Creating believable characters to populate your fictional world can be harder than it first seems. While the protagonists’ actions are guided by what you need them to do to move the plot forward, readers won’t want to follow along with them if it seems like that’s all they’re doing.

Flimsy, one-dimensional characters have a tendency to become caricatures of themselves, leaving behind a cardboard cutout instead of a fully fleshed-out person that readers will really want to get to know. The key is to start with a few basic characters sketches and dig in from there. Below are a few tips to help get you started.

Make them relatable.
Audiences love to see themselves—or at least glimpses of themselves—on the page. With this in mind, try to avoid making your characters perfect in any sense: perfectly good, perfectly evil, perfectly knowledgeable. Instead, consider the fact that everyone has some strengths and weaknesses, advantages and flaws, confidences and insecurities. The choice that you have as a writer is how much your characters have and what form each will take.

Consider outside influences.
People don’t live in a vacuum, nor should your characters. They should be shaped by outside influences just as much as you or me. Where were they born? What was their childhood like? What hobbies do they enjoy? What kind of job do they have? Do they love it or hate it? How do all of these things help shape the person they’ve thus far become? These types of outside forces can affect everything from your characters’ vocabulary and physical mannerisms to their outlook on romantic relationships and humanity in general.

Make them human.
Similar to the idea of making your characters relatable, it’s also important to showcase the little quirks and foibles that make them human. While most writers know not to have their protagonist make the correct decision every time, it can be very freeing to have your character make a massively big mistake and see where it takes them—and how they react to it.

Having them toss silly little jokes into the conversation (whether appropriate or not) or snap at a coworker when they’re having a bad day (and either apologize for it later or not) can not only give readers further insight into who your character is but also ground them in some level of human contradiction.

Don’t lay everything out at once.
It can be tempting to immediately pour out on the page all of the interesting backstories, personality traits, and various quirks that you’ve given your characters. But spilling too much, too fast, can come across as info dumping at best and rambling at worst.

Instead, try focusing on different parts of your characters only in a context that feels natural. Revealing your protagonist’s issues with their perfectionist mother will hit a lot harder if it’s mentioned after they have a panic attack because they made a mistake, for example. This slow unraveling of your character’s humanness will ultimately keep readers more emotionally invested as you lead them through the plot.

Make sure they change.
To avoid creating caricatures instead of characters, allow your protagonists room to breathe and grow. This means that they should be changed—whether incrementally or fundamentally—by the conclusion of the story.

What kind of emotional and/or physical changes have they undergone throughout your novel to bring them from point A to point B? Readers are likely to quickly lose interest if the vapid high school cheerleader remains that way through adulthood. Allow your characters room to see the error of their ways and have a chance to make it right.

Let them contradict themselves.
We all know that people have flaws. What we sometimes overlook is the fact that people also contradict themselves All. The. Time. It’s a little thing called cognitive dissonance, in which people do something even though they know that it’s wrong, or otherwise act in a way that contradicts what they purport to believe.

Often they jump through mental hoops to justify their decision in an attempt to rationalize away their anxiety about it. Depending on your character, this can be a conscious decision for the character to get what they want or a more circumstantial one that plagues the character with guilt. Either way, it’s a great option for adding depth and nuance to your cast.

Make sure the dialogue reflects who they are.
All of your efforts to make your characters deep and realistic will be for naught if you don’t reflect those choices in their own voice. Consider who your character is as a person and choose a speaking voice that showcases that. Whether it’s full of slang and casual digressions or self-conscious and stoic, your character’s dialogue is another way to speak to your readers.

Andrea Moran lives outside of Nashville with her husband and two kids. She’s a professional copywriter and editor who loves all things books. Find her on LinkedIn.