You ever start a new book and find it almost impossible to tell who is who? Do all of the names begin to blend together? Have any of your beta readers labeled your characters as “one dimensional”? This is a common problem in fantasy stories, especially in the epic fantasy sub-genre. Luckily for you, I have compiled a list of solutions to this often overlooked issue. By the end of this post, you should have everything you need to create characters that your readers will NEVER forget.
1. Keep Names Simple and Varied
So, your readers can’t tell Jackson, Johnson, and Jerry apart? Quite the mystery…
But real talk. You can’t expect people to be able to tell your characters apart if their names all look the same or start with the same letter. In movies, we tell people apart based on appearance. The names of the characters barely matter. But in the written form, the character’s name IS their appearance. Sure you can describe a character in great detail early in the book, but in reality, readers will mostly attribute the name of a character as everything that character is until that character becomes memorable in other ways. If all your characters have similar names, they are already starting on a forgettable foundation.
Ok, so you change Jackson, Johnson, and Jerry to Tafalagoraj, Y’em’en, and Bjorg’uh, yet your readers STILL can’t tell them apart. Like I mentioned before, readers will begin their introduction to a character based on their name. If your fantasy names are crazy as hell, people are going to be so distracted by the Lovecraftian monster they picture for a split second as they read.
Epic fantasy and space odyssey writers tend to have this problem more often than others since they are trying to make completely alien worlds to our own. You don’t need to name your characters John and Brittany, but you can name them Tafal, Yem, and Bjorga to give them a unique name that doesn’t break your reader’s brain.
Keep your names varied and simple and they will have a strong memorable foundation for you to write upon.
2. Cut Your Cast
Fantasy and Sci-fi have a reputation for telling epic tales that tell the story of an entire nation of people at a time. A Song of Ice and Fire has a huge cast of characters with more being added as the series progresses. We as fantasy writers tend to be inspired by our favorite series and try to replicate what they do, so I often find newer writers fall into the trap of trying to include a very large cast into book one without proper planning.
People have a limited amount of memory. When you start reading a book, each character that is introduced takes up a portion of that memory. There will come a point where your reader simply no longer has the capacity to comprehend another character. If you want to maximize your most important characters’ memorability, you can start by cutting your secondary cast.
The easiest way to cut your cast is to only give characters a name if they are truly important. If Guard A is going to die one chapter after introducing himself at length, then his name will only take up space in our reader’s memory. Make characters earn their name by having a decent amount of page time.
You can still have a large cast of characters though. You just need to make sure that your main cast has been committed to long term memory by being present for most of the book before you allow yourself to expand upon it. A Song of Ice and Fire started with only 9 POV characters in a 290k word book and jumped up to 20 by book 5. It never feels like too much because Martin spends a significant amount of time with his initial cast before adding more.
3. Merge Your Cast
Another powerful way to simultaneously cut your cast and make your characters more memorable is to merge your cast. If your readers have ever called your characters “one dimensional” this solution directly addresses that issue and could increase your characters’ memorability.
What does it mean to merge your cast? Imagine there is a cast of hypothetical characters. We have Character A who is “the prep”, Character B who is “the stoner”, Character C who is “the cool guy”, and Character D who is “the asshole”. As they are, all four are one dimensional, forgettable characters. Sometimes authors try to include a wide cast with a single attribute a piece in order to include a variety of story arcs. However, your writing will greatly improve if you include the same number of arcs with a smaller cast.
Now imagine a new character. Character ABD is an antisocial preppy guy who is prone to addiction. Preps can be stoners, cool guys can be assholes, and stoners can be cool guys. Real people are dynamic and ever-changing. This same thought process can be applied to talents as well. A scientist can be a warrior, a thief can be a scientist, and a hacker can be an asshole. Everyone can be an asshole! On your next revision, try determining which of your characters serve only a single purpose and see if you can combine them with other one dimensional characters to make one super character that is greater than the sum of its parts.
4. Make them Likeable, Competent, and/or Relatable
So, you’ve got a character with a unique simple name, Tafal, and you made him from a combination of two to three characters who only had one distinct quality. You cut the cast you didn’t need, so there are only a small handful of characters your reader has to remember. You’ve got one heck of a start going, but now its time to make them completely unforgettable.
To make your characters stick in your reader’s mind they need to be likable, competent, relatable, or any combination of the three. I could write an entire post on each of these three attributes, but for now, I will paraphrase.
Likable characters are generally what most would consider nice guys. They can be pious, selfless, heroic, and just plain kind. These characters are people you would want to be your best friend because of how damn nice they are. This is a common attribute for protagonists, but I would recommend going easy on it and assuring they have some relatability to balance them out. Readers will remember these characters because they want to be around them.
Competent characters are impressively good at something. Whether they are powerful magicians, skilled swordfighters, or cunning thieves, competent characters typically garner respect from being good at what they do. This is a popular attribute to give to villains since it can be difficult to have a likable Dark Lord that burns down villages. Readers will remember these characters because they want to be them.
Relateable characters are down to earth. They are human and embody some kind of quality that conveys the human experience. When a reader has shared the same experience that a character has, they connect to them on the deepest of levels. Characters like these are very difficult to write because no two people experience the world in the same way, but they are no doubt the most memorable. Readers will remember these characters because they ARE them.
So long as your characters embody one or more of these three attributes, the chances of them sticking in your reader’s heads will increase exponentially.
Conclusion
Writing characters that your readers will remember does not have to be a shot in the dark. Start by making your character names simple and varied. Next cut out any characters that aren’t necessary or only assign names to characters that will be used often in the book you are currently writing. Next, consider merging your one-dimensional characters into a super character with many dynamic qualities. Finally, be sure to write them to be likable, competent, relatable, or any combination of the three.
Now get out there and write characters that your readers will NEVER forget!
