Six Ways to Write Characters Readers Will Remember 

Guest Post by Clara Hanley –

It’s easy to think of plots that are memorable—movies or books that stick with you when the lights come on or the last page is turned—but have you considered what makes your characters memorable? Here are six craft tips for writing memorable characters. 

1. Have Your Character Fail

We’ve all heard that you should put obstacles in your character’s way to create a compelling plot, but this is something else. Perfect characters are boring. They’re hard to get behind because life isn’t perfect and challenges exist. Start by showing your character training, practicing, learning, striving for something meaningful to them. Then have them fail. Bonus points if the failure is public. The Olympian who doesn’t medal. The beauty queen whose dress is so tight it rips just as she is being crowned. A doctor who loses a patient during their first routine surgery. Make it count. Make it personal. Make it painful. 

2. Have Your Character Choose Between the Moral High Road and What Is Right for Them

Historical fiction novels are full of examples, and so is history. Socrates choosing to poison himself with hemlock rather than following through with the jailbreak his friends had planned. Galileo could have avoided life imprisonment by recanting his beliefs against the Catholic Church instead of upholding his scientific principles. Martin Luther King Jr. could have stepped back to protect his life and those of his family instead of pursuing his engagement with the Civil Rights Movement and nonviolent resistance. Obviously, if the choice your character makes is between life and death, you may not have a character left to write about—but have your character make choices. Difficult ones. Ones where the character must choose between two things that matter deeply to them will win the sympathy of your reader and render them intriguing. 

Consider also that some characters will be unforgettable for making the wrong choice, but for the right reason. 

3. Save the Cat

Save the Cat is a popular writing structure. Basically, it adheres to the premise that in the opening chapters your character must save a cat to get readers to sympathize with them. Please note, for those who are not aware, this is a figurative cat. While the story structure is a bit formulaic, the idea of showing your character caring deeply about someone or something is a good one. Not only does it show what they’re interested in, but it also reveals how far they are willing to go to support someone. Who, besides themselves, is your character willing to put themselves out there for? 

4. Give Your Character an Important Flaw

We already talked about how we don’t want perfect characters, but, more importantly, we want a character who has a flaw—and not just any flaw—but one that is so significant it holds them back. The flaw needs to be one that doesn’t just impact your character, but one that affects the story as well. By weaving the character’s flaw into the plotline and eventually having the character overcome it, then the moment when your character triumphs will feel earned. The reader will feel satisfied and come to love just how amazing your character really is. One of the most poignant character examples of this, both in real life and on screen, is King George VI, who overcame his speech impediment in The King’s Speech.

Of course, not all characters overcome their flaws. Some succumb to them, but I’m always here for a HEA (Happily Ever After)—even in HisFic. 

5. Interiority

Interiority seems like the word du jour in craft discussions of writing these days, but showing your characters’ thoughts, feelings, ideas, and reactions is a fast track to getting readers to relate to them and consider their plights long after they’ve finished a chapter. Events in your story are important, but what matters more is how your characters respond to them and how they feel about their impact. For readers who lean more easily into telling rather than showing, interiority gives you a way to balance both of these modes. Of course, you should remember the old adage: everything in moderation (including moderation). The Remains of the Day (Kazuo Ishiguro) and I, Claudius (Robert Graves) are strong examples. Hilary Mantel’s portrayal of Thomas Cromwell is often cited as one of the most compelling applications of interiority in historical fiction. Cromwell’s thoughts are shaped by a 16th-century worldview—honor, patronage, memory, survival—but Mantel does not cloak them in a present-day moralistic interpretation. Readers discover the period through Cromwell’s responses to power, captivity, and danger, and are immersed in Cromwell’s actions as if they are experiencing them alongside him. 

6. Make Your Character Multifaceted

As humans, we love to figure things out. Infuse your characters with complexity and even contradiction. If they are always polite, surprise the reader by having them create a stir at a formal tea party—or do something that would be considered scandalous in the time period in which they lived. Obviously, you don’t want your character taking a spacecraft home from work if you are writing historical fiction, but they can still shock while remaining loyal to the era in which they’re living. Bridgerton has given us some fabulous examples of this in the Regency era—examples viewers have embraced and found both shocking and salacious. 

The trick is not only to make your character choose between difficult options, fail miserably, or struggle with a defining flaw, but to show how those moments stay with them. This is where the stakes rise and where readers begin to truly care. Memorable characters linger in our minds because their failures cost them something meaningful, because their moral choices leave marks that don’t easily fade, and because their flaws don’t just move the plot forward—they shape who the character becomes and how their story ultimately unfolds.