Unveiling Depths: The Secrets to Engaging Characters

Click to listen – your characters (and audience) will thank you.

Have you ever created a character that felt… flat? No matter how detailed the backstory or how polished the prose, something just doesn’t click — and worse, your audience doesn’t care. That’s the pain point. And we’ve all been there.

In this episode, we dig into why your characters might be missing that vital spark — and how to fix it. Whether you're writing a novel, screenplay, or short film, you’ll uncover:

✅ The essential trait all compelling characters share (hint: it’s not just likability)
✅ How paradox, sympathy, and intrigue shape unforgettable protagonists
✅ Why suffering might just be the secret weapon of great storytelling
✅ Real-world examples and feedback that bring these concepts to life

Join us as we workshop character ideas live, break down why some characters captivate us instantly, and reveal the storytelling truths that most writers learn the hard way.

🎧 Press play now to finally unlock the emotional core your characters have been missing.

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Transcript

[00:00:00] and this doesn't matter if you're writing a novel or if you're writing a screenplay. What you have to be able to do is make the audience care. This is absolutely important. So no matter what their paradoxical qualities are, the audience has to be completely invested in their story.

[00:00:17] This is the thing that sucks the audience in. If you don't have a main character that is compelling, meaning. The audience cares about and wants to see what's going to happen to them. Your story has failed. So how do you make them compelling? 

[00:00:35] ​

[00:00:46] Alright, Alberto, you were here last week. So were you able to do your homework assignments? And if so, tell me about it. So I. Was, I don't know if there was more that I should, I should have done. I feel like I, I may have done like too little, but the character that I chose is actually a priest for a short film that I wanna do in the future.

[00:01:10] Okay. And. I only wrote three things for characterization. Um, I just wrote kind, pure, and chast. That was kind of the characterization. Are you saying that who the priest really is is kind chast and pure? That's who he really is. Uh, he really is that or is that just the perception that people have of him?

[00:01:33] Yes. The perception. Okay. The general perception I think people have of priest who, what is he really, is he not those things. I didn't land, I didn't choose anything. I didn't land on anything. 'cause I, I feel like the different kinds of pressure on a character, like what we talked about last week, kind of revealed different things unless it's, it's just simply the opposite of the characterization.

[00:01:55] I. No, it's not necessarily the opposite. It's about complexity. It's gonna make more sense today when we go, but this is great. The challenge you're actually having is perfect for where we are in the course. So that's great. It's not about opposite, it's about what is real. And remember, I. For it to be really a character that really grabs us, there has to be some level of contradiction or perceived contrast.

[00:02:22] So it may be that he actually is perceived as pure, chaste and kind, but also. Another person. He's naive. He is, you know, he's, uh, inexperienced and there's a little bit of condescension on the perception of maybe the his congregants because he is all those things. There's not a lot of respect for him, and so that can be part of his journey Then.

[00:02:50] He earns the respect of his congregants because it might be that, okay, well, even though I've, I am all those things, that doesn't mean I'm shallow, or that doesn't mean that I am ineffectual, or it doesn't mean that whatever the conclusions of the congregants. As a result of these character qualities are also part of the characterization 'cause it's about perception.

[00:03:15] Unless you are telling a story where, okay, they think all of these things, but deep down he's actually a serial killer. And you know, now it is exactly the opposite and he's just able to fake it. And in which case, that's a totally different kind of story. So, and your story dictates what those things are because at the end of the day, your character is going to have to grapple with those perceptions, is going to have to grapple with his true nature versus his characterization or perceived nature.

[00:03:48] Ultimately the story is about him stepping into and sort of owning the person that he has always been deep down, but has never fully embodied, if that makes any sense. Yeah. And what's weird about this. Is that I find that in some ways we know all this instinctively, and then the minute we've articulated it and we see what we're trying to do, we actually get worse at it for a little bit.

[00:04:19] Like a lot of times we're naturally and intuitively. Doing these things in story, and then when we learn what we're supposed to do in story, we get clumsier at it. It's sort of like, you know, you might have some natural instinct for playing golf, but then an expert comes along and says, well actually, if you change your, you know, your grip to be like this.

[00:04:39] Then you're gonna be able to do this and this, and now all of a sudden you were pretty good at golf, but now you're trying this new grip and you're actually worse at it, and you're like, why am I learning this new technique? I was pretty good at it before, but the truth is, if you can conquer that new grip.

[00:04:53] You'll be even better because you already had the natural ability. So I say all this to say if you're feeling like you're kind of stumbling or getting clumsier, that's pretty natural for when you learn a new tool or a new bit of knowledge about this thing called story creation. So the hope is by the end of the course, it'll be integrated again or you know soon after as you practice it.

[00:05:16] Okay. Who else has did the exercise that was assigned? Okay, Joe. Talk to me. Yes. So now I'm feeling like I went way overboard, but, um, there's, by the way, there's no wrong way to do this. Okay. Right. Here we go. Okay. So I'll start with character characterization. My character is a freshman in college at public university.

[00:05:38] He's a white, white man, my male, he is in in today's time. He is like a pretty good athlete, but he is not like a student athlete. He is intellectually curious. Good at making friends. He is good at making people like him. He's just very like amiable person now with his character. He has the ability to sort of see where there are like needs in certain places in the world and he can notice that sort of thing.

[00:06:02] He has high ambitions, uh, he doesn't wanna like have any old job, but he is a procrastinator. He's pretty lazy and he's addicted to his phone, sort of comfort seeking. He can read people well, but he's also, he is also a good friend, very loyal. He's also a good liar. I just thought that'd be cool. I just.

[00:06:21] Sort of things. It all kind work out even if he doesn't really put the work in good. All right. So I like this, by the way. He's a good liar. He's a good guy. But sounds like he's a generally good guy. Yeah. Yeah, he is generally good. He's a generally good guy. He's got some character flaws, which is good. And here's the thing about lying that I think is actually, there's a good instinct on your behalf because the truth is.

[00:06:44] People that are generally pretty good guys, amiable, everybody kinda likes them. They're really good at people pleasing, which means they're really good at not being terribly honest, you know, they kind of just. Go along with it. They don't wanna ruffle feathers. And it might be, that's part of his problem.

[00:07:02] It sounds to me like he hasn't become the leader that he's supposed to be. And he hasn't become the man, he hasn't stepped into his manness. He's still kind of a boy child. Do you know what I'm saying? Yeah. And he's become a man. Uh, but that means taking personal responsibility and actually. Not just being the good guy.

[00:07:22] I like it. You've got some good stuff there. Good stuff to work with. And again, by the way, and this is for Alberto and for everybody else that has worked on this, remember right now we're just kind of looking at raw ingredients. Your story is going to dictate what happens and what we reveal and how we reveal it.

[00:07:41] Well, where we left off was talking about. Qualities of a compelling character. That's where we left off. Qualities of a compelling character and the number one quality of a compelling character is paradox. And paradox means that they cannot be at heart what they seem to be at face. There's got to be more to them that meets the eye.

[00:08:05] So a paradox is something with contradictory qualities. Major characters cannot be at heart what they seem to be at face. And then we discussed how the revelation of true character, in contrast to characterization, is fundamental to all fine storytelling, and it all means the same thing. People are not what they appear to be.

[00:08:25] Then the question becomes then how do we show these things? How do we make sure that the audience is sucked into their story? And what are some of the other qualities of a compelling character? Because we're doing the paradox thing, but there's also a couple of other things that we need to accomplish.

[00:08:48] However, before we get there, it's once again time to hear from our sponsor, me. So hello storytellers. 

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[00:09:21] So. Be sure to check out my free training video on the seven Deadly plot points.

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[00:09:37] So the next thing that we have to accomplish besides making them paradoxical. And this is very in important to your story, and this doesn't matter if you're writing a novel or if you're writing a screenplay. What you have to be able to do is make the audience care. This is absolutely important. So no matter what their paradoxical qualities are, the audience has to be completely invested in their story.

[00:10:02] This is the thing that sucks the audience in. If you don't have a main character that is compelling, meaning. The audience cares about and wants to see what's going to happen to them. Your story has failed. So how do you make them compelling? Well, in the old days, we used to talk about this with one single word.

[00:10:25] We used to say, well, they have to be likable. I. That was always the go-to answer. Well, your main character has to be likable. Have you heard of that? I'm sure you have. Your main character has to be likable, and that's true to a degree. You have to have a likable main character. However, not all main characters are likable, and that's why I would like to add a couple of different categories for you to see.

[00:10:46] There's actually. The real point about this is not so much about that they're likable. It's that you want a character, that the audience can sink their teeth into a character that sucks 'em in, that gets them riveted, that makes 'em care about the journey the character's about to go on, and likability is the primary way to do this.

[00:11:10] It's not the only way. Now, by likability, what I mean is we wouldn't mind sitting next to 'em. We wanna get to know 'em. We just we're attracted to them, right? That's what it kind of means. We're attracted to them in some way. They compel us, they have qualities. That we wouldn't mind having ourselves qualities that maybe we admire, qualities that we would love to have ourselves.

[00:11:34] This is why we love characters like James Bond, right? Like James Bond is a paradoxical character. On the one hand, he is so charming. He is so smooth. He's so sophisticated. He's a woman's, you know? He's a ladies' man. He's a man's man. All the men. Wanna be him and all the women wanna be with him, and yet he is a stone cold assassin with a license to kill.

[00:12:03] So he's paradoxical, but he's attractive to us because he's got these qualities that we really admire and we wish we had ourselves. So likable characters typically have that sort of persona where we have, they have traits or qualities that we personally. Find admirable. So these are characters that might have a good sense of humor, or they might be charming, or they might be quirky or they might be competent.

[00:12:33] Competence is huge. This is why one of the best things you can do for your main character is give them something that they are better at than anybody else. Almost every main character needs to have a superpower. And I'm not talking about, you know, something that has to do with fantasy. Like where they can turn something with their eyes into ash.

[00:12:55] I'm talking about a superpower where it's a quality that uniquely they have that they're better at than anybody else. That might be making other people laugh. It might be like in Ferris Bueller's Day off his ability to outwit and fool all the adults in his life simply to play around. Nobody can do it better than Ferris.

[00:13:19] Ferris gets away with everything. Probably not even the best message to have people learn, and yet we loved him because Ferris is the best at being able to screw off and not get caught. That is his superpower. Competence is one of the ways that we make 'em likable. They have to have something they're good at.

[00:13:37] And by the way, even if characters aren't likable, generally speaking, you want them to have an area of competence that they have that nobody else can. This is why we like characters like Monk, right? Monk has a superpower. He sees things that nobody else does. I mean, a lot of those great detective things are like that.

[00:13:58] They have qualities that nobody else has, and we like them for that. Even. Um, if you're familiar with Anne of Green Gable. Part of what made us love Ann of Green Gables is that she was a kindred spirit, right? She embraced life. She wanted to live life to its fullest. That was her superpower, but also she had the ability to identify people that were like that without getting stuck up and stuffy.

[00:14:24] She was able to bring out the best in people to help them to be their truest, most authentic self because she loved life and that was a beautiful quality. That's it. That was what she did. Right? She was also a good teacher because of that quality. Okay, so the point is likable characters typically have qualities that we ourselves admire and want to emulate, and we enjoy them.

[00:14:49] That's really what likability comes down to. We enjoy them. So if you think about some of the characters that you have truly just enjoyed, that's why you enjoy them, and that's how you know they're truly likable. But again, while likability is probably the easiest way to hook your audience and to get them interested and invested in the emotional journey of your character, it isn't the only way.

[00:15:15] Another way that we can do that is to make your character. Sympathetic. Now, by the way, sympathy can be a characteristic that makes somebody likable, right? So if you have a character who's a little bit of an underdog and you really like that character, but they're also sympathetic because they've had some hardship, that can be just another aspect of their likability.

[00:15:41] But what I'm talking about are characters that you really actually don't like, and yet. You find them sympathetic anyway. So for example, we're gonna watch a clip from the film as good as it gets, so in as good as it gets played. The character, the title character Mr. Udall, is played by Jack Nicholson and what you find is that Jack Nicholson or Mr.

[00:16:07] Udall rather, while he makes us laugh, he is a truly heinous individual. He comes across as a sexist, a racist, a homophobe. When we meet him, we'll analyze the scene of all the things that we learn about him in just a few minutes, and he is not a likable character. I. The filmmakers, the writers immediately made him sympathetic to us so that we were still willing to invest in his journey.

[00:16:37] And if they hadn't have made him sympathetic, yes, originally we're laughing because he's saying all of these horrible things and it's shocking to us. By the way, the number one reason why people laugh is actually because they're uncomfortable. It's because they're nervous. So we laugh. Because it's so uncomfortable and so unpopular, it's so politically incorrect.

[00:17:02] All the things that he's saying. And it's funny because nobody would say these things, but had they continued the story without making him sympathetic, we quickly would've gotten over that and we would've just hated him. What had to happen was they had to do something where all of a sudden we could actually sympathize with this character that is truly unlikable.

[00:17:29] I'm just gonna get some flowers, dear. I'll be back in 20 minutes. It's tulip season today. I'm Oh, so happy.

[00:17:42] Come on, sweetie.

[00:17:46] Come on sweetie.

[00:17:53] Yes. Come on. Come on now, sweetheart. Come on sweetie. Come on. Come on, man. Go for a little ride then you can whiz all over the city. Come on. Come on, go for a ride. Come on. Come on sweetie. No, Reese. Freeze. Leg down, leg down, leg down, leg down. That's it. That's it. Come on now. Come on. Come on now. Come on. No, you ears.

[00:18:25] You have pissed your last floor. I bet you wish you were real. Oh, oh, you, you Dog Monkey. This is New York. If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere.

[00:18:54] Del Uh oh. Verde. Verde. Where's my good doggie verde? Come here, sweetheart. Mr. Udall. Mm-hmm. Have you, have you, uh, have you seen Verdell? What does he look like? Okay. Um, my dog, you know, my, my dog with a little, little face. A little adorable face. Stone. Don't you know what my dog looks like? Oh, I got it. You were talking about your dog.

[00:19:34] I thought it was the name of that colored man that I've been seeing in the halls. Which color was that? Uh, like, uh. Thick mo asses. Uh, with a broad nose. Perfect. Chris? Trouble in prison food. Frank, just like last Simon, you have got dressed Frank Sacks. Melvin Udall. How you doing? Frank shows my work. Mr.

[00:19:57] Udall, I think, yeah. I think you know that people are gonna stop coming. What I know is as long as you keep your work zipped up around me, I don't give a rat crap. What or where you shove your show. Are we done being neighbors for now?

[00:20:16] Lemme talk to you. No, no, no. Not worth it. Definitely not worth it for Dale. Must be in the apartment. Okay. Hope you find him. Love that dog. You don't love anything Mr. Udall? I didn't. Anything so you just learned a little bit. About Mr. Udall, what did you learn about Mr. Udall in that opening scene? He doesn't love anything.

[00:20:48] Yes, he doesn't love anything, does he? And that's because of the line that we learn from Simon. But also what do we learn as we watch him? Like what kind of a weirdo is he? Right? Like he's sexist, he's homophobic, he's all these things. He's just not a very nice person, right? He's not very likable. Well, let's see what happens right after this one.

[00:21:15] 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

[00:21:45] Hmm. Hot, hot, hot. So what do we learn about Mr. Udall? He is obsessive compulsive and a slave to that. Yep, that's exactly right. He's sick. He's sick, and all of a sudden we can extend grace to him and that's an important thing here. Sympathy. Means the audience is willing to extend grace. They're willing to give the character a pass temporarily.

[00:22:21] Now, they're not gonna get it forever, but for a moment, we're going to suspend judgment. Because that character is clearly flawed, clearly broken, and we know they need to change, but we're willing to give 'em a chance to do it, which means we'll still stay invested in their story because we care enough.

[00:22:40] Whatever their circumstances are, we care enough to give them an opportunity to change. But they're not likable. They're only sympathetic. Do you see the difference? So likability means we enjoy them. We would wanna spend time with them. Nobody wants to spend time with Mr. Udall. The point here is that sympathy is different than likability, but you have to build in an emotional reason for your main character, for the audience, to connect with your main character.

[00:23:12] But as it happens, there's still yet one more way to do this. And that is to make a character who is intriguing, sympathetic, or intriguing. Now, intriguing means that the character isn't likable, so they don't really possess qualities that we admire, generally speaking, or that we want to emulate in our own lives.

[00:23:35] And it also means they're not necessarily sympathetic, meaning we're not willing to give them a pass for whatever it is that they're doing. But we cannot look away. It's a train wreck. It's like we have to keep watching. We're so sucked in. They are so intriguing to us that we can't help it. So this is often where we have characters like the Talented Mr.

[00:23:58] Ripley. So the talented Mr. Ripley is starring Matt Damon in the movie, but it's based on a novel and essentially he's a very hateful human being. And what he does is he takes over another guy's identity and he becomes a serial killer. Now, he is not sympathetic, he is not likable, and yet we are fascinated.

[00:24:20] We cannot look away, and it's almost creepy. Right. It's almost creepy how we're just so obsessed with them. So sometimes you can make a character so intriguing that the audience is still going to. Emotionally invest in their journey. Generally speaking, intriguing characters are darker because they aren't likable and sympathetic.

[00:24:42] They're in some ways, I would say the whole TV series. The boys is almost based on this premise. We're intrigued, but none of 'em are really likable or sympathetic, and yet people watch. It shows like Ozark. Now in Ozark you have characters, some characters who start out sympathetic, maybe not likable, but at least sympathetic, but truly at over a particular period of time.

[00:25:08] They're not sympathetic anymore, and yet we're still hooked and we still have to see Walter White in Breaking Bad. Walter White might have started out somewhat sympathetic, but at a certain point we stop extending Grace to him. He's evil, and yet we still were invested and wanted to see how it was going to end for him.

[00:25:28] So generally speaking, when you have an intriguing character, it's a darker character. In some ways. They're trickier to write, but it is a legitimate character because remember, the real goal is. Attractability, can you suck the audience in and make them care about the journey that your character's about to go on?

[00:25:47] That's the acid test, and there are three ways to do it. Make 'em likable, make 'em sympathetic, or make 'em intriguing. Now there's another thing that you have to do in your story to make your character compelling, and that is your character must. Be active. You cannot have a passive character. Passivity is the kiss of death.

[00:26:10] Only characters that take action and drive the action of the story are actually compelling. Now, this means that we have to take a slight detour here to talk about an aspect of story structure because the truth is. This isn't a class on story structure. This is about constructing a main character, and yet you cannot actually separate character from story structure.

[00:26:35] They are interconnected. They were always linked. Why? Well, because. The story is going to unfold according to the choices that your main character makes under pressure. So let's talk a little bit about what is story? What is a story? Well, a story is the recounting of a character struggle to achieve a meaningful goal.

[00:26:59] That's all it is. This is story from a character perspective. Now, there's a couple of words here I want to point out. First of all, it's the recounting. It means we're relaying this to the audience, right? We're telling them what has happened, but the way it's active is that it's about a character who is suffering, who is struggling.

[00:27:18] Who has a clear objective that they're trying to pursue. They have a meaningful goal, but they're suffering over the course of the telling in order to try to achieve it. That is what a story is, and this is important because it means that story at the end of the day is always a story of suffering that's suffering.

[00:27:40] Is not something to be avoided at all costs. In fact, suffering is probably the greatest tool that God uses to transform us as people. We do not change unless we suffer. It is only because we suffer that we will take action to change something. Otherwise, people are very good at just staying put, just staying static and just putting up with things.

[00:28:09] And we can live with a lot. We're very resilient. We'll put up with a lot, but when the suffering outweighs. Whatever it is that we think we're getting, we will take corrective action. We will change, we will do something radical to change our circumstances. And by the way, this is an argument against euthanasia, in my opinion, because what is the argument for euthanasia?

[00:28:33] Well, we should put people out of their suffering. If we understand that suffering is actually God's greatest tool to finally break through to our hard hearts, if we only change because of either the suffering we're experiencing or the suffering we're experiencing because we're watching somebody else suffer, then we would never remove this suffering that a human being would go through because we're expecting that to be an instrument that God is using for our ultimate good.

[00:29:01] And a lot of people, as a lot of secular people would say, that is the most. Heinous thing they've ever heard. If God has to use suffering, what kind of a God is he? And what I like to say is, wait a minute, we're gonna suffer. That's a given. We're humans. We suffer. What a great God I have who is able to use my suffering for my betterment, who is able to use our collective suffering for our greater good.

[00:29:27] That is a. Powerful testimony of his goodness, not his cruelty. Suffering is where it's at, and if you're a storyteller, your job is to make your character suffer. Every obstacle that they face, everything that they're going through, they are in the midst of a personal crucible, a personal struggle. They are suffering and they have a goal that they are struggling to achieve.

[00:29:52] Entire story comes down to that, but that also means that we have to really point out this other aspect of story, which is the goal. And this is the thing makes the difference between a passive and an active character.