Seven Components Required to Create a Compelling Character

by Rachel Hauck  @RachelHauck

This August I’ve been writing full time for twenty years. I quit my job—cutting our household income by two-thirds—with one little $2,500 contract and a big deposit of dreams.

While other contracts followed, my books didn’t fly off the shelf, win awards, or create buzz at my publisher. In many ways, I had a wrong idea of what went on in publishing. “You mean they aren’t wildly singing and choreographing dances about my book for the sales meeting?”

I quickly realized no matter how many song and dance numbers presented to the sales team—or not—publishing was a business. And low sales meant no more contracts.

So I rolled up my sleeves and dug into the craft of fiction writing. In our market – the inspirational fiction market – a lot of writers espouse the calling of God, the gift of God, to write. But that doesn’t negate our need to study and learn the craft.

I was blessed to team up with author Susan May Warren waaayyy back in the day and together we developed tools to inform our craft journey. Admittedly, she did all the heavy lifting in that department. Eventually she put her ideas together in a fab book called The Story Equation, also known as the SEQ. I use the SEQ for every book I write.

Let’s break the SEQ down. No matter what you’re writing—suspense, thriller, romance, women’s fiction—your characters are everything. There’s really no plot-driven books. All books are driven by the characters’ journey. Some just have more bombs going off than others.

Here are seven components required to a create a compelling character.

1. What does your protagonist want? Initially they want something tangible like a job, a promotion, or a date with that guy/girl. Maybe to solve a mystery or move to a new town. But ultimately, they want healing of a past Wound.
2. What’s the Wound of their past? Usually it’s something from childhood, but a large enough event, like death or heartbreak, can mess with your adult protagonist. When the story opens, the wound seems to be healed. It’s a thing of the past. But au contraire! The Wound resurfaces and must be healed.
3. The Wound leads to a Lie. While the protagonist thinks the Wound is buried, the wound has spawned a Lie which now informs the protagonist’s life. The Lie impacts what she believes about love, God, life, friendship, or herself. The Lie causes trouble. Usually something happens in her adult life that confirms her Lie.
4. When we believe Lies, we succumb to Fear. If the Lie is “love always fails,” then the protagonist Fears being vulnerable. She won’t be honest with herself, her boss, her friends, or the world around her. She’s stuck and can’t move on.
5. After you’ve established the Wound–Lie–Fear journey, give your character a Secret Desire. Deep down, she wants to love, to trust, to be vulnerable. She wants to forgive. Or maybe she wants to trust like never before. The external plot – all the obstacles she faces – must mess with her Wound and Lie, accentuate her Fear, while giving way to the Secret Desire. The SD is what motivates her to overcome.
6. Add a bit of competence. What is your protagonist good at doing? Flesh out her personality and ta-da! You have the beginnings of a strong character.
7. Create an Inciting Incident that exposes her Secret Desire. Something has to shove your protagonist out of her oh-so-comfortable life. It’s the only way she’ll face her Fear, discover the truth of the Lie, and heal her Wound. The Secret Desire has been there all along, demanding, “Let me out! I want out!”

I hope these tips help you on your storytelling journey. Be sure to grab your copy of The Story Equation while you mull these over, dreaming up your next great novel. Go write something brilliant.

Rachel Hauck is an award winning, New York Times, USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling author. A graduate of Ohio State University (Go Bucks!) with a degree in Journalism, she’s a former sorority girl and a devoted Ohio State football fan. Her bucket list is to stand on the sidelines with Ryan Day. She and her husband live in sunny, sometimes hurricane haunted, east coast Florida.