The Character House, Pt. 1: The Character Development Tool You’ve Been Waiting For

Have you ever seen a house being built? The foundation is poured, the floor and walls are constructed, and finally, the roof is put into place. If the foundation is steady, the floor, walls, and roof can remain firm for decades. However, the house needs all its parts to function properly. Construction workers can’t set up the walls before the basement, and they certainly can’t put the roof in thin air.

Fictional characters are like houses. Like houses, characters consist of layers that support one another—backstory, beliefs, fears, goals, dialogue, actions, quirks, relationships, emotions, vulnerability, and personality traits. On the other hand, if they lack solid reasons for their actions, their entire role in the story may collapse.

The Character House uses the analogy of a house to help writers build rock-solid characters. This post begins a series in which I’ll discuss each aspect of the Character House. I’ll also share practical tips on how you can use this model to create characters your readers will love.

What is the Character House?

As mentioned above, the Character House compares the aspects of a character to the components of a house.

The basement floor represents the backstory. Just as the basement floor forms the foundation of the house, backstory plays a major role in shaping a character’s present-day actions. Within the basement, the back room represents the backstory wound—the painful past event that the character must overcome throughout the story. The basement walls represent the character’s beliefs. Life experiences will cause characters to develop both true and false beliefs about the world. One of these beliefs will be the Lie, the false belief at the heart of the character arc.

Moving upward, the first floor represents the character’s fears, internal goals, and external goals. Just as floors have multiple layers (woodwork, plaster, carpet, etc.), characters’ goals often have layers as well. Characters are usually more aware of their external goal (such as saving the world) than their internal goal (such as finding love and acceptance).

The walls of the first floor represent the character’s actions and dialogue. The walls are the most visible part of the house, but they’re always supported by the floor and basement. Likewise, a character’s visible actions and dialogue reflect the less visible motivators of backstory, beliefs, fears, and goals.

The furniture represents the character’s external traits, such as likes, dislikes, hobbies, skills, appearance, and quirks. These outward traits reveal the character’s inward self.

The residents of the house represent the character’s relationships. Just as houses are intended to provide homes for people, characters come alive most fully when they interact with other characters.

Looking outside, the windows represent the character’s perspective of the world, including narrative voice. To those looking into the house, windows represent the character’s vulnerability—the extent of the character’s innermost self (hopes, fears, backstory, etc.) that is displayed to the world.

The utilities (heating, cooling, electricity, and water) represent the character’s emotions (positive emotions, negative emotions, and suppressed emotions). Each character will express or suppress different emotions in different ways.

Finally, the roof represents the character’s personality, which comprises the sum total of the character’s typical actions and behavior (first floor walls). For example, a character who consistently behaves in a kind way has a “kind personality.” A character who consistently grumbles and complains has a “grumpy personality.”

Oftentimes, underdeveloped characters are missing one or more pieces of the Character House. Their goals might lack a backstory reason, they might have many quirks but no goals, or they might have too much backstory and not enough action. Just as a house without a strong foundation will crumble, a character without a strong foundation may weaken the story.

Why Use the Character House?

The Character House method can help you in many ways! Here are just a few of its benefits.

1. The Character House offers both structure and flexibility.

When plotting a novel, you can choose from many different tools—Save the Cat!, the Hero’s Journey, Five-Act Structure, etc. However, character development doesn’t have very many “official” structures, which means authors may struggle to create logical, coherent characters.

That’s where the Character House comes in. This tool helps you understand how the different aspects of a character (backstory, goals, actions, etc.) interconnect in an orderly chain of cause and effect.

For example, if you know that your character is energetic and impulsive, you can work backward to the beliefs that drive these actions and the backstory events that produced those beliefs. On the other hand, if you know that your character’s backstory involves a friend’s betrayal, you can work from the ground up to determine what beliefs, goals, and actions will result from this backstory event.

Now, if you’re a pantser (a writer who writes “by the seat of your pants”), you might hesitate to use this model. A structured method of character development? What happened to freedom and creativity?

I have good news for you: the Character House is very flexible! As we’ll discuss in a later post, you can mix and match components of the Character House to your heart’s content. Unlike real houses, Character Houses can be built in any order. Start with your character’s backstory or beliefs or personality or quirks. Be creative! Just as the same plot structure can support vastly different stories, the Character House can provide a framework for countless unique characters.

Most likely, you’ve already been using principles of the Character House without knowing it. If you can name your protagonist’s backstory wound, false belief, goal, or fear, you’re already familiar with many parts of the Character House.

2. The Character House can help you brainstorm both new characters and existing ones.

When building new characters, you might know a few key facts about them, such as their story goal or their basic personality. Using the Character House, you can ask questions to continue exploring your characters. What internal goal motivates their external goal of saving the world? What backstory events prompted their interest in sword fighting or botany? What kind of relationships do they have with siblings and parents?

For existing characters, you can use the Character House to identify any missing or underdeveloped components. Maybe you know their backstory but not their emotional range. Maybe your characters could use more hobbies or a clearer narrative voice. Maybe you’re looking more ways to show the characters’ personality traits in the story. The Character House can help with all these things and more!

3. The Character House can help with troubleshooting.

When you notice that something is wrong with your character, jot down what you know for each part of the Character House. The issue may result from a missing or inadequate component—a generic backstory, a lack of internal goals, inconsistent emotions, or a weak link between goal and action.

Once you finish your rough draft, the Character House can help you refine your characters during the editing process. For instance, if you want to change a certain backstory event, the new backstory will affect the character’s beliefs, fears, actions, and more. The Character House can help you follow this ripple effect and ensure that your character remains consistent.

Building Characters Like Houses

To recap, the Character House can help you develop authentic characters whose traits fit together in a natural chain of cause and effect. Just as houses consist of a basement, first floor, walls, furniture, windows, and roof, characters’ backstories impact their beliefs, which influence their goals and shape their actions.

The Character House can help you brainstorm new characters, strengthen existing characters, and troubleshoot problems. By applying this structured but flexible method, you can use the tools of brick and mortar to make your readers feel truly at home with your characters.

Next week, we’ll discuss the first component of the Character House: the Backstory Basement. Find out how to develop strong backstories that lay the groundwork for compelling characters. Stay tuned for more details!

What are your favorite methods of character development? How do you think the Character House could help you create your next character? Share your thoughts in the comments!