How to Build More Interesting Characters

When writing an original character's backstory, it’s easy to give them lots of trauma and see it as character development. However, that alone doesn’t help strengthen your character. If anything, I think it could weaken it. It’s not an inherently bad thing to give your OC trauma, but you need to give them more than just trauma alone.

As I created OCs over the years, I’ve noticed that the characters I’ve made with a less traumatic backstory are actually the strongest ones I had. The characters that had a trauma packed story were weak and felt incomplete.

To many of them had the same “Oh no! My dad hated me and my mom was the only one who loved me!” and “Oh no! I have no parents, because they’re all DEAD, and now I’m an orphan!”. None of this helped my characters whatsoever.

So I rewrote them, and I made a “guideline” to follow: Put the character before the story. Let your character react to the story; don’t let the story dictate the character.