How to Create a Unique and Quirky Character. Writing Tips

Creating a quirky book character is a fascinating and complex process. It requires not only a rich imagination from the author but also the ability to identify cause-and-effect connections and convey them through the character to the reader.

When beginning to write the book, the author is challenged to create an interesting and profound character who will reveal themselves from different angles to the reader. It should be a character who is interesting to watch in dynamics, who will have unusual traits that will make them special. To create such a character, you need to have a rich imagination and basic psychological knowledge.

One must be able to tell the character’s story in such a way to intrigue readers and draw them into the fate of the person in question. So, let’s break down what writing tips will help you create a quirky character.

Make the character close to reality

Your character should be genuine, so the reader feels connected to them or can relate to their lives and experiences. It is very important because people want to see the real problems and feelings of the characters, see them in life circumstances, not just in a fantasy world.

You can make your hero unique and quirky without putting them in a fairy tale world. On the contrary, it will be easier for you to show their strangeness and authenticity in real conditions.

Emphasize the character’s personality

Look at the people around you. Probably at first glance many of them seem regular ones. Still, each of them has individual characteristics. Likewise, with your hero, they must have something that makes them unique. It is crucial because the reader wants to see a fundamental difference between the characters in the same book to understand who they are more impressed with. Think about what personality traits your hero should have.

Maybe you want to make them a controversial person, in whom light and dark sides are constantly struggling? That would be fascinating. Try to combine traits in the hero that are unlikely to coexist peacefully. The development of such a character will be exciting to watch.

Use psychology

Psychological knowledge will help you better reveal a character’s personality and show their true feelings. It is essential to explain to the reader the cause-and-effect relationships that contributed to your character becoming that person. For example, show the influence of childhood on the character’s reactions in adulthood. Make the reader come to the conclusion that the character once had a certain experience, possibly traumatic from a psychological point of view, and it affected their worldview and personality.

Such an in-depth explanation and description of the personality will help fully reveal the character’s whole essence and show that there are no unambiguously good or bad people. There are individual reactions to certain events dictated by lived experiences. Psychology can help you explain a character’s motivation for certain actions or behaviors.

For example, if a character behaves eccentrically or rudely, it may indicate that this person was often abused as a child and hides his vulnerability behind a mask of rudeness and indifference.

Create a character contrast

No matter what genre you are writing your book in, you should think about how to highlight the characters and reinforce their uniqueness. Of course, this is best done against the background of the other characters. If you have created a character that is too quirky, too irrational, and even has certain fantastical traits, you should introduce a more down-to-earth character into the story that would have a stronger connection to reality. Such contrast will allow you to maintain a sense of truthfulness in the book. Even in the fantasy genre the characters have real people’s qualities, their weaknesses, fears and complexes. Readers need to find themselves in literary characters.

You can also make the main character combine quirkiness and something real. In this way, the reader will see that even the most ordinary person can possess something unusual that cannot be said at first glance.

Place the hero in unusual circumstances

Being in atypical conditions, the character will have a better chance of revealing a different side and showing the qualities that lurk deep inside. Difficult situations in which you have to make a choice will show the true face of the hero, demonstrate their moral values and principles. In addition, unusual events are perceived by the reader with great interest, because it creates intrigue and certain expectations of subsequent events.

Still, do not forget to portray the character favorably and to emphasize their quirkiness in a specific situation.