What do you think makes a believable character? How can you have your characters 'grow' in a story?

Just write something believable, and be consistent. If you write a Russian-Israeli Conservative Jew who is a medical doctor with the power to give any disease, then you give a context that would make this character exist. Don't put him in the middle of Mars, speaking Maori to rocks that eat jellyfish if there is no reason for this.

To make a realistic character you want to give them a personality that fits them. Whether its someone who's kind to everyone, a person who likes to joke around a lot, or someone who rarely has little to say. Then you keep the character true to this personality, don't make them a happy loveable character in one chapter, then turn them into someone who hates life itself the next chapter, unless they go through a major change.

Things like flaws and upbringing help to make your character more believable as well. Everyone can relate to having problems in life, to growing up a certain way, having friends that look out for you or betray you, etc. Use experiences from real life to make it more believable.

To have a character grow means they go from being naïve about something, to understanding it and maturing past their previous beliefs. For example: If you had a character that continually bullied someone until they killed themselves, the way you could show growth would be by having the bully attend the funeral and see what they caused. This could intern lead to them standing up for someone else who's being bullied or cause them to never bully anyone again.

To show growth, first figure out the characters personality and the thing they need to grow past. Then come up with a way for them to do that. Without knowing exactly what you're writing, it's hard to give advice in this area, so I hope that this explains it well enough.

Hi,

I speak from experience when I say this, I had the EXACT same problem when writing my novel. The easiest thing to do is focus on one character at a time. To make that character seem realistic, give them a mind of their own. Figure out whether they are a bad person or a good one.

The second thing to do is to live the character. Whenever you're in a situation, think about what the character would do. This might elicit plot ideas.

You can base your character off of some one in real life and sort of go from there.

To show growth in your character, you have to note change. In one paragraph or chapter, the character themselves can say and comment how much they've changed and what is different.

Time is also a big factor.

Good luck

Just write and let it happen for you will have others interact with this character and is that how you build who they are in the story anyway is it not.