How to Create Main Characters That Readers Will Love, Root For, and Remember

Crafting characters that will make your readers cry and cheer for them requires you to understand them deeply—inside and out. Here are my tips on writing real, relatable, and unforgettable characters.

What makes a memorable character—one that readers will care about and stay invested in for hundreds of pages? The secret is in caring about them and staying invested in them yourself first.

It sounds obvious, but I've written characters that I felt indifferent towards and readers almost always shared the same sentiment. It's only when I dig deep enough to get to the core of them, know them like they're my friends and understand them—even their bad decisions—that readers feel the same way too.

So how do we create characters that will have readers so invested that they ask for spin-offs/sequels and write fanfiction about them? I have a five-step guide that I go by. To illustrate my points, I'm going to use the main characters in my Chinese epic fantasy trilogy, Children of the Desert—Desert Rose, Wei, Windshadow, and Meng.

1. Establish your core cast

Your core cast will be the characters that your readers experience the story through and with, so their perspectives have to be distinct and fully fleshed out. 

There are four main characters in the trilogy—our FMC Desert Rose, MMC Wei, second female lead Windshadow, and second male lead Meng. 

Desert Rose is the adopted daughter of a desert tribe chieftain. She grew up in the desert and is used to playing rough with the clan boys and listening to desert lore and tales from the matriarchs. She is, as you can guess, a free spirit with a sense of adventure, curiosity, and deep loyalty to her tribe. Family is the most important thing in the world to her. She's extremely close to her dad, and was relatively cheerful and trusting—until the clan leaders betray her father and overthrow him one night, driving him and Desert Rose out of the tribe. (But we'll talk more about the inciting/life-changing moment in a bit.)

Wei, the rogue third prince, black sheep of the family, is just as loyal to his found family at the Snow Wolf Sect and his actual family. He has grown up loathed by his father for ludicrous reasons (his father was informed by the imperial advisor that Wei would be a threat to him in the future) and left the Oasis Kingdom as soon as he turned sixteen. Like Desert Rose, he’s protective of his family, but longs to be free and explore the world, find his place in it. 

Windshadow, a Wind Elemental who left her tribe to seek out the other Elementals to fulfil the prophecy, has always been a lone wolf. She was bullied as a kid and doesn’t trust people a lot. The closest to a friend she has ever had was Desert Rose, and maybe Meng, but theirs is more of a partnership than friendship. She believes in not caving in to her emotions or sentimentality and holds everyone at arm’s length—until she meets Desert Rose. 

Meng, the fourth prince who is beholden to his mother and constantly tries to live up to his expectations and therefore would do anything to protect his family’s imperial position. While Wei is a freedom-seeker, Meng is very much a rule-follower. He lives a very tidy, predictable, almost stifling life within the palace walls, bound by duty to his mother’s ambitions to secure the throne. He’s also shrewd strategist, but upon meeting Desert Rose he begins to have his own dreams and desires that conflict with his familial obligations.

2. Create a defining moment when everything changes for your characters

The pivotal moment/inciting incident typically sets the characters—and the story—in motion. The characters go on a journey—be it physical, emotional, or spiritual, etc—and this journey transforms them over the course of the story.

For Desert Rose, the inciting incident is her father being overthrown and her being forced to seek refuge (and revenge) in the Oasis Capital. Revenge becomes her motivation, especially after she learns that the clan leaders who overthrew her father were instigated by the Oasis emperor.

For Wei, it’s the news of his older brother’s death and mother’s incarceration. He who swore he would never return to the Capital and the palace again, kind of like giving this dad the biggest finger. But knowing that his family is harmed, he decides to return to hostile territory.

For Windshadow, it’s discovering her powers. Bullied for being different growing up, she has built many walls around her and believes that the only way to survive is to be the strongest. That’s why as soon as she learns about the prophecy that says only one out of the five Elementals can survive, she sets out to look for—and annihilate—the rest. Two words: stone-cold assassin.

For Meng, it’s meeting Desert Rose. Before that, he’s laser-focused on becoming emperor through whatever means possible. But after meeting Desert Rose, he realises what is truly wants is to be free of familial pressure and genuinely build an equitable kingdom. Deep down, my boy just wants to read books and drink tea, okay?

3. Give them an emotional conflict or anchor

What’s juicier than an external conflict? Internal conflict. 

And to create that internal conflict, they need to have something tying them down. Something they are afraid of losing, so that they will do what it takes to protect or possess it. The internal conflict thus influences the external conflict.

Getting right down to the meat of each character makes the reader just as torn as them, and as a result empathise with them more. And the more they empathise with your characters, the more they root for them.

Desert Rose and Wei's emotional anchor is their family. But Wei struggles to reconcile being back in the palace, under his father's thumb, because he wants to investigate his brother's murder and break his mother out from prison. It's his freedom vs his desire to protect his family.

Meng is torn between his duty to his mother and his feelings for Desert Rose. Choosing her means deviating from—and even defying—the plans his mother has set for them. His moral compass is constantly challenged, and this emotional conflict builds tension, keeping readers guessing what he will do next.

Windshadow is torn between her desire to be the last surviving Elemental and her friendship with Desert Rose (despite suppressing her sentimentality). In order to outlast the rest, she needs to kill Desert Rose.

As a result of their internal conflicts, the characters make the decisions that will ultimately determine their fates.

4. Figure out what they want (i.e. a goal) and why they want it

Everyone wants something. It could be something big like world domination or small like a meal with their family. It could be abstract like belonging or concrete like a promotion. 

But the meat is in why they want it. That's where you get to dig deeper into the characters and make your readers understand them better. 

Desert Rose, Wei, and Meng each have very clear external goals. 

Desert Rose wants to seek justice for her father and protect her tribe from misguided clan leaders, so to do that she goes to the palace and attempts to get to the emperor, the source of all the conflict in her tribe. And after she finds out about the prophecy, she wants autonomy over her own fate, control over her destiny.

Wei wants to get his mother out of prison and protect his family—both blood and found—from the tyranny of his father.

Meng wants the throne and his mother's approval. But external goals can conflict with internal goals. And he starts to discover his internal desire—to have a friend, someone who gets him, whom he can talk all night in the library with (hence that scene with Desert Rose).

Also, not every character needs to be hyper aware of what they want. 

For instance, Windshadow thinks what she wants is power, to be the strongest and the last surviving Elemental. But deep down what she really longs for is belonging, friends, and acceptance. She rejects love because she's afraid of being hurt. There we have a fun emotional dynamic we can play with. 

5. Put various obstacles in their way

A character’s journey is only worth following if they don’t get what they want. It’s the journey that makes reading their story worth it, that makes arriving at the destination worthwhile and cathartic. 

It could be Desert Rose not getting the revenge she wants, Windshadow getting bested by the Fire Elemental, Wei not being able to protect his family, or Meng being edged out of the palace by his older brother, the son his mother favours. By denying your characters their hearts’ desires, you make your readers root for them to eventually succeed—and the payoff will be immensely satisfying. 

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Interested to read this sweeping romantic fantasy about a desert girl forging her own fate in a treacherous world of court politics and ancient magic? 

Buy the Children of the Desert trilogy: 

#1: Land of Sand and Song — Bookshop.org | Amazon  | Blackwell’s

#2: Kingdom of Blood and Gold — Bookshop.org | Amazon | Blackwell’s 

#3: Empire of Gods and Beasts — Bookshop.org | Amazon | Blackwell’s

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