One thing many writers ask is "How to I create a character readers will love?"
Here are my 6 tips for creating a good character.
1. Love your character
To start, you have to love your character. Whether they're the hero in shining armor, or the villain that cooks crystal meth, you have to love them, somehow.
Love how they change the scene, love how they drive the story, love how clever they are - you don't have to love them for being nice. Everyone loved Darth Vader. Why? Because wherever he went, he won. He only ever lost once, at the end of episode 4. Even at the end of Episode 6, when he lost, he still won. Wherever he went, he rolled over everyone. The audience thought, "Well, the good guys are screwed now. Dark Vader is here to take everyone out."
And he did. He was loved because he was a great, sinister, and intimidating villain.
That's why so many people love Walter White from Breaking Bad. He started out good (or so it seemed), but became a horrible person while maintaining the attention of the audience. Why? Because he was clever, smart, and there was that glimmer of good left in him that interested the audience.
Of course, I'm very much oversimplifying it. Also, no one likes a whiny character. Remember that. It doesn't matter if they're sixteen and angsty. It still makes a character irritating.
2. If they are good at something, there should be a reason
This is where many Mary Sues and Gary Stus appear.
They're characters with no flaws, or at least those that impact the story. They are good at everything, and everyone loves them.
Usually, we don't get to see why they're naturally good at everything, except that they just are.
Let's use Walter White again. He's a high school chemistry teacher. How exactly does he know how to cook crystal meth? How can he outsmart the drug lords over and over?
Soon we find out that he was once a shareholder in "Grey Matter," a company started with him and his two friends. Before it got big, he sold his piece and quit. He was a very brilliant chemist, but he found a wife and settled down into a steady, standard job.
Walter is very intelligent, which is one, how his meth is so pure, and two, how he outsmarts other dealers. However, Walter does mess up on multiple occasions in the beginning.
One very interesting plotline is the one with him and Gus, his boss at one point in the series. It puts extreme pressure on Walter, as Gus is also very, very intelligent. It takes Walter a long time to overcome this obstacle, and there are very unfortunate sacrifices that he makes to do so.
Someone shouldn't just naturally become good at sword fighting, or shooting. They shouldn't be able to do university calculus if they never took grade 8 math.
Another example is Will Hunting from the movie "Good Will Hunting". He's extremely brilliant, yet he never went to college. It's because read an unbelievable number of books. He is a Savant, yes, but it is clear that he put time into his learning, such as the confrontation at the bar where he upstages a grad student's knowledge; Will read the books the student was quoting.
One interesting thing is that the Force, from star wars, is a Mary Sue generator, in a way. People are randomly amazing at sword fighting and shooting, because they feel the force, and know how to react. I don't think it makes them Mary Sues, though. Being a jedi usually takes a lot of mental strength and training.
3. Flaws make them interesting
Everyone always says a character should have flaws. It's true. Everyone has flaws, so why wouldn't the protagonist?
They do make the character more interesting. When a character is presented with a conflict, it is interesting when the flaw gets in their way.
Imagine your protagonist is cowardly and afraid of confrontation. They are presented with a situation: try to save their friends who are being attacked by something (a mugger, a dragon, etc.), or run and protect themselves. This decision changes many things - they may not actually survive if they try to help, but if they don't, their cowardice is revealed, and the friends lose their respect for the protagonist. Or, the friends die, and the protagonist must live with their choice.
This creates a story/character arc, where we discover what the consequences are of the protagonist's choice.
A flaw should affect the character during the plot. It shouldn't be something that's sort-of useless with respect to the plot. If someone is clumsy, it should have a consequence.
Sometimes physical flaws are shown, but they may serve little real value. Some see Tyrion Lannister's physical flaws (Dwarf, mangled) as actual flaws, and while they are since others disrespect them because of it, he has so many more personality flaws. (Bitterness because of it, self-loathing because of his love life, hate from his sister who never lets him forget it, alcoholism and more)
Make them a coward. Make them too proud to notice disloyalty. They could be too bull-headed to see their life is a lie, too uncoordinated so they lose battles, too immature so they lose the respect of their comrades, too dedicated to a cause, so they kill and hate themselves for it.
4. They change over the course of the book
When you create a plot, and it changes over the course of the book, your character should change with it. They shouldn't change completely, but they should grow from the experience.
Take Walter White again. Walter was a good man (or so it seemed), but he changed his methods and went to crime to pay for his medical bills, because he was too proud to ask for help.
Slowly, over the course of five seasons, he became a horrible person. Maybe that was him all along, but it was obvious how he changed. His pride owned him.
We grow over a year. Our opinions change, and our characters should change, too - for better or for worse.
5. They change when others enter the scene
One thing I learned as I wrote, was that there was an exponential number of styles of speech based on who was in the conversation.
Think of it this way:
Jack and Jill are talking. They are friends, good friends, so they talk about more personal information.
John enters the scene.
Jack is good friends with John, but not as much as Jill, so he holds a little bit of information back.
Jill hates John, but Jack doesn't know. She heavily restricts the personal information she divulges, and talks to John with a hint of disdain.
Jack then becomes confused, and changes the way he speaks, since he's confused.
John speaks a little less boisterously than normal, since Jack is acting strangely, and he also feels self conscious since Jill is speaking a little rudely.
That was only three people. Every time a new person enters the scene, the number of conversational changes exponentially increases.
Each character changes the way they talk when around different people.
Now, for the final and most obvious and commonly said way of creating a good character:
6. Give them a goal which drives the plot
A character should have a clear goal. Not always, but in most circumstances, a clear goal is a surefire way to have a reader like your character. When I sent my first book to beta readers, I got one obvious note back: they didn't like one of the characters very much, and it was a major one.
Why? Because that character didn't have a solid goal. They had a general goal, but not a solid one that would cause most people to drive the plot in the same way - which causes a lack of investment for the reader.
So I changed the goal, made it more specific, and the readers liked the character much better. They made choices due to their goal, which drove their story forward. The decisions made a real impact in the world they live in.
So should yours.
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I hope my post was helpful! I went with a few stereotypical ones, and a few points that I don't see often online. Let me know what you think in the comments!
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