10 essential tips for developing memorable characters

Character development for a play is less about “deep backstory” and more about stageable pressure: what they want right now, what blocks them and what they’re willing to do in front of us to get it.

Here are some of the most reliable methods.

1) Start with a want you can watch

Give each character a specific, immediate want that can be pursued in action.

• Bad: “She wants love.”

• Good: “She wants him to say ‘stay’ tonight.”

Then add:

• Stakes: What happens if they don’t get it?

• Urgency: Why now?

A character becomes vivid when the audience can track their pursuit like a game.

2) Build a contradiction (the engine of behavior)

Plays thrive on people who are not consistent — people are two truths at war.

Try: They are (public mask) … but (private need) …

• “He’s the calm mediator … but he’s desperate to be chosen.”

• “She’s ruthless … but she cannot stand being seen as cruel.”

This contradiction gives you choices, reversals and surprises — without randomness.

3) Define their tactic palette (how they fight)

A character’s “personality” is often just their preferred tactics under stress.

Give each character three to five go-to tactics, plus the one they avoid until the end:

• charm

• threaten

• plead

• joke

• intellectualize

• seduce

• spiritualize

• withdraw

• confess

When a tactic fails, they escalate or pivot. That is character development onstage.

4) Make relationships unequal

Most stage energy comes from power imbalance and need imbalance.

For every pair, decide:

• Who needs who more in this scene?

• Who has the power in this scene?

• What secret leverage exists (money, shame, desire, history, knowledge)?

Then let power and need swap hands over the play.

5) Give each character a private “deal with life”

This is their internal rule — simple, speakable, playable:

• “If I’m useful, I won’t be abandoned.”

• “If I control the room, I can’t be hurt.”

• “If I tell the truth, I lose love.”

Their arc often equals: the rule stops working.

6) Write their voice from function, not quirk

Distinct voice comes from what they do with language:

• Do they name things or avoid naming?

• Do they interrupt or wait?

• Do they ask questions or make declarations?

• Do they tell stories, quote facts, tease, moralize?

A helpful trick: decide what each character thinks language is for:

• weapon, balm, bargain, confession, performance, shield.

7) Use a “pressure test” instead of backstory dumps

Backstory only matters if it creates behavior under pressure.

Ask:

• What’s the one topic that makes them change temperature?

• What do they refuse to do, until they do it?

• What are they embarrassed to want?

• What lie do they tell that sounds like virtue?

Then put that pressure onstage.

8) Track change in choices, not in “feelings”

In plays, the audience believes change when the character makes a new kind of choice.

Simple arc model:

1. Default strategy works (or seems to).

2. It fails repeatedly.

3. They try harder (worse version of themselves).

4. They attempt a new strategy (risk).

5. They pay a cost and become someone slightly different.

9) Practical scene tool: Want / Obstacle / Tactic / Turn

For every scene, for each character, write one line:

• Want: what they want from the other person

• Obstacle: what blocks it (external + internal)

• Tactic: how they try this minute

• Turn: what changes by the end (power, knowledge, commitment)

If you can’t answer those, the scene may be atmosphere instead of drama.

10) A fast character template (fill this out in 5 minutes)

• Public role: (teacher / caretaker / winner / comic / judge)

• Private need: (to be forgiven / to be desired / to be safe)

• Secret: (what they’re hiding)

• Wound: (what they’re protecting)

• Rule: (“If ___, then I ___.”)

• Vice under stress: (control / charm / cruelty / avoidance)

• Virtue that costs them: (loyalty / honesty / tenderness)

• Point of no return: what they will do in Act II

Quick exercise (you can do it on a blank page)

Pick one character and write a monologue where they:

1. Ask for something they’d deny wanting.

2. Use three different tactics to get it.

3. End by saying something that contradicts what they just proved.

That contradiction is usually your real character.

For an example of development for both major and minor characters, see the sample preview of my play, An Act of Kindness.