Creating a balanced character

What is a well balanced character?

A well balanced charater is one you would believe is really existing. Creating a character like this may seem not easy at all and sometimes even impossible but it is all about relating information about your character, a bit knowledge of human nature and psychology with each other.
If you manage to master this combination, you will be able to create characters that can come to life on their own.
Sounds good  but pretty complex, right? Let me show you.

First of all: A character should always be the result of many factors being combined as I mentioned above.

-> Never say the creation progress is done when you miss out e.g. on important events in their backstory or did not mention their family/parents!

You can start out with different aspects and then build up the remaining parts very often but to keep some structure let's start with your characters backstory.


What happens to you in your life forms your personality and character.
Ever seen one of those documentaries on war? Soldiers often say that the war changed them and their countries. And they are right!

Big events change you a lot. By big events I am speaking of something like death or birth of a family member and even getting a pet or witnessing a crime counts to that.

Having a younger sibling often causes you to grow responsiable or/and become more independent than your younger sibling. A pet can cause the same if you spend time with it and maybe even take part in raising it.

Did you notice „often" and „can" here?
It's because it can cause a different change too.
Let's say your family tends to be short-tempered and you „caught that gene" too. You are more likely to hate your sibling/pet, grow to be a loner or even become violent or a criminal then.
This can happen when you are in need of attention too.

Want an example?

Let's try to imagine a girl whose parents tend to become impatient and she recently got a little sister.
She has been an only child for 10 years before and her parents spend a lot of their free time with her. But now that her baby sister is born they spend less time with her.
It makes her sad and finaly become angry and hate her sister because she has to share her parents attention and her old toys etc. with her.
In her anger she starts to throw her toys at her parents as they try to give those to her baby sister.
All in one she becomes aggressive.
And she even reflects that on other children she meets. Growing up she then turns her back at her family and become a trouble maker with friends feeling the same way because something similar happend to them.
But what if her family tended to be more patient and caring? Well, you get the idea, right?

Remember that your personality can still change due to big events no matter your age!


The example displayed above shows how your environment forms you as well.
Habbits or charcter traits that are normal in one country are viewed as pretty weird in an other.

This starts with the people raising you because they contribute their own understanding of your environment into education. After that it's your teachers and then your friends or complete strangers depending on how strong their impact is.

Also take into concern if your character is put under pressure or not and if s/he can manage, will break due to it, takes pride in it etc.

How much your environment influents you when you are no child anymore depends on what I wrote about tendencies at the beginning.


I guess you ache for finaly coming up with a personality?

Remembering everything I mentioned above you also have to think about balancing your character.

Your character is a puzzle made off small pieces that have to fit together to work out as an image.

Imagine two pieces of a puzzle that fit together. One has a small addition to fit into the others hole.
The additions of your characters are strenghts, the holes are weaknesses.
To get your character to gain his composure (or imagine like in the example) you have to balance strenghts and weaknesses 1:1!

Maybe your character is a smart-ass but total weakling? Or loved by everyone but doubts him/herself?

If you are having trouble figuring out which strenghts and weaknesses fit to your character (even regarding everything else) you should start analysing and questioning yourself or people you know very well.

A sample of my fan OC Amaya:

She is smart and a good fighter but terrified even thinking about losing or having some dear to her. Due to this she would start doubting herself over and over again too.

It is important to stay in a logical state when you create characters. Do not let your personal preferences decide! If you are unsure maybe ask someone to judge your character.


When you have environment, backstory and personality all thought up, you can continue with forming your characters everyday life.

Maybe they are shy and spend their time reading books or searching the internet?
An extroverted person would more likely hang out with his/her friends.

Try to imagine hobbies they may like and take everything in concern including if they have enough money and time for this and if there is even the possiblity to do this hobby where they live.
E.g. a poor child wouldn't be very likely to do snowboarding in a desert!

There are also different reasons to do a hobby; not only personality but strenghts and weaknesses too.
Some do a hobby because they display their strenghts, others may do it because someone they like does it too or they want to fight their weaknesses.

Furthermore, you have to think about your characters age. Would s/he go to school or work or just sit at home?

Think about the most-likely possiblities for a person at her/his age then start taking other things like family and money into concern.

Everything is related but you can still play around a bit as long as you stay logical and keep the balance~