Five steps your story can’t afford to skip

Some characters stay with us long after the book closes. They breathe. They ache. They remind us of someone we love – or someone we used to be.

“There is also the fact that you don’t want to get married,” I finish simply. “We are just too different. In the end, emotions, chemistry and sharing great banter just is not going to be enough to keep us together. Let me release you so you can find a nice uncomplicated woman who isn’t as goofy as me.”

“Suppose I just want goofy,” he says simply.

– The Marriage Monitoring Aunties Association (One More Chapter Books)

Sade and Jimi are the main characters in my latest romcom, where I show them loving, yearning, hurting and disappointing each other and walking away. Yes, they get back together in the end – but not without a big build-up of emotions.

Then there are characters who feel like cardboard cut-outs: technically correct, but emotionally hollow.

The difference isn’t the author’s talent. It’s emotional architecture – the inner scaffolding that makes a character feel real, layered, and alive.

This is the part most writers skip. Not because they don’t care, but because they don’t know how to build it into their work.

1. Start with the wound, not the want

Every unforgettable character carries a wound – an old story they’ve been telling themselves about who they are and what they deserve. This wound shapes their choices, fears, and relationships.

• A woman who was overlooked as a child becomes hyper‑independent.
• A man who was abandoned becomes the one who leaves first.
• A girl who grew up invisible becomes the loudest person in the room.

When you understand the wound, the plot stops feeling forced. Your character’s decisions make emotional sense.

Once youembed some behaviour/habit/intuition in another character that unlocks or perpetuates your protagonist’s wound, everything else flows.

2. Give them a contradiction

Real people are messy. We say one thing and do another. We want love but fear vulnerability. We seldom say what is on our minds.

We are silent when someone says something that troubles us or makes us reflective. Sometimes we pause so that someone else knows we are irritated with them. We crave success but sabotage ourselves. We want peace but create chaos.

Characters who resonate with readers are those capable of holding two truths at once.

They might be…

• Confident but terrified of being truly seen
• Kind but capable of pettiness
• Loyal but secretly longing to escape.

Contradiction is human – and we need to see conflict within, as well as between characters.

3. Let their desire drive the plot

A character’s desire is the engine of your story. Not the external goal (“get the job”), but the emotional one (“prove I’m worthy”).

When readers understand what your character really wants, they root for them – even when they make mistakes.

This is why romance and romcoms hit so hard: the emotional desire is always front and centre.

4. Show the cost of staying the same

A character arc isn’t about change for the sake of change. It’s about the moment they realise:

“If I keep living like this, I will lose something I can’t bear to lose.” Maybe that’s the male or female character in a novel – or even their sense of self-worth or self-respect.

That’s when the story deepens. That’s when readers lean in.

5. Build emotional resonance through small, specific details

Readers don’t fall in love with characters because of grand speeches. They fall in love because of:

• The way she rearranges her mother’s flowers after every argument
• The way he checks the door twice before leaving
• The way she laughs too loudly when she’s nervous
• The way he gets silent the moment he gets defensive.

Specificity illuminates intimacy. Think of the rom coms or films that you remember today and what it was about the characters that still endears you, or energises you, years later. Use this to add intentionality to your characters.

That will keep readers with them on their journey.

Want more from Ola? She’s now available for one-to-one mentoring through Jericho Writers. Ola brings both warmth and experience to her mentoring, with a genuine desire to support aspiring authors to write the books that they’ve dreamed of.