Let's say you've got a great character who feels like a real person to you. You know everything about them, from their favorite food to their deepest secret. That means you can go gung-ho on writing the story, right?

Wrong. There are some more steps you need to take in order to make your character interesting and relatable to your readers. Let's discuss them.

Heart's Desire

The heart's desire is what the character wants more than anything else in the world. This is very, very important and is the most central part of a character. If you don't know what your character wants, it's going to be very difficult to write them consistently and well. 

I watched a show where in the final season, one of the villains lost her heart's desire. I don't mean she didn't obtain it. I mean she didn't have one. What she wanted - selfish power or magic in order to save her friend - was never made clear. It caused me to become confused and frustrated with the show, and it skewed her into acting in out-of-character ways. All of this could have been avoided if the writers sat down and asked the question, "Hey. What does this villain want?" and then writing her consistently based on that.

This is important with all characters, not just villains. People can desire more than one thing at a time, but if these desires conflict, you have to show the character struggling with the conflict of which desire to pursue. For example, in Season 4 of She-Ra, Catra struggles majorly between her desire for love and companionship with her want to gain power and get back at the people who hurt her. This conflict can create a very rich character for your story.

Remember that people are often desiring more than one thing at any given time, but the heart's desire should stay consistent throughout the story. If your scene falls flat, sit back and ask yourself what your character wants, both right now and in the grand scope of things. Don't know? Open up your journal and write a list of the things your character could want right now. When you're done, choose one or two that make sense given the context and what you know about your character.

Motive

The motive is the why of your character's heart's desire. Going back to the Catra example, asking why she wants power is important, because otherwise, her behavior makes her extremely unlikable. Motives are tied oftentimes with backstory - for example, Catra wants power because she was abused her whole life by her adoptive mother, and it causes her to distrust everyone and become bitter and angry. Thus, she begins to want power and control. The desire isn't good, but the motives are sympathetic, and thus we love her anyway.

Ask yourself why your character wants their heart's desire. People are also often motivated by several different things. Motives shouldn't pop out of thin air, though. They should have to do with the circumstances the character is or was in, and make sense for who they are.

Means

Once you have the what and why figured out, the next question is how. This will be influenced by many things: the resources available to the character, whether they're a thinking or feeling type, and their own mental state at the time of the book. This item is often better explored once you know what your plot is going to be, but you should start at least brainstorming possible ways they could achieve their goals. Then once you have your plot figured out, you can go back and look at that list for ideas.

Obstacles

Obstacles are anything that's keeping the character from achieving their goal. Essentially, it's the conflict. I'll have a whole part of this book on conflict after this one, but in short, you have to make it hard for your characters to reach their goals. It needs to flow naturally and not be contrived, nor should it be resolved too easily. Again, this matters most when we're discussing the story itself, but you should start brainstorming ways this character doesn't get what they want till the end of the story.

Flaws

This will be discussed in depth once we get to the Rookie Mistakes chapter, but basically, characters are people. They have flaws that cause them to shoot themselves in the foot, and that slows them down in achieving their heart's desire too. Think about your favorite character in a story. Do they have an addiction problem? Anger? Lust? Deception? Flaws can be anything the character struggles with that makes them act in unhealthy or immoral ways. Any well-written sympathetic villain is just a heavily flawed character who becomes an antagonist.

One example about flaws: Steven's biggest flaw in Steven Universe is that he refuses to take care of his mental health and instead focuses on solving everyone else's problems. Does that make him a Gary Stu? Not one bit. Why? Because it causes consequences for him down the line. He's willing to sacrifice his life for things his mom did, because it's the only way to save everyone. He ends up struggling with PTSD when he gets older because he didn't deal with his issues. This isn't a matter of immorality, but it's still dangerous and forces him to need to grow as a character.

Another example of an "immorality flaw" is Shadow Weaver from She-Ra - her mortal flaw is her insecurity. How she feels over her lack of natural talent in magic leads her to do a dark spell that ends up ruining her life, and later causes her to abuse her adoptive children. 

If you need help brainstorming flaws, look up ideas. The Internet has a plethora of resources to help you generate ideas. Not all flaws work with every single character, but try experimenting. You may find that something you thought didn't work actually enriches the character and story.

Character Arcs

Finally, your character will change over the course of the book. We'll discuss different types of character arcs in a later chapter, but this is something you should begin at least thinking about. What are ways your character needs to improve? How could they change? What makes the most sense, given the plot? Remember, you're just trying to oil your gears. We'll discuss how to outline a character arc later on in the book.

In the next chapter, I'll discuss backstory on a deeper level, and how that affects your character and their motives.