Are Your Fictional Characters Just Swimming on the Surface of Your Story?

How deep you need to dive to find out why they’re driving your story

Photo by Arno Senoner on Unsplash

I currently receive Mark Manson’s weekly newsletter, and this week he said this:

· You don’t need your partner. You need to be loved.

· You don’t need your job. You need to feel secure.

· You don’t need to be beautiful, cool, or popular. You need to feel appreciated.

Stop mistaking the things that provide for your needs as the needs themselves.

The first thing that struck me was — this is what I teach writing students about creating deeper characters! I call it peeling the onion.

Often writers create characters that only go one or two layers deep. Layer #1 is what they look like, where they grew up, their job and personal life — the kinds of details we learn about anyone when we are getting to know them at first.

But this surface level stuff doesn’t engage the reader enough. It’s like the person you meet, and while you know some or many of those things about them, you don’t really know them and often you don’t want to. They’re an acquaintance or a work colleague.