Writing believable male characters is no easy task. Many writers worry that their male characters are stereotypical or flat. It is ordinary to worry about such issues because they are indeed common in the writing community.
Furthermore, writing a believable male character sometimes feels unattainable. You might sometimes, while writing, think about whether you’re making the male characters a cliche or just a male version of a female character.
We’re putting an end to this. In today’s guide, you’re going to learn how to write believable male characters.
What Makes a Male Character Believable?
Before doing anything, you should know what makes a male character believable. If you think what would make a male character believable is making him a written version of a real man, then you’re mistaken.
Male characters don’t represent anything but themselves, let alone a whole gender. He is a unique person shaped by a combination of personality, upbringing, and culture. A believable male character is a product of his environment and embodies his identity consistently throughout the story.
Believable male characters have a few things in common:
- wants something specific.
- Flaws that affect his choices.
- Exist beyond the current scene.
Common Mistakes to Avoid While Writing Male Characters
Believe me when I say it, you don’t want to write male characters readers perceive as bad. As I always say, characters are the beating heart of any story. They’re the most important element in the story, the one reason why there’s a story to begin with.
Now that you get the sentiment, characters are important.
Here are some common mistakes to avoid while writing male characters:
- Describing his looks instead of the person.
- Giving him emotions that are polished.
- Exist to support the protagonist.
- Using cliches.
- Making male relationships the same as female characters.
How to Write Believable Male Characters
Let’s talk less about how not to write believable male characters and more about how to; I must begin by stating there’s no correct way to approach this task. However, this 7-step guide to writing believable male characters comes close to that.
Step 1: Build the Person Before the Man
Many writers search “how to write a masculine character,” or “How to write a sensitive man,” which in themselves aren’t an issue, but you don’t begin with that. To write believable male characters, you have to build the person before the man.
Here are questions to ask yourself to get the ball rolling:
- What does your character value the most?
- How does he like to spend his time?
- What does he fear?
You can read the full character creation guide to flesh out your male character. When you have read the guide and answered these questions, you can now add the gender identity.
Gender has obviously been a large factor in shaping who he is, but that doesn’t mean it defies his entire identity. Write him as a person, then think about how he is as a man.
Step 2: Give Him a Clear Background
Your male character’s life doesn’t begin on page one. A believable male character is already a multi-dimensional character who is actively affected by his background. Factors such as his family, socioeconomic status, and childhood shape who he is at the beginning of the story.
I’m not telling you to sketch out his entire backstory, but you should have a clear idea of how it was.
Here is some stuff you should know:
- Family and friends.
- Soceconmicstautus.
- Education.
- Passion.
- Childhood wounds.
Step 3: Give Him Strengths and Weaknesses
Everybody has their strengths and weaknesses. Big or small. There are simply some things your male character is better at than others. He’s also flawed. He’ll have his soft spots. It’s nothing particular to a man, but a part of being a human. We can’t be good at everything or bad at everything.
One thing I want to add here is that you should definitely give your male character some weaknesses. If you want him to feel relatable or remotely believable, give him some flaws.
Furthermore, they shouldn’t be random. Tie them back to his background. For example, he had loving and wealthy parents who spoiled him as a child; now he struggles to show sympathy for people who are less fortunate than him because he doesn’t understand them.
On the other hand, don’t make him pathetically bad at everything. You might have seen characters like that in books or films, but there’s at least one, even if it’s a small thing, that they master. For example, a male character who is lacking in every other area of his life never stops showing up and trying his best, although he sucks at everything.
By sitting down and writing a list of his strengths and weaknesses, you’re making him multidimensional. You’re creating different parts of your male character. Not only are you making him believable, but you’re tying it back to his background and identity, which is the cherry on top that makes him a cohesive character.
Step 4: Write Accurate Emotions
I think the female writers relate to the struggle of trying to write believable male character emotions. Many writers, regardless of gender, get male characters’ emotions wrong. Some writers make him too emotionally intelligent; others dumb him down.
I want to say, it’s not inherently wrong to wise up or dumb down a character, but it’s wrong to do it based on his gender. I’m not going to deny the fact that men, generally speaking, are less likely to understand or express their emotions. That’s actually the first issue I want to address.
You can’t write all your male characters as these emotionally mature characters because it’s not true. In our society, it’s not socially acceptable for men to express their emotions freely. Some parts of the world more than others. They’re not socialized to do so. As writers, we should depict and criticize the society we live in, but that depends on us showing the whole truth.
However, there are emotionally intelligent men out there. They also deserve to be represented in literature.
My point is, write emotions that fit his personality. Not everybody expresses their emotions the same. Some male characters get quiet, others yell. Some get violent, others become numb. What men don’t do is react the same way; neither should your male characters.
Step 5: Give Him Relationships That Matter
Male characters become believable when they have multiple relationships that show different sides of themselves. It doesn’t have to be romantic relationships, actually, it shouldn’t just be romantic relationships. Family, friends, coworkers, and rivals all matter.
With each relationship, your character is naturally playing a different role. He’ll behave differently, both consciously and unconsciously, when he is with his parents and when he’s with his best friend.
Relationships create opportunities for future conflicts and growth. You can challenge him both in the role he’s playing and the other character in the relationship. For example, he may feel he is failing as a son while his father is only adding to the pressure.
You can read this in-depth guide to character relationships. It works perfectly well for both male and female characters.
Step 6: Not Only a Romantic Interest
If your male characters only exist so another character can fall in love with them, then they will only be that. A half-baked romantic interest. Even if he is a romantic interest, to be a good male character, he has to have his own ambitions, fears, responsibilities, and relationships.
To create a believable character, he should have more than one function. If you take a look at a real man, he isn’t just a boyfriend; he’s also him. A person in his own right deserves a life.
Step 7: Allow Him to Change
This is the most important step to write a believable male character: allow him to change. If he went on a journey or somehow participated in a journey, he should’ve learned something from it or been impacted by it.
As people, we absorb everything we’re exposed to, even if it happens unconsciously. Take a good look at who he was at the beginning of the story, then at the end. Ask yourself: How did my male character change?
Writing Men, Not Male Characters
If I haven’t been clear enough, no man is the same, nor should your male character be. That’s the core message of this guide. If you want to learn how to write believable male characters, you need to write a person. There isn’t a specific way to write a person, just a method.
Take each step with a grain of salt. Make sure that all the steps align so he is believable. You might not get it at the first draft, but you’ll edit so many times that you finally get tired of your own book. Hopefully, you end up being satisfied with your characters.
