Build Better Characters (Today, Not ‘Some Day’!)

Or: Be Your Own Casting Director

Listen to the podcast episode that inspired this post

Readers don’t fall in love with stories because of clever twists or thrilling events. They connect because of characters—flawed, funny, furious, fragile characters who make us feel something. 

If you want to improve your writing—and your readers’ response to it—mastering character creation is one of the most satisfying ways to do it. 

But I don’t want you to go and read a book about character (David Corbett’s “The Art of Character” is great, but at 380 pages, will not leave you much time to write, this weekend). 

So here are some practical ways to think about and craft characters that leap off the page and grab your reader by the heart. 

And you can get started by building a stash of character building blocks, this weekend.

Why Character Matters

Characters are the heartbeat of your story. They don’t just exist in a setting or respond to a plot. Nope. They drive the plot. 

Every decision a character makes causes ripples. They mess things up, fix them, sabotage themselves, fall in love, hate the wrong person, take the wrong job, say the wrong thing at the worst time—and that’s what creates story.

Thankfully, you don’t have to invent every character from scratch on the day you sit down to write. (That’s a guaranteed way to find yourself staring at a blinking cursor for 45 minutes and then convince yourself that doing laundry counts as productive procrastination. It doesn’t. Nice try.)

Instead, do yourself a favor: build your characters now Then dip into this little treasure chest any time you’re short on inspiration or just need a quick-start push.

Start With What You Know

Your first batch of characters? Make them like you.

Yes, you. The person reading this. You are the perfect inspiration for at least five characters. And no, they don’t have to be “you” in the obvious ways.

Start a list of five characters who share something with you:

  • Hair color? Sure.
  • Your love of spreadsheets? Perfect.
  • Your ability to cry at pet adoption commercials? Gold.

You can use your own internal traits too: your introversion or extroversion, your conflict-avoidance, your snarky sense of humor, your perfectionism, your unshakeable optimism, or the way you freeze up when someone asks where you see yourself in five years. All of it is fair game.

These characters are easy to write because you’ve lived in their skin. So when you’re stuck and short on time, they’re your go-to. Let them loose in your stories.

Bonus points: Write down which of those traits delight and frustrate you. That’s where the conflict lives. That’s where the story is.

Characters NOT Like You

Made your “like me” list? Great. Now, do the opposite.

Write down five characters who are unlike you. These are the ones who baffle or irritate you, or maybe the ones you secretly wish you could be. Pick traits you don’t relate to:

  • Someone who’s smooth-talking
  • A fearless adrenaline junkie.
  • A meticulous rule-follower.
  • Someone who thrives in social chaos while you’re ready for a nap after five minutes of small talk.

Think about how these traits might cause trouble—or create strength—in a story. How does an overly confident character screw up a sensitive situation? How does a shy person save the day because they notice what everyone else misses?

Again, note the conflict potential. Conflict = story. Always.

Add Color

Characters aren’t just about personality. Let’s dress them up a bit—literally.

Make a list of ten accessories or physical features that a character might have. These details are powerful shorthand in short stories. You don’t always have space to dive deep into every side character’s backstory, but you can make them memorable with:

  • A red umbrella with a duck-shaped handle.
  • A constantly rumpled trench coat.
  • Neon-green glasses.
  • A nervous habit of jingling keys.

These are little anchors for your reader’s brain. They give your stories color and texture—so everything doesn’t start to feel like a blank-stage play with floating heads and indistinct voices.

(There are useful for main characters but also a great way to make a secondary character pop.)

Get Quirky

Personality traits can show up whether your character wants them to or not. These are the reflex reactions, the annoying habits, the self-sabotaging instincts that make people people.

Think of five traits that drive you bananas in real life (or delight you—if you’re feeling generous). Use those.

Maybe your character:

  • Always expects the worst.
  • Can’t say no.
  • Over-apologizes.
  • Constantly tries to “fix” people.
  • Never sees the good right in front of them.

Then for extra credit, jot down how each trait might be subverted in the story. Turn the annoying trait into a strength. Make it a liability that forces change. Or let it spark unexpected humor.

Let Them Speak

Finally, give your characters their own voice. Not just dialogue—voice.

List five expressions or phrases people in your life overuse. Think of the office cliché machine, your grandmother’s weird sayings, or the barista who always says “rock on” no matter the situation.

Give each character a verbal tic. Let one say “bless your heart” with venom. Another can end every sentence with “you know what I mean?” even when no one does. These quirks do double duty: they reveal character and make your dialogue sparkle.

Don’t wait. Make these lists this weekend.

Stop waiting to get “good enough” to write great characters. You already have everything you need: your quirks, your annoyances, your people-watching superpowers. 

Use them. 

Make your lists. 

Keep them handy.

 And when it’s time to write—today, not someday—you’ll be ready.

Make a mess. Have fun.

And, of course, keep writing.

If you loved having prompts turning up in your inbox, but would like to go at a more leisurely pace, consider subscribing to my
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Your 4-Week Writing Rescue Plan

(aka: what to do after StoryADay May)

The StoryADay Challenge is hard because it’s a LOT of writing, and because you had to sacrifice activities—and perhaps sleep—to make time for it.

But StoryADay is great because you know exactly what is expected of you every day: 

  • show up, 
  • do the best you can with the assignment, 
  • move on with your life satisfied that you’ve shown up for your creativity today.

When the challenge month is over, I always hear from people that they experience a little letdown. They’re not writing as much. They lack motivation. They don’t know quite what to do first.

Of course, there is no ‘right’ way to be a writer, but I’ve put together a kind of follow-on curriculum for you, to help you structure the next few weeks, before all the momentum from StoryADay May drains away.

Post-Challenge Momentum Plan

Week 1: Capture what you wrote

  • Use this worksheet to capture the names of your stories, what inspired them, where you wrote or stored them
  • Overall, what worked in your stories? What was most fun?
  • Pick 2 stories to rework and refine.
  • Journal prompt: what did I learn about myself and my writing practice, during the challenge? What can I take forward? What can I let go?

Week 2: Position the Big Rocks

  • Pick one of the stories to begin editing, based on your enthusiasm levels, the complexity of the edits you think it needs, and how much time you have available.
  • Begin revising with the plot: do the events follow logically from the choices your characters make? If not, a, did you make a choice to write something experimental or b, what plot events could change or move to make them more logical?
  • If you get stuck or discouraged, switch to the other story.
  • Revision help: Listen to the 7 Revision Myths You Should Ignore podcast episode, and bookmark the checklist on that page!

Week 3: Character Development

  • Assignment: Review the Creating Compelling Characters article and see where you can strengthen you characters.
  • Focus on revising dialogue and inner/outer conflict to illustrate your character’s desires.
  • Writing prompt: rewrite one key scene (hint: not the opening) to find your character’s most authentic voice and attitude.

Week 4:  Finalize A Draft

  • Read over all your notes and take a deep breath
  • Schedule a writing sprint or two to work through one of the stories until it is as complete as you can make it, for now.
  • Optional, consider who you could send it to, for feedback
  • Non-optional: Celebrate! Do a dance, give yourself a gold star, pump the air, or take some time off to play with your pets. Seriously. Making it fun is what makes you want to come back!

Bookmark this checklist so you can come back to it! And why not share with a friend?

If you loved having prompts turning up in your inbox, but would like to go at a more leisurely pace, consider subscribing to my
StoryAWeek newsletter:
52 lessons and writing prompts, weekly for a whole year!

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How To Get Feedback That Actually Helps Your Writing

(without getting discouraged or giving up)

You’ve been writing for a while now—maybe you’ve just taken part in the StoryADay Challenge and have a bunch of drafts—and it feels pretty good.

…but now what?

This is where you get to do what I call ‘refining’. 

You’re in the slippery, uncomfortable, yet important, middle part of the writing process: 

  • The thrill of discovery-writing is past
  • The satisfaction of the polished draft lies in the future.
  • And you’re in that foggy, no-man’s land of “how do I get there, from here?”

The good news is that ‘refining’, doesn’t mean you have to make anything perfect. Or do it alone.

Refining your work and your process is all about making progress—in your drafts and your practice. Which can be helped by getting feedback.

Let’s talk about how to do that without freezing…or fleeing!

Define: Refine

Refining isn’t about aiming for ‘perfect’: it’s about making progress, with purpose.

It means:

  • Taking a dispassionate look at your work
  • Making decisions about what stays and what can go
  • Setting appropriate expectations and setting up the processes that support them
  • Courageously taking the very next (possibly tiny) step with one piece of your writing.

The Fundamentals of Feedback

Some of our writing projects exist to teach us a single lesson and then remain in draft form forever. (I think of them like origami: beautiful and requiring effort, but ephemeral!)

Other stories—the ones you can’t let go—want to live on. We owe it to them to get some perspective…and that’s a hard thing to do alone.

That’s where critique comes it.

But not any old critique. You need the right sort of feedback, at the right point in your process, and from the right people.

The Wrong Time To Seek Feedback

Before you ask: yes, there are times when it’s perfectly fine for you to keep your writing secret and safe and only for you.

Don’t be pressured into sharing your writing if:

  • It’s incredibly personal and too raw to discuss (clue: if it makes you cry when talking about it. Nothing wrong with that, but it’s hard to hear dispassionate feedback when you’re still attached to the source materials)
  • You’re still in the honeymoon phase with this piece and aren’t ready to hear anything critical about it.
  • You’re still working on it and are worried that other people’s opinions might shape it more than you would care for.

These are all legitimate reasons NOT to seek critique and that’s fine. Keep working until you need something else.

How To Know When You’re Ready for Feedback

There’s a difference between being healthily-protective of your early work, and being over-protective of your tender creative’s heart.

Here are a few signs that you’re ready for feedback–even if the idea still scares you:

  • You feel stuck on a piece of writing. You’ve done everything you can think of and it’s still just not ‘right’ (this might be a feeling you have, or something you’ve heard from editors at publications  you’ve send it to).
  • You keep polishing the same parts over and over again even though you suspect there’s a raging plot hole in the middle.
  • You have no idea if your ideas are coming through or if some important parts are still stuck in your head. You need a reader’s perspective!

At this point, feedback is going to be the thing that propels you into the next level of your writing craft.

How to Get Feedback You Can Use (Without the Flop-Sweat!)

Just because something calls itself a ‘critique group’, doesn’t mean you’ll get what you need from it. Choose carefully and avoid getting discouraged or stalled.

1. Trust the Group

It helps if you can find a group that’s run by someone you already know and trust.

Ask the organizer about the level and experience of the writers in the group. Ideally, you want to find a group where people are a little more experienced/skilled than you, but not so far ahead that they’ll scoff at all your ‘beginner mistakes’. 

And for the love of all that’s literary, do not send your work in to an anonymous online group. Those places are either so complimentary that they waste your time or so brutal that you might never pick up a pen again.

2. Help The Readers Help You

If the group allows it (and I think it should), add a note to your piece letting folks know what you’re looking for, in their feedback. There’s no point in someone doing a heavy-duty copy-edit if you’re still in the first draft, or giving you general feelings if what you’re looking for a is a detailed, final check before you send it out for publication.

Include in your note these pieces of information

  • Where your piece is in your process (“It’s very much a first draft and I’m trying to see if it’s intriguing enough to pursue” or “I’m getting ready to send it to publications and want to know if the plot hangs together.”)
  • What kind of feedback you want (“Does the pacing work?” “When did you guess whodunnit?”, “Was the ending satisfying?”). If you’re new to critique it might be difficult to know what to ask, so feel free to say that!
  • What you don’t want to hear, yet. (“Don’t bother correcting the typos, I’ll get to them later”; “I know I haven’t included much description in this draft. I’ll add that once I’m sure the story works.”)

3. Ask Specific Questions

Again, this is hard to do if you don’t have much experience of critique, so here are some sample questions you might use, which are miles better than stuttering, “Um, is it any good?” or “What did you think?”

  • Were there any places where you were confused by what was happening? 
  • Were there any places you started to skim (i.e. got bored)
  • What lines or aspects did you really love (so I can be sure not to edit them out!)?
  • Which character stood out most to you?
  • Did I make any promises that I didn’t deliver on?
  • If you had to write a one-line summary of what was at the heart of this piece, what would you say?

Build A Feedback System

Growing as a writer means engaging with your writing in a deliberate way.

Don’t leave it to chance. 

Set up a repeatable process – a system – for giving and getting critique. Some ways to do that:

  • Join a group that has a regular (but not too frequent) critique option
  • Swap stories on a regular schedule with a trusted writing buddy
  • Try out a critique group on a one-off basis and see if it works for you (remembering that if it doesn’t, that doesn’t say anything about you as a writer. It just wasn’t the right group for you).

If you don’t have a way to get regular feedback yet, don’t worry, I have something that might interest you!

Join a Firm, Fair and Fun Critique Experience (right here at StoryADay)

Three times a year (no more, because we take it seriously!) I host a Critique Week with members of the StoryADay community, and the Superstars group. 

It’s a 10-day guided experience where we:

  • Exchange short stories or excerpts of a longer work-in-progress (up to 7,000 words)
  • Read three pieces each, and receive feedback from at least three other writers
  • Learn how to ask for (and implement) feedback that moves our writing forward.

We have writers who are publishing and writers who are just coming back to their craft after decades away. You don’t need to be at any particular stage in your writing, you just need to be curious and ready to refine. 

Registration for the next edition of Critique Week opens soon. 

We’d love to welcome you in—why not join the waitlist today?

Find Out More About Critique Week

(And if you’re worried you won’t have anything to say about the other writers’ work, don’t be! You simply need to be an enthusiastic reader. After all, that’s what all of us want: someone who cares about writing, to read it and let us know how it hits them.)

Refine Your Writing Life, Not Just Your Draft.

Remember: you don’t have to perfect anything, just keep moving forward.

But if you want to grow as a writer, stay close to the StoryADay community.

Keep going, beyond the challenge, and build a sustainable, joy-filled writing life, with us!

  • Keep writing
  • Keep refining
  • Keep surprising yourself.

You don’t have to do it alone.

Next Steps:

Join us for Critique Week – or make a different plan to get some feedback this month. Your future writing self is waiting to thank you!

Keep writing,

Julie

MORE RESOURCES

Listen to the podcast episode that inspired this article

Sneak Peek

at this year’s roster of amazing writers providing writing prompts for StoryADay May 2025.

“How do they do it?”

So many of us think exactly that, when reading stories by writers we admire.

Well, if you’d like a sneak peek in side the brain of a bunch of award-wininng and best-selling authors’ brains, you should sign up for StoryADay May 2025.

This year I’ll be sharing writing prompts from writers who have won Nebula and Hugo awards, been featured in the Best American Short Story collection, been shortlisted for Edgar and Bram Stoker awards, and more.

Be Our Guest

Here are some of the names you’ll see in your inbox this May, when you sign up.

headshots of the authors providing guest prompts for this year's challenge and the words: with writing prompts from P. Djèlí Clark, Mary Robinette Kowal, John Wiswell, Lori Ostlund, Kim Coleman Foote, Sasha Brown, R. S. A Garcia, Jennifer Hudak, Tim Waggoner, Rachel Bolton, Julia Elliot, Kai Lovelace, Anglea Sylvaine, Rich Larson, F. E. Choe,Emma Burnett , Patricia A. Jackson, Allegra Hyde,

P. Djèlí Clark, Mary Robinette Kowal, John Wiswell, Lori Ostlund, Kim Coleman Foote, Sasha Brown, R. S. A Garcia, Jennifer Hudak, Tim Waggoner, Rachel Bolton, Julia Elliot, Kai Lovelace,  Anglea Sylvaine, Rich Larson, F. E. Choe,Emma Burnett , Patricia A. Jackson, Allegra Hyde,  and more.

Past Performance

For a hint of the kinds of prompts guests have given us in the past, here are some that have been popular:

Roxane Gay Wants You To Be Happy

Mary Robinette Kowal  Opens A Portal

Tadzio Koelb Witnesses An Accident

Simon Rich Knows More Than Your Character

Caroline Kim Conjures A Ghost

Pick one and write a practice story this weekend. And don’t forget to sign up for the challenge: https://storyaday.org/signup.

Keep writing,

Julie (signed)

I’m Talking About Practice

Visual artists keep sketchbooks. 

I’m not sure if it’s something they’re taught to do or something they’re compelled to do., but if you tried to tell a visual artist not to ‘waste their time’ on anything but the piece they’re trying to sell, they would blink uncomprehendingly.

The constant, unfinished, experimental sketches are essential fuel for their finished works.

We writers seem to have a lot more angst about doing writing that doesn’t ‘turn into something’.

  • Do you ever worry if you’re wasting time because you’re jotting down ideas or fragments of conversations? 
  • Do you feel pressure to be completing works and getting them published?

I think we feel this way, in part, because of the way “how  to write “reference books are written (Chapter 1: how to find ideas, Chapters 2-11: Craft techniques to develop those ideas; Chapter 12: how to get an agent, publisher, seven-figure book deal and then sell the film rights).

But a more powerful reason we feel pressure to craft finished pieces is that everyone can and does write, daily, even if it’s just text messages, and has been able to do it since they were a child. 

Writing seems ‘easy’ in a way that creating a painting or a sculpture (or writing a symphony), doesn’t. 

When the people in our lives ask, “when’s that book coming out” we feel judged (even if it’s meant in a supportive way).

And so we rush back to the Big Project full of good intentions and impatience, only to discover that crafting that big project feels like standing at the foot of Everest, in flip flops, and hoping to get to the top by next weekend…because we haven’t equipped ourselves properly, or kept in shape by doing sketches, crafting characters, drafting dialogue, and writing down our ‘what if’s on a daily basis.

An invitation to a training mission: This week, capture 3 Story Sparks a day, for five out of seven days.

Hand write them in a special notebook you carry everywhere or capture them in a note in your phone. Use a journaling (or journaling app) to add pictures and sound snippets, if that inspires you. 

Don’t worry about what you will do with these sparks. Just practice noticing how the world unfolds around you.

Keep writing,

Julie

Writing Prompts: Sensory Writing Series

A few years ago I put together a series of short story prompts aimed at helping you explore the different senses in your writing. You can use them in a larger work in progress, or you could write a series of short works that go together, tied up with the theme of ‘senses’.

  1. Smell
  2. Sound
  3. Touch
  4. Taste
  5. Sight

Bonus points: write about the fuzzier senses (sometimes lumped together as ‘proprioception’) that allow you to do things like walk downstairs without looking at your feet, stand up in the dark without falling over, and know how closely someone is standing behind you, even if you can’t see them.