Welcome author Genevieve Iseult Eldredge to Full Moon Bites for her post, How to Make Your Characters Believable. Read on below for more about her novel Moribund.

My best advice for making a character believable, whether she is a hero or a villain or just a fleeting character, is to focus on the universal emotions of that character. Go deep into that character’s mind and find that one overriding motivation—the universal emotion—that drives them.

Universal emotions like love, hate, jealousy, fear, hope, anger, mercy, sorrow are things everyone has experienced, no matter who they are or where they come from. We’ve all been angry. We’ve all felt sad or hopeless. We’ve all felt joy, elation, jealousy, love, hatred. As humans, we all have all those emotions in common.

That’s why universal emotions make the strongest building blocks for believable characters. Because, really, it’s not about creating believable characters, it’s about creating relatable characters.

No one believes a man could shoot lasers out of his eyes like Superman, but we can all relate to feeling out of place, like we don’t belong, the way Clark Kent probably felt as a kid. That’s why we can relate to him—because we’ve all felt that way at least once in our lives.

Likewise, believable, relatable characters don’t wake up thinking, “I’m going to save the world today!” or “I’m going to destroy the world today!” That’s strictly the purview of cartoons. More often, the heroine’s—and even the villainess’s—motivations are far simpler, far smaller, far deeper.

Take Rey from Star Wars: The Force Awakens, for instance. She doesn’t set out to save the galaxy or even to become a Jedi. What she wants is a family, to belong, to have a home. Acceptance and love. Who doesn’t want that? And it’s that very want and need that leads her to protect BB-8. Because she relates to being alone and adrift in the world.

And THAT leads her to save the galaxy. She gets there, sure, but she doesn’t START there.

That’s what makes her a great heroine or villainess—you can relate to what she wants and needs. So, tap into those universal emotions when creating your characters. Let those emotions motivate and drive them. And when in doubt, go deeper, go smaller, go simpler. Love, hate, jealousy, hope, mercy, sorrow… Like the old saying claims. It’s the small things that matter. 

Dark Fae. Romance. Evil Plots. High school. Our heroines could be in for the greatest adventure ever.
If only they could decide whether to kill or kiss each other.
High school sophomore Syl Skye is an ordinary girl. At least, she’s trying to be. School photographer and all-around geek, she introverts hard and keeps her crush on sexy-hot glam-Goth alt-rock star Euphoria on the down-low. But when a freak accident Awakens her slumbering power, Syl is forced to accept a destiny she never wanted—as the last sleeper-princess of the fair Fae.
Suddenly hunted by the dark Fae, Syl’s pretty sure things can’t get any worse. Until she discovers her secret crush, Euphoria, is really a dark Circuit Fae able to harness the killing magic in technology. Even worse, she’s been sent to destroy Syl.
With mean girls and magic and dark Fae trying to kill her, it’ll take more than just “clap if you believe in fairies” to save Syl’s bacon—not to mention, her heart.
Perfect for readers of romance, urban fantasy, fairy stories and LGBT.