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Character Design

Characters are the most important element of a story, without them a story would be little more than describing scenery. Good characters can be incredibly difficult get right though, and even more elusive is perfecting how a character grows or changes over a story. Since both pieces have a good bit of information involved, we'll break this into two parts. So let's discuss what makes good characters first.

Characters:
First off, a reader should be able to at least partially picture a character. Depending on how much screen time a character sees you'll want more or less description, but they take up space in your story, so they should also exist in the readers mind as a person, otherwise you may end up with a faceless voice - which off the bat makes that character hard to identify with.

People are diverse, complex, emotional, and imperfect. Very few people want to read a story centered on a god-like character, perfect in every way, who easily overcomes any challenge. But as writers, we can sometimes forget that, and instead create characters that are everything we want to be, with none of our bad traits. Which can be okay if there is character development that still provides tension and a struggle.

Tension and conflict are the bare needs of a story and they can only be provided by characters. The great thing is, even a volleyball can be a character. Just think of the movie Cast Away and how it felt as Wilson floated away, you were emotionally invested in that "character" and what it meant to Tom Hanks' character.

That scene was so impacting because the audience was invested in a situation that they could relate to on some level. I could relate to Cast Away not because I've been stranded before, but because I can 100% imagine that I would experience the same struggles in a situation like that and I was so invested in Tom Hanks' character and hoping he got home.

So what makes a character relatable? How can you make a reader emotionally invested in a protagonist? Complex, flawed, and trying to be better (even if they fail miserably) will make a character realistic and cause a reader to root for them to the bitter end.

Purpose/goals
This is one of the most important aspects of a character, it makes the difference between dialogue that meanders or feels like an information dump, to dynamic arguments that puts a reader on the edge of their seat. If all of the characters involved in a scene have some sort of motivation for their actions (even if it is small), it will usually come off naturally, but if their only motivation is the writer wanting to do something through them, they will seem off and one dimensional.

Save their daughter, earn money, stay alive, avenge their dead spouse, all of these are motivations that drive characters to do things. Even a waitress might have a subtle motivation to just make it through the night with no more jerk customers, and when confronted with that goal being broken, her attitude will be different than to another customer. Everyone has motivations, and characters will rise or fall based on what, and how strong, those motivations are.

Personality
Who a person is, how they act, and what they say makes up a personality. You could tell me that someone is stubborn, or you could show me how stubborn they are by arguing with a goat to not eat their shoe. Show don't tell!

There are lots of aspects about personality, bu 99% of the time they should be shown. Introvert/extrovert, silly/serious, intelligent/dumb, direct/indirect... There are all parts of personalities that can be pulled from, which can be found from Googling personality tests, character archetypes, or just personality types.

Methods of facing problems
This ties in closely with personality, but can also speak to someone's backstory, experiences and underlying character.

How someone evaluates events and others around them, and then addresses problems, is like the undercurrent in an ocean. The quiet kid that likes to be by himself is just the surface, and he can address problems in different ways: faced with a test they're not prepared for do they just fill in random answers, try to answer correctly, or do they cheat off of their neighbor? Each might have the same high-level personality, but their methods for dealing with problems can drastically change how a reader views that character.

Questions to ask yourself about the characters:

-Does the character have a description that provides an image in the reader's mind? Or could the character be a talking icon and the reader wouldn't know the difference?

-Is the character boring? Do they have flaws, motivations, or traits that make them more than one-dimensional?

-Does the character have a unique accent, fidget, phobias, posture, or attitude that further fleshes out their personality by separating them from the rest of the cast?

-Does the speech or narration lend to developing who that character is or how they think, and not just robotic responses to their environment?

-Does the character have personality that comes out in their speech or behavior? (brash, stubborn, innocent, sweet, charming, arrogant, etc.)

-Is the character relateable in some fashion? Can you sympathize or root for them on some level?  

-Does the character say or do things that contradict who that character has been up to that points, especially with no character development to justify it? (i.e. the tough general suddenly sheds tears for someone he brutally murdered, or an innocent high school girl pick up a heavy sword and defeats someone in combat)

-Is the character driven by something? Explicitly or subtly, do they seem to push towards a goal or multiple goals?