: Re: How can I write complex and believable characters? How do I write characters that are more grounded, complex and believable so that readers can resonate with them and makes my novel more compelling?

@Sent2472441

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This is a big question, so I'm not even going to attempt to give a complete answer. Let me just mention a couple of points that I really notice when an author does NOT do right.
One: In real life, people often have complex motivations. When making an important decision, a person will routinely have several reasons for deciding the way they do.
I sometimes hear a silly criticism of politicians that goes like this: "Yesterday the president said that he was proposing this new policy to bring peace to the Middle East. Today he said that he is doing it to help the US economy. So which is it, huh? huh? Was he lying yesterday or is he lying today?" But that's often a silly criticism. He might well be doing it for both reasons and a dozen others.
Oh, of course I don't expect every trivial decision in a story to have complex motivation, or for you to explain the motivation. If you say that a character stopped at a store and bought a candy bar, I don't expect an in depth discussion of why the owner chose to build a store at this spot and why they are selling candy bars. But for the big decisions that a character makes in a story -- why the hero decides to start a revolution or which man the heroine picks to marry or whatever -- should be complex enough to be interesting. If you can sum it up in one sentence, it's probably not interesting enough.
Two: Related to that, avoid making characters 100% good or 100% evil. It's common advice to say that the hero should have flaws that he must overcome in the course of the story. I think it's also important for the villain to have justifications for his actions that sound at least remotely plausible. In real life, even the worst villains rarely say, "I will destroy all that is good and right!!" and then burst into fiendish laughter. Usually it's more like, "Yes, I suppose there have been some excesses. But we have no choice. We must fight these people because they have betrayed our country and are selling us out to our enemies for profit. I regret that some innocent people have suffered, and we must take steps to protect the innocent, but we can't let that paralyze us into doing nothing while these people destroy us." Etc.
This is especially true if you are creating villains who represent a political position or ideology or religious beliefs or whatever that you don't like. I've read many book and seen many movies where it's very obvious what the political (or whatever) views of the writer are, because everybody from his party is good and reasonable and likable, and everybody from the other party is evil and stupid and obnoxious. If you have trouble writing someone you disagree with without making him constantly screaming incoherently, you need to do some research and find out what these people actually say in real life.
In general, avoid making characters too simple. I recall when I watched Star Wars Episode 1 that I thought to myself, You know, every character in this story can be completely described in one sentence. There's the arrogant young man who's sure he knows it all, the wise old teacher, the politician who is only interested in power, etc. Yes, any story will have minor characters who have to be kept simple to avoid cluttering up the story. But if you can completely sum up a main character in one sentence, your characters aren't interesting enough.

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