, have you read a book where the characters felt real?

Becoming invested in the characters is always something that guarantees I will love the book. In fact, I have a couple of series I am reading where I want to know what is happening with the characters as much, and sometimes maybe slightly more, than the mystery.

There are a number of things that make a character feel real:

• Imperfections. Not just in the way they look, but their personalities and baggage. People have flaws. They might be self-centred, arrogant, stubborn or lazy. Mischievous, spoiled, vain or tactless. They will have dropped out of uni, come from a broken family or been bullied at school. These flaws make characters relatable. They are struggling through life like the rest of us. Making decisions based on lived experience, both good and bad.

• Internal turmoil. Life is messy and people are messy along with it. We can be brave in one moment and terrified the next. Loyal but selfish. Characters need to be multi-layered, responding differently depending on the situation.

• Making decisions. Everyday people make hundreds of decisions. Some small, like what to have for lunch, some big, like changing jobs. These decisions change us and change decisions we might make in the future. Characters are the same. They need to be actively responding to the story, making decisions that push the plot along and thanks to those decisions, they will learn and show growth over the course of the story.

• Mannerisms. We all have them. We might twirl our hair, snort when we laugh, always wear polka dots. These help make characters easier to identify when you are reading a book, but it’s another trait that helps make a reader like them.

All of these personality traits help make characters seem real. Their humanity shines through because they are authentic and relatable. They stumble but ultimately succeed showing growth throughout the story.

When we read stories we don’t actively notice how human the characters are, but we like them. We root for them. We cheer their success and cry with their loss. More importantly, we want to know what happens to them – and that keeps us reading, whether it is just to the end of the book or the next book in the series.

Take cozy author Amanda M Lee. Amanda has a few different series, and I read many of them, but two series in particular, the Charlie Rhodes Mysteries and Spell’s Angels are stand outs for me because I absolutely love the main characters. The mysteries are great, but I really want to know what is happening next in the characters lives. When Charlie Rhodes came to the end of her series I was disappointed even though I could see her story arc was complete. I just wanted to know more about what happened to her.

Do you have a book where the characters are real to you?