He invites you to his mind To his emotions. To his past and to what he longs for the future. He shows you his weak side, but also his strengths. He reveals his secrets, and at the same time, what he hides. Then you fall in love with his personality and his way of empathizing with you. You are interested in him and what he is about to experience. You don't really know how he looks, but that makes him even more attractive because your imagination flows. You know that for you he will be someone special, because even though is far away, sometimes even far from the reality, the details will make you feel close to him: The tone of his voice. The color of his hair. The shape of his face. The way he thinks. And at the same time, his behavior, his values, his psychology, but above all, his story. And that's when you realize the importance of the characters in a novel, especially a protagonist.

In a novel, whether fiction or not, the characters you use are crucial. Without characters, there is no story, and there is no more to say. These people come alive through words and they become your friends, or enemies, especially the protagonist and antagonist. Therefore, if you decide to publish a fiction story, you must know how to create them wisely.

But, how? This usually depends on the author and the kind of novel he writes: real or fiction if it is the first one, it will be easier to identify characters, because they are already created, but if it is the second one, everything has to come from your author's mind.

Once the theme is defined, you should ask about whom the story is about. And when you have identified at least the most important one, the next step is to build your story. Who is this person? What is his or her name? How old is he? Where does he live? How does he look like? What are his life's goals? How is his past? What are his talents and his strengths? What are his weaknesses and his fears? If you are one of those who draws, then draw him. It helps.

It is important to know everything about your character as if it is your closest friend. You must know his intentions, his mind, and his heart. Because only then you can transmit the same to the reader. It is not necessary that you write EVERYTHING about him in your story, there are things that surely you will not even tell, but having created them and written them for you before, will support you to describe your character effectively and you will give him his own personality.

Once you have defined your protagonist's story and his surroundings, you have to introduce him to the story. You have to create his actions, his way of responding to conflicts, his feelings. The more descriptive you are with this, the more you will get readers to empathize with him. Your job is for them to know him and feel him as if they were seeing someone real by his side. Be creative.

Another fundamental aspect is your character's arc, which happens when he goes through a personal transformation during the novel or he grows in a certain sense. For example, he starts being one way and ends being another. This makes the story even more enriching and interesting. If your character is flat and boring, your readers will also feel flat and bored.

The secret lies in how much you, as the author, know about your characters. So before you start writing your fiction novel, define them and make sure you have done your research, since there is nothing more captivating than a book that introduces you to new "friends".