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Who are your favorite characters? How does their complexity play into your desire to read about them?
For the writers out there, how do you create complex characters in your own writing?

My latest essay discusses the fundamental key for creating people your readers want to know.



Have fun.
Gamal

I like my characters (in both what I read and write) to be complex, and ... well, like books: the more you read about them and what happens to or around them, the more you know about them, but never completely. Like for the really interesting people in the real life.

Some of the characters I really like in books are people I would not like in the real life around me - like Harry Hole. But in books, I've got a huge book detective crush on him <3. Other really interesting protagonists I really like would include e.g. Harry Bosch, Salvo Montalbano (and Fazio), Raylan Givens, Boyd Crowder (even if still knowing them just from Justified so far - just amazing. And Ava Crowder too I guess), Irene Huss (even though she is not as flawed as the others on my list, and has a happy family life), many accidental heroes from Robert Ludlum's books, like in The Sigma Protocol or The Matarese series. Or Erik Winter and his sidekick, Aneta.
I guess most on the list are with quite a few flaws (and not just alcohol). It's also odd how many have kind of all the good elements but something is missing. Erlendur is OK for some books, but I really liked when you get to know his brother in some later books.
Passionate, intelligent, with a good sense of good/bad (not necessarily coinciding with who's good and who's not; Boyd Crowder has a good sense of good and bad from his point of view), never giving up, and with what many could call flaws cut it for me.

However, there's one flaw that puts me off a book or a series: if the detective has a kid or kids that are in prison for some crime, and if it's mentioned casually (especially Van Veeteren). It's even more annoying than detectives who don't seem to detect anything, and who spend all their days and evenings at detailedly described lunches and dinners (Van Veeteren) and who have a mundane family life around them (Guido Brunetti. For some reason Peter Decker has a lot of the same characteristics, but does not get boring). Being one-dimensional does not cut it for me; I want to get to know the characters, and the cold old skool Maltese Falcon style does not exactly help in that.

I like characters that grow when the series grow on. I like characters that complement each other, and characters that grow.

I like characters that grow as well. That's why I got tired of Kinsey Milhone of Sue Grafton's Alphabet series.

Characters are complex when the author has something to say. After all characters are bridges to let you enter into her or his reality, her ideas, her world view and so on...

While I firmly agree that all characters in books should be complex, they all aren't. It seems to me that happens when the author is holding back, and I say this because I've done it myself. New authors sometimes worry about each letter on the page, that they will take control of the writing and that something in the novel will be forever ruined because of that... which could definitely happen if you let it. But, there is a middle ground. As authors, it's our job to find ours, and everyone's path across the pages is different. For me, I try to cut the bottom of the window out so that my readers can not only see the bridge, but can leave where they're at in their daily lives, walk across that bridge, and settle in beside the characters for the duration of the book. If done correctly, those characters will be in the reader's minds even weeks later. I also offer history for my characters. I think that's needed to makes my characters complex. I mean, characters are all complex, but the more we get to find out about what happened in their lives before the story, the more insight we have to who they are. It's the same with folks in the real world. No one is not deep, but if you don't take the time to walk out the door to meet them, you will never know a thing about them. This was a great subject. THanks for asking the question.

One of my favorite characters (other than my series protagonist NOPD detective Frank Renzi) is Natalie, the woman Frank pursues in Natalie's Revenge. In creating her, she became totally real to me. If reader reaction is any indication, readers found her fascinating. Why?

Well, for one thing, she kills people. But she is also very vulnerable. When she was ten, someone murdered her mother, so Natalie never had a real childhood. Because her father was Vietnamese, I took pains to research Vietnamese culture, religions belief system and symbolism. This allowed me to create a deep background for Natalie and show motivations for her actions.
Interested? See more on my Natalie's Revenge webpage.

One thing I like about Raymond Chandler is that every character is complex. Every interaction is significant - even with the person serving in a shop or the receptionist at an office. Each of them has something distinctive, some hint at a life beyond the story.

It's easy to make minor characters stereotypes like you see on some TV credits ("bored checkout operator", "cheeky waitress") but they can break the spell. I find it a good discipline to make every character I write about interesting in some way.

NB Quirky is not the same as complex! The detective with the secret creme de menthe addiction who drives a three wheeler, breeds labradoodles and always wears a yellow tie is not a character, he's just a string of attributes. (Although now I've written that he sounds like he might be quite fun!)

Kate Vane wrote: "One thing I like about Raymond Chandler is that every character is complex. Every interaction is significant - even with the person serving in a shop or the receptionist at an office. Each of them..."
Go for it! :)

One thing I noticed recently in John Sandford's Virgil Flowers novels and more recent James Lee Burke books is how well they can develop character in very short scenes. They can flesh out almost anyone very distinctly with a few brush strokes. I'm envious. Really good technique.

Characters that are influenced strongly both by the environment and by genes.

A character who shows different sides.The main goal of developing a character’s personality - as already stated - is to make that character human. It doesnot necessarily mean that the character needs to be a human being or act exactly like one. Exceptions where a character has an inhuman personality can only be made interesting if human nature is understood first.
The importance of personality in a character is undeniable. Some fictional works are only considered interesting because of just one character’s personality.Furthermore, some fictional works are centered towards just one character. In fact, the personality is both the most complex and most important part of a character. A character’s personality is the main drive of most stories. It’s very likely you have heard people talking about having a “favorite character.� This character is more often than not the main reason people care about this fictional work at all.