Sometimes beta readers and reviewers say things like “I just didn’t resonate with the main character” or “The protagonist was nothing special,” despite the many hours and years you’ve spent paining over every one of their thoughts, choices, and words.
So what makes some characters feel forgettable, while others move the hearts of generations of readers? The fact is, characters need more than a driving goal, intricate backstory, and unique strengths and weaknesses in order to truly feel alive. A good horse has most of those things.
If you want your mc to feel deeper than an animal, they need to ponder and act upon matters of “eternal significance,” whether they fall on the side of good or evil. Let’s look at how and why:
- The go-to character development checklist doesn’t cut it
- What’s missing from “flat” characters?
- The few “big questions” most characters do ask
- Why they’re not enough
- Rebuttal 1: “Peasants aren’t deep.”
- Rebuttal 2: “Teenagers aren’t deep.”
- Rebuttal 3: “SFF isn’t/doesn’t need to be literature.”
- Rebuttal 4: “Morals can be shown through emotions.”
The go-to character development checklist doesn’t cut it
When fleshing out a character, particularly the main protagonist, authors have a list of elements they (should) develop:
- Deepest want or need
- Backstory
- Strengths
- Weaknesses
- Likes and dislikes
- Unique behavioral patterns or personality traits (quirks)
- Style of speech
These are all important and go a long way in helping readers root for and emotionally connect to a character. But they are still pretty surface level. They’re the bones and muscles, but readers still need the heart and soul.
With the exception of the “deepest desire” or any hidden traumas, you probably know all of those things about your coworkers. Their career and family goals, where they grew up, whether they prefer coffee or soda, if they’re a morning person or obsessed with x sports team, and a whoooole list of weaknesses! 😉
But does this make you feel close to them? Do you really know your coworkers even if you are familiar with their irritating and endearing manners of speech and their drama with their in-laws?
Even if they are the type to gush too much information and you do learn their greatest goals and personal traumas, would you be able to say you “truly” know them?
What’s missing from “flat” characters?
You know the joke (that’s unfortunately not a joke at all): don’t discuss politics or religion at Christmas dinner.
Noticeably absent in workplace and family small talk AND the above character checklist, are topics of “eternal significance.” Do you know what your coworker thinks and feels about the big questions in life? Have you written your main character in a way that will make your reader understand what they believe about what is good, true, and beautiful in the world? Or with only enough depth that readers will know your characters as well as a coworker.
Let’s take a step back. Do your characters actually consider these things? Do they have a well developed inner moral compass, ideology, and active mental world? For some characters, ambivalence is actually part of who they are. Perhaps part of their developmental arc involves learning how to care about more than just themselves. But if you have not deliberately written your character to be shallow, then you need to deliberately develop their spiritual and intellectual world, not just their emotional and plot-relevant one.
Now, let me say straight off that there’s a difference between being shallow and being uneducated. Many fantasy main characters begin as average peasants. Medieval farmers didn’t have much opportunity to learn philosophy or art history. That doesn’t mean they can’t consider meaningful questions and cultivate a life of virtue according to their values.
- Where do we come from? What happens when we die?
- What truly makes life meaningful?
- Should I seek to make the world a better place or merely live as if there’s no tomorrow?
- Is there any point to choosing good in such a terrible world?
Real people have opinions on almost everything. There’s always a deeper ideology underneath every quirk.
Your character may find embellished clothing distasteful and dress beneath their means as a result. What’s their underlying deeper held truth? A lingering resentment for the wasteful indulgences of the wealthy? Discomfort in their own body and self-image? Subconscious prejudice against the foreign styles that have started to dominate their culture?
Do you know the answer to that question? Does your character?
A stoic, determinedly plain hero is a trope. We get a sense of who and what they are, but not why or how. As a result, they come across the same as every other purposely understated hero in fiction. This behavior does not end up setting them apart, because the details are only surface level.
For a character to truly have complex depth, they need to think and care about significant moral, social, political, and religious topics, AND act according to the conclusions they have drawn.
The few “big questions” most characters do ask
Now, a lot of main characters in sci-fi and fantasy do address “big questions,” but usually only the same handful:
- The right way to treat your fellow human
- The morality of killing
- How the powerful should treat those beneath them (essentially their philosophy of governance)
- The existence of a higher power
Fantasy heroes almost always have to decide where they fall on the lawful good to chaotic evil chart, where they draw the line in their efforts to defeat their enemies, what type of rulers they will follow or stand against, and if a greater spiritual or magical power impacts their life.
I rarely see any moral or philosophical insights beyond these 4 topics.
- Do I toss a coin to the street orphan or ignore them?
- Should I kill the villain or not? Can I torture him first or not?
- Am I honoring my oath more by supporting the peasant revolt or the authority of the local noble who was a family ally?
- When my loved ones die, will I see them again in Valhalla or not?
We also usually see the mc’s practical opinions on sex and relationships.
Why they’re not enough
The topics of life and death, power and rulership, God and the afterlife, and moral behavior may seem to give your story and character depth. But if you stop to think about it, these questions are really very basic.
A 10 year old asks them:
- Should I be nice or a jerk?
- Can I hit someone to stop them from hitting my sister?
- Is it ok for teachers to be mean to students?
- Is God real?
I rarely encounter main characters in modern fiction whose view is any more refined than that of a ten year old. Another assassin who has nightmares about those he’s killed. Another paladin who pains over whether to stand against the tyrant king he was meant to serve. Another spunky farm girl who refuses to be sold off in marriage by her callous relatives.
Adding other character details like “she obsessively loves potatoes” or “he makes really terrible puns all the time” will make a character feel a bit more unique. But it’s still like adding trimmings to white bread. There is little substance at the heart of such characters.
It’s almost jarring reading older fiction and seeing how differently characters used to be written. Characters would regularly and casually discuss matters of great significance on a wide range of topics – art and music, foreign engagement, social dynamics and etiquette, what makes a superstition legitimate or folly, etc. They clearly have a deeply developed mental (and often spiritual) world that actually affects their day to day existence.
They aren’t the type of people who, when asked a question about people, God, the world, politics, money, stories, or really anything, would shrug and say, “who cares?” or “whatever” rather than pausing to think about it and align their choices accordingly.
Rebuttal 1: “Peasants aren’t deep.”
Now, I admit that older novels were almost predominantly written by and about the middle and upper classes (Austen, Defoe, Dumas, Lewis). The 3 older books that I recently read, and which struck me in their moral and intellectual depth, are The Railway Children by Edith Nesbit, A Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, and The Man Who Was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton. All are about members of the British middle and upper classes.
That’s one reason why Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, Victor Hugo, and Harriet Beecher Stowe were so hugely impactful. For the first time, authors started writing from the perspective of the (very) poor, and showed them to have deeply valuable lives and richly developed character and beliefs, irrelevant of their opportunity or education.
A fantasy or sci-fi novel that follows a farmer, scrapper, or orphan can still contain complex ideas, rich moral underpinnings, and discussions that peel back layers of the human condition.
Rebuttal 2: “Teenagers aren’t deep.”
Young adult books, and YA characters specifically, have gained a reputation for being somewhat shallow, if entertaining, flashes in the pan. Fun to read, but with little staying power. The mc’s tend to be impetuous, emotional teenagers who are often designed as “reader inserts,” deliberately lacking any true distinguishing features.
So you might be thinking, “it’s not that SFF doesn’t have deep characters. It’s that YA SFF doesn’t – so go read adult fiction.”
It’s true that teenagers haven’t had as much time to develop “life wisdom” and their hormones might be driving them to think that their crush smiling at them is “the meaning of life.” We’re not getting married at 15 anymore, so we aren’t in as much of a rush to wise up. But that doesn’t mean young adults should be portrayed as predominantly insolent, impulsive, horny twerps who happen to be able to save the world.
That’s insultingly reductive. A lot of juvenile fiction from the 20th century shows children with a far more developed moral compass and uprightness of character than 21st century books about teenagers. And plenty of the characters in modern adult fiction feel like empty shells. Youth guarantees vapidity no more than age assures wisdom.
Rebuttal 3: “SFF isn’t/doesn’t need to be literature.”
You may also protest, “but fantasy is meant to be entertaining! If you want deep topics, go read serious literature.” Except I vehemently disagree that fantasy and science fiction cannot be “serious literature.” Just take a look at some of the most enduring and impactful books of all time: the Bible, Homer, Shakespeare, Brave New World, fairy tales, H.G. Wells, and so on. All contain spiritual and speculative elements.
This doesn’t need to be a case of “either/or:” depth of content does not eliminate entertainment value. Homer and Shakespeare were both the “Hollywood” of their day. The reason they have endured is because they’re epic, hilarious, fun AND meaningful.
So yes, I expect more of fantasy and sci-fi books today. I look for more in their protagonists. Because fantastical stories have the capacity to catch and hold the imagination of the world for millennia.
Rebuttal 4: “Morals can be shown through emotions.”
It’s perhaps worth noting that the way many define and develop their ideology and morality has changed significantly over the past few decades alone. With the rise of postmodernism came the belief that right and wrong is “whatever you want it to be.”
Modern individuals often choose their actions and beliefs based off how they feel, rather than through a pattern of philosophy or religion. So authors may think, “but I am showing what my characters believe – by showing how they feel and how they act on those feelings – not by lengthy discussions or periods of introspection.”
Unacceptable. Civilizations cannot stand upon a cloud of morals precipitated by fleeting feelings. Postmodernism is a fundamentally self-contradictory religion. It essentially gives people permission to be shallow – nothing but mammals. Why think about anything significant? Just go along with what you want in the moment. I’ve read stories about literal animals (Watership Down, The Tale of Despereaux, Redwall, Warriors, Mistmantle) who deal with matters of eternal significance more than many contemporary human characters.
Characters who side with the slave revolt because they feel angry about cruelty are no “deeper” than characters who don’t care but side with the slave revolt for money. Why is it wrong? “Because I don’t like it…” What if they start liking it? Does that suddenly make it right?
If your characters just let themselves be blown whichever way suits them, whether for money, survival, or the self-satisfaction of their feelings, then they are certainly no different from many humans, but since when did we start writing stories about “just any” humans?
This isn’t grade school where everyone gets a participation trophy for being average. People write memoirs about exceptional people, or about everyday people who chase after something exceptional. Memoirs about lackluster Joe Schmoe wouldn’t sell, so why do authors think fantasy books about lackluster Joen Sch’moex should?
To be called a hero, to deserve being the main subject of a tale, your characters need to pursue the values, ideas, and dynamics in life that make us more than animals.
If beta readers and reviewers keep saying things like “I just didn’t relate to this character” or “The mc wasn’t really memorable” consider taking a deep look at your mc’s mental and spiritual pillars – then build them deeper and higher!
Hi, I’m Caylah Coffeen, a freelance editor and marketer of sci-fi and fantasy books. I love reading and writing and am a follower of Jesus Christ.
I’ve worked for Monster Ivy Publishing and Eschler Editing, and am currently a weekly editor with Havok Publishing. Reach out to chat about books and publishing!
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