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Defining Character Traits for Fiction Novels When it comes to writing a novel, it takes more than plot. You have to have relatable characters, which means they should not be perfect, and they should not conform to the standard. This means that you do not want to create the perfect “good” character, and you do not want to create a 100 percent evil character. Instead, you should strive for a balance. A good character can be flawed, and an evil character can have some good traits. For these reasons, it’s important to define positive and negative character traits either prior to writing the novel or at some point during the writing process.
Types of Character Traits
Character traits can fall into many different categories, including physical, emotional and psychological. The traits you choose may depend on the type of character you are creating or the overall theme of your fiction novel.
Physical Traits
The physical traits of your characters include their height, eye color, hair color, tattoos and body modifications, but you can go beyond this and give your characters certain physical defects, like one limb shorter than the other, a defined limp from an old injury and even ailments that limit their physical movements. Don’t be afraid to give your characters physical flaws or even a chronic illness or condition because they can enhance the appeal of the book, deepen the writing and even contribute to the subplots or main plot.
Emotional Traits
When we think of emotions, we tend to think of the basics, happy, sad, angry, in love and jealous or greedy. While these are a good start, don’t forget about the lesser tackled emotions and emotional malfunctions, including being impulsive, having anger management disorders, depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorders and even drug and alcohol dependency. How a character deals with or doesn’t deal with their emotional hang-ups can make for great writing. For example, if your character has a drug addiction, like Avia, in AVIA I – Thunderstorms and .45s, getting that next fix may be just as important to your character as solving or committing the crime and create a conflicting duality in goals and actions that can lead to interesting plot twists.
Psychological Traits
Your character’s psychological traits make up his or her personality. Think of these as they relate to the Meijer Briggs Personality test. These are the traits that make your character tick, define how they relate to others and can even impact actions. The Meijer Briggs personality test defines 16 different types of personalities. For example, writers tend to be introverts. They like to be left alone with their thoughts. For that reason, most writers fall under INTJ (The Mastermind), INFP (The Idealist) and ISFP (The Composer). Of course, this doesn’t mean that your introverted self or character can’t have moments of extroversion, but it is something to keep in mind because extroversion for an introverted person or character leads to exhaustion and a need to “recharge” alone. Knowing your character's personality type can define the actions your character takes when confronted with challenges or problems and greatly enhance the depth and breadth of your character development and new novel.
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Let’s talk about first-person fiction. These are the stories that are written with the pronoun “I” verses he or she. That’s self-explanatory – right? We’re used to reading first person in blogs, journals and memoirs. After all, you probably don’t want to refer to yourself in third person very often. What’s less common but becoming more common are fiction books written in first person.
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For any new writer, there is a guide in which to follow known as the five draft method. For those of us who have followed this method, we have come to know the steps quite well. There is, of course, the first draft which is more or less dumping ideas onto a page, sort of a vomit stage, second draft which is making sense of it all perhaps even creating an outline to follow for the story, the third which is starting to put the novel into manuscript form creating the rough draft, the forth which is basically doing surgery where grammar punctuation along with overall flow of novel is looked over and edited. Then comes what many consider the most critical stage of all, the fifth and final draft. This one is perhaps the most crucial of them all and in doing it there are some helpful hints that could keep a writer on task.
Read more: How to Write the Fifth and Final Draft of a Novel
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Writing a novel is a journey of persistence and refinement. While many new fiction writers focus heavily on completing their first draft, the real magic happens in the later stages—especially in the fourth draft of a novel. This draft is often referred to as the analytical draft or the surgical draft because it's where you zoom in and start fine-tuning every part of your story.
In the five-draft novel writing method, the fourth draft plays a critical role. It's where your manuscript transitions from "rough but readable" to "tight, polished, and engaging." If you're a new author wondering what to focus on during the fourth draft, this guide breaks it down into manageable steps so you can move one step closer to publishing your novel with confidence.
Read more: How to Write the Fourth Draft of a Novel: A Crucial Step for Fiction Writers
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Writing your first novel can feel like an overwhelming journey. From the spark of an idea to outlining, drafting, and editing—it’s easy to feel lost in the process. One of the most confusing stages for new writers is the third draft of a novel. Is it the final draft? A revision draft? Or just another rewrite?
Let’s clear up the confusion.
According to the widely used five-draft method for novel writing, the third draft plays a critical role. It’s not about polishing every sentence to perfection yet—but it is about transforming your earlier efforts into a cohesive manuscript that starts to resemble a finished book. If you're a beginning novelist wondering what to do in the third draft, this guide will walk you through the purpose, process, and best practices for this pivotal stage of writing.
Read more: How to Write the Third Draft of a Novel: A Beginner’s Guide