Do you know your characters as well as your closest friends? If you don’t, take the time to get to know them. Sit down and ask each one the things you would ask someone you just met. “Where are you from?” “How long have you been in town? Do you like it?” Or you can be more formal and interview the main characters, as you would candidates for employment at your place of work. Besides the more standard interview questions, try some original ones. Some examples: What is your biggest fear? What makes you laugh? What makes you nervous? What are your secrets? Do you like your job? Why or why not?  Notice not only what each character says, but also how he or she says it. How does the character move? Does he shuffle, take giant steps, or roll his hips? What hand movements are characteristic? How does he talk? Is it slow and leisurely, broken by pauses, or quick and nervous? Does he use lots of slang or incorrect grammar? Does he have a big vocabulary? How close to people does he stand? What is his posture like?

When you have heard what the character has to say and the manner in which he or she has said it, you should get even closer. Imagine you are the characters (one at a time of course). Try living in their heads for an hour, walk like they would walk, think like they would think, talk like they would talk. If you can’t inhabit each of your main characters then you don’t have a fully fleshed-out human. Go back to the beginning and ask him/her more questions.

The level to which you need to develop your characters will vary depending on what you are writing.  Literary fiction is deeply concerned with looking into the human heart, whereas thrillers are based more on action and plot. However, no matter what genre you choose to write, a book that reads well, and sells well, is a book with fleshed-out, believable main characters.

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