Any tips on how to form a good character in a story?
No matter what the setting of your story, good characters still have to be grounded in relatability somehow. Even if you have a completely fictional, fantastical setting, even if you have non-human characters like the wolves of Guardians’ Advent, they need to have qualities your audience can connect with. Not all their qualities have to be relatable-- if they did, Guardians’ Advent would never work simply because the characters aren’t human-- but they still need something to ground them.
The characters of Guardians’ Advent still show a lot of humanized traits despite not being physically human-- for example, Arashi’s dreams and ambitions help make her relatable. Most of us probably have experienced some sort of longing throughout our lives, so that’s something we can connect to when we see it in her. You can pull off a more “realistic” animal character that doesn’t perceive the world the same way humans do, but the more you veer away from human experience, the more you’re going to have to take pains to ensure you help the audience understand and relate.
This is also why it’s important to make sure a character has their flaws, too. Real humans aren’t perfect, so if you have characters that are, your audience usually won’t be able to relate to them. There are some exceptions to this, places where a “perfect” character can be used to make a point, for example, or places where a character’s role doesn’t require them to be developed enough to need to show a flaw (i.e. minor background characters), but for your characters that are meant to be getting a good amount of spotlight, you usually want to make sure that they have their own struggles and flaws.
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