Hey Bookfoxers,
There was this Kenyan author named Ngugi Wa Thiong’o, and he wrote novel called Matigari where the protagonist critiqued the Kenyan government.
The President of Kenya was enraged by this book.
He was so angry that he contacted his chief of police and asked them to arrest Matigari.
They issued an arrest warrant and started searching for this evil Matigari who dared to critique the President.
But this was … a novel?
This wasn’t nonfiction.
Matigari only existed on the page. He was a fictional creation, a made-up character, a fabricated figure.
Or was he? See, Thiong’o had done what all authors dream of doing – writing someone so real that other people believe they’re flesh and blood.
I view this as a life goal for authors: writing a character so real that they get warrants issued for their arrest. Like a governmental stamp of approval – hey, this isn’t made-up! It can’t be! This character’s too well written to possibly be fictional!
Unfortunately, this story doesn’t have a happy ending. But before I tell the rest of the story, I want to talk about 4 ways you can make your character seem shockingly, indisputably, undeniably real.
1. Give them contradictory impulses that war against each other
Real people aren't consistent. They want opposing things.
Your shy librarian might crave the spotlight.
Your tough cop might collect porcelain figurines like “Precious Moments.”
But here's the key – don't just slap on random contradictions. Make them hurt. Give your character two desires that can't coexist, then watch them squirm as they try to satisfy both. It's the internal civil war that makes readers lean forward.
In Sophie’s Choice, she had some very strong impulses:
The impulse to save both of her children
The knowledge that if she didn’t pick one child to go to the gas chambers, the Nazis would kill both of them
2. Let them be wrong about themselves in specific ways
Most people have blind spots about their own nature. Your protagonist thinks they're generous, but they're actually controlling. They believe they're logical, but emotion drives every major decision.
The trick is showing this gap between self-perception and reality through their actions and dialogue, never through exposition. Let readers discover what the character can't see about themselves.
Holden Caulfield from The Catcher in the Rye sees himself as the only authentic person in a world of "phonies," but he's often just as fake and dishonest as those he criticizes.
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3. Give them a physical habit that reveals their psychology
Forget generic nervous tics. I'm talking about:
The mother who rearranges other people's belongings when she's anxious – not because she's neat, but because she needs to control something.
The teenager who pulls his earlobe whenever he’s angry, but only on his left ear.
You want physical habits that aren't just quirks but windows into how their mind processes stress, joy, fear.
Make the body tell the story the mouth won't.
Of course, the premier example is from good ole Shakespeare: Think of Lady Macbeth's compulsive hand-washing – it reveals guilt and psychological breakdown.
4. Show how they lie to different people in different ways
Everyone lies, but how they lie reveals character.
Some people lie by omission, others by exaggeration, others by misdirection. Your character might tell bold, elaborate lies to strangers but can't even fib to their grandmother.
Or they might be brutally honest with enemies but sugar-coat everything with friends. Map out their lying patterns – it's a blueprint of their fears.
Tom Ripley (The Talented Mr. Ripley) - A pathological liar who assumes other people's identities, forges documents, and creates elaborate false narratives to maintain his deceptions.
Pi Patel (Life of Pi) - Tells two versions of his survival story - one with animals, one without - leaving readers to question which is true.
5. Give them something they're unreasonably good at and something they're unreasonably bad at
I don't mean superhuman abilities. (unless you’re writing a fantasy world, in which case, go right ahead!)
I mean:
the accountant who can parallel park a semi-truck on the first try
the surgeon whose houseplants all die within a week.
These inexplicable competencies and failures make characters feel lived-in. They suggest a whole history of experiences we never see on the page. They make readers think, "Yeah, that's exactly the kind of person who would be amazing/terrible at that weird thing."
Now, you might want to know the rest of the Matigari story.
Once the President of Kenya realized that Matigari was fictional, and therefore couldn’t be arrested and thrown into prison, he did what he believed to be the next best thing: he banned the book.
And not like American “banning,” which means it’s only restricted from minors inside schools, but anyone can buy it on Amazon or at Barnes & Noble or check it out at the public library.
No, this was actual book banning, where armed police raided bookshops and warehouses, confiscating and destroying all copies of the novel. If you owned a copy of the novel, you could be thrown in prison as an enemy of the state.
The only reason Thiong’o himself wasn’t in prison was because he’d already fled to the United States as a political refugee (he ended up teaching at UC Irvine, just 30 minutes away from where I live).
This book banning depressed Thiong’o so much he said he didn’t write for 10 years.
But when he did write again, he wrote his masterpiece: “The Wizard of the Crow,” which reviewers said was “an allegory presented as a modern-day folk tale, complete with tricksters, magic, disguised lovers and daring escapes.”
So take some time today to make your character come alive on the page, and maybe, just maybe, you'll write your way to your own masterpiece—even if it takes a decade and some government persecution to get there.
Living the writing life,
John Matthew Fox
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PPS. Or check out my ten writing courses with Bookfox Academy
This is really good stuff. Thanks!
Thank you for being so generous with these gold nuggets x