Messy Characters Create Relatability (and Better Stories)

From Written on Vinyl to Space

At the beginning of Written on Vinyl, Vivian is kind of a mess. She’s overwhelmed and emotionally complex, while trying to navigate relationships, expectations and her own internal spirals while pretending she has things much more under control than she actually does. Which, if I’m being totally honest, feels pretty relatable to me.

A lot of Vivian’s motivation comes from trying to make sense of the people around her (namely, Celeste), while also struggling to fully understand herself. And the more tangled things become with Celeste, the more her own flaws start surfacing in ways she can’t ignore.

Even in my newer project (which we’re temporarily calling Temporal Shear), that same kind of emotional messiness shows up. The characters might exist in completely different worlds—music versus deep-space transmissions—but they all share the same underlying humanity.

They’re trying. Sometimes failing spectacularly. Sometimes making things worse for themselves. Which is usually where the interesting parts of a story begin.

Environmental Influences on Character Development

One of my favorite ways to reveal a character is through environment and reaction. Sometimes you can tell readers more about a character through one small moment than pages of direct description ever could.

For Vivian, one of those moments happens when she’s moving luggage and laying on the horn, disturbing the peace around her. It’s not a huge, dramatic scene, but it immediately tells you something important about her. She’s trying so hard to keep things together and make everything go smoothly that she ends up creating an awkward moment instead.

I have a lot of moments like that.

That kind of messiness matters to me as a writer because it makes characters feel lived-in instead of polished. Real people get impatient. They overreact. They spiral over inconveniences because three other things are already weighing on them emotionally.

Those moments create connection. Readers don’t relate to perfection. They relate to recognizable emotions hidden inside imperfect situations.

Internal Influences: Why Introspection Matters

Vivian became the main character of Written on Vinyl because she’s the lens that makes the story emotionally interesting to me.

Celeste is compelling but seeing her entirely through her own perspective would create a very different story. By filtering parts of Celeste through Vivian’s internal dialogue, the reader learns just as much about Vivian as they do about Celeste. Because what Vivian notices matters, what she fixates on matters. The way she interprets situations matters. And sometimes those interpretations are shaped more by Vivian’s own emotional state than by reality itself.

That introspection creates another layer of messiness, because people rarely view the world objectively, especially when emotions are involved.

As a writer, I love exploring that space where perception and reality start blurring together a little. That’s where characters start feeling human to me.

Messiness Creates Connection

Good stories are always going to be subjective. Every reader connects with different characters, different themes, and different emotional experiences. But I think messy characters create stronger connections because thy feel recognizable.

The flaws are usually the thing that makes readers attach themselves to a character in the first place, because there’s comfort in recognizing parts of yourself in someone else’s chaos. Even when that chaos involves laying on a car horn while moving luggage, or spiraling over a conversation that probably didn’t  mean what you think it meant.

Besides, those are usually the moments that stay with readers the longest anyway.

Humanity Over Perfection

Whether it’s Vivian, Celeste, Nova or Kristen, I keep coming back to characters who are capable and intelligent but still deeply human underneath all of that. The funny moments matter just as much as the heavy ones.

Sometimes relatability comes from huge emotional revelations. Sometimes it comes from frustration, awkwardness, bad decisions, or someone reacting poorly because they’re exhausted and overwhelmed. Those smaller moments of messiness are what make characters feel real to me.

And personally, I think real people make the best stories.