A while back, I asked our community, “If you had a writing mentor, what kinds of questions would you ask them?” In today’s post, I’ve culled a selection of your questions about characters to answer:

“What are some good ways to develop strong, likable main characters?”

“Likable” is a very subjective word. My kids have friends they really like who I’m so-so on. I have friends with spouses who I tire of after an evening. It isn’t that these are “bad” kids or spouses, it’s that my tastes are different than the tastes of my kids or my friends. All that to say, you will never create a character who is universally loved.

But there are some common characteristics among likable main characters that can help you put the odds in your favor. You don’t have to add all of these, and you should always consider the tone of your story and what makes sense for your character, but here are five ideas:

• Humor: We love characters who make us laugh.
• Concern for others: Selfish characters have an uphill battle to climb with us. Think about how much more likable Katniss Everdeen is in The Hunger Games because of her deep love and concern for Prim.
• Competence: We don’t particularly like characters who are good at everything, but we like characters who are good at something.
• A backstory that tugs at the our heart: The writers at Disney know what they’re doing when they kill off a parent of the main character!
• Rising above circumstances: We can’t help but love a character who has been dealt a crummy hand but doesn’t let it define them. When we meet Harry Potter, he isn’t sitting around in his tiny closet feeling sorry for himself. Cinderella sings with birds even though she’s treated cruelly by her family.

More on this topic: How To Write Characters Worth Caring About

“What is a good way to make sure that your characters have distinctive, recognizable personalities of their own and do not blend into each other?”

Taking the time to develop diverse backstories is the secret sauce to distinct characters and unique character voices. If each of your characters was raised by two loving, devoted parents who managed their money well, prioritized community service, and made sure their children never wanted for anything . . . that’s a problem for your cast.

You definitely can have characters who come from similar situations but approach life very differently. While that can be an interesting dynamic to explore, you really have to be careful with doubling-up on similar upbringings. I see that work well with sibling characters, but there’s almost always some kind of explanation offered as to why they turned out differently.

Think about the diverse family situations of Harry Potter’s friends (and enemies).

• Harry: Biological parents were wizards, but he was orphaned as a child and raised outside of the wizarding world by muggles
• Hermione: Raised by muggles with no knowledge of the wizarding world.
• Ron: Raised in a large, poor wizard family with minimal exposure to muggles.
• Draco: Only child in a wealthy, elitist wizarding family. He would never deign to hang out with muggles!
• Neville: Raised by his grandmother within the wizarding world.

And this list primarily considers their family situation. What about socio-economics? What about religious beliefs? What did they grow up believing about the world? About other people? There are so many ways we’re different from each other!

You can also use tools like the enneagram to distinguish your characters from each other. I think personality tools (enneagram, Meyers Briggs) are best used in combination with well-developed backstories. Same goes for character worksheets.

More on this topic: How To Avoid Creating Repeat Characters, How To Use Character Descriptions to Anchor a Large Cast

“How can you tell if the arc fits the character?”

I love this question.

In the best stories, the plot and the character are creating each other. Your character needs to actively make choices that are logical to them and those choices have consequences that then force them to make another decision. There are external things happening, like cars being chased or clues being found or school dances being attended, but those should be impacting your character internally as well.

One way to show the reader that your character is growing is to give them opportunities to make different choices in similar situations. Maybe in chapter three your character said no when they should’ve said yes, but then in chapter thirteen, they get a similar chance in a similar situation and they say yes this time.

The plot and the inner journey of your character shouldn’t be viewed as separate story elements but more like strands in a rope that work together to form a cohesive whole.

More on this topic: Characters Are Created As You Write, How To Understand What’s Behind Our Characters Decisions

“Can a character’s voice be too unique in that it’s distracting from the plot or unrelatable?”

Hmm. A voice can definitely be unlikable or unrelatable, same as how you probably have people in your life who you have a harder time connecting with or enjoying. But I don’t think I’ve ever read a piece of writing where I thought, “the character’s voice is too unique for this plot.”

But what can definitely happen is the character voice doesn’t match up with the tone of the story. If you’re writing a dark suspense with a high body count, your readers do not want a light-hearted, rom-com type of character for the primary point of view. It isn’t that the POV character is too unique, it’s that the reader is confused. Are they supposed to be feeling scared or are they supposed to be laughing? This isn’t to say that your dark suspense story can’t have humor, but that humor needs to fit within the tone of the overall book.

More on this topic: How To Build Unique Character Voices

“I have a large cast of sub-characters (it’s necessary) how do I decide which of them to focus on and which to shove further in the back?”

The easiest way to answer this question is to consider who is involved in the climax of the book. Those are likely the characters to focus on and the others don’t need as much page time. Sometimes we don’t know until we’ve written the climax, but I think that’s a good filter to use for deciding who you’ll focus on.

More on this topic: How To Know if Every Character Matters In Your Story, Discovering My Cast of Characters

If you have other questions about characters, or anything else you wish you could ask a writing mentor, drop them in the comments section!

Stephanie Morrill writes books about girls who are on an adventure to discover their unique place in the world. She is the author of several contemporary young adult series, as well as two historical young adult novels, The Lost Girl of Astor Street and Within These Lines. Within These Lines was a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard selection, as well as a YALSA 2020 Best Fiction for Young Adults pick. Since 2010, Stephanie has been encouraging the next generation of writers at her website, GoTeenWriters.com, which has been on the Writer’s Digest Best Websites for Writers list since 2017. She lives in the Kansas City area, where she loves plotting big and small adventures to enjoy with her husband and three children. You can connect with Stephanie and learn more about her books at StephanieMorrill.com, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.