The most memorable characters in literature and film have distinctive personalities. Think of the ever-optimistic Leslie Knope from TV’s Parks and Recs or the hilariously sardonic Hades from Disney’s animated classic Hercules. If you were asked to describe these characters, you’d have plenty of ways to explain who they are and what they’re like.
That’s because these characters were created by writers who understand the importance of clearly defined character traits that paint a fuller picture of who they are, making them seem real to readers and viewers.
But what are character traits, and how can you use them in your own writing to make sure your characters feel like real people? Read on to find out more about this, and also see a list of character traits to help inspire you to craft your own characters.
List of character traits
First, let’s define character traits
Before we get into our character trait list, we have to understand what character traits are in the first place.
CHARACTER QUALITIES DEFINITION
What is a character trait?
Character traits are how we describe who a character is. This can include character qualities, such as personality types, as well as physical descriptions. Character traits explain how a character thinks, feels, acts, or even looks. A character trait can be negative, such as saying a character is selfish, or positive, such as saying they are brave. They can be physical, such as describing hair color, or emotional, such as describing mood.
Character Traits Examples from Literature and Film:
- “Phyllida’s hair was where her power resided. It was expensively set into a smooth dome, like a band shell for the presentation of that long-running act, her face.” - Jeffrey Eugenides, “The Marriage Plot”
- “Vanity was the beginning and end of Sir Walter Elliot’s character: vanity of person and of situation.” - Jane Austen, “Persuasion”
- “I don’t think I ever saw Mrs. Flowers laugh, but she smiled often. A slow widening of her thin black lips to show even, small white teeth, then the slow effortless closing. When she chose to smile on me, I always wanted to thank her.” - Maya Angelou, “I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings”
CHARACTER TRAITS LIST Example
Why use character trait lists?
Writers might list character traits to help their characters seem more real to the reader. Readers enjoy stories best when they connect with the characters, and that connection happens most easily if the characters feel like they live beyond just the pages of the story, and feel like real and fully realized people.
This doesn’t mean, however, that characters can’t have magic powers, or can’t look fantastical. But even in sci-fi or fantasy stories, characters are most effective if they have traits that make them relatable or familiar.
Think of Hermione in Harry Potter. Yes, she was able to do incredible feats of magic that readers surely hadn’t seen anyone do in real life. However, her book smarts and ambition made her relatable. Everyone knows a bookworm, or might even be one themselves.
By using character traits, we as readers understood the ways Hermione felt and acted as a person, and this made her an enduring character in our imaginations.
Character Traits List
Crafting characters using a list of character traits
Character traits come in all shapes and sizes! Which traits will you use to describe your own characters? See below for a list of positive character traits, a list of negative character traits, and a physical character traits list. You can use this list as a starting point when you are creating your own characters.
Choosing character traits can help you craft a character that feels complex as opposed to flat or one-dimensional, which helps the character seem more realistic.
For example, Walter White's dialogue tracks his transformation more precisely than any narration could. His traits crystallize in the "say my name" confrontation where Heisenberg fully replaces Walter White.
His most famous lines reveal character as precisely as his actions do.
A video explaining character traits in literature
List of Positive Character Traits
- Kindness
- Honesty
- Bravery
- Trustworthiness
- Reliability
- Compassion
- Empathetic
- Optimism
- Generosity
- Confidence
- Ambition
- Intelligence
- Funny
- Caring
- Polite
- Considerate
- Flexible
- Calm
- Logical
- Open-minded
- Tolerant
- Reasonable
- Unique
- Artistic
- Patient
- Gifted
- Focused
List of Negative Character Traits
- Selfishness
- Jealousy
- Rude
- Dishonest
- Disloyal
- Amoral
- Obnoxious
- Lazy
- Self-important
- Arrogant
- Cynical
- Argumentative
- Annoying
- Shallow
- Stupid
- Clingy
- Calculating
- Callous
- Condescending
- Conformist
- Crass
- Cruel
- Dull
Physical Character Traits List
- Tall
- Short
- Thin
- Muscular
- Athletic
- Lanky
- Stocky
- Strong
- Weak
- Chiseled
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CHARACTER TRAITS in The Sopranos
Character traits in ensemble writing
One of the most useful exercises for understanding character traits is studying how they work across an ensemble. The Sopranos is built around a cast where almost every character embodies a core contradiction. Tony Soprano is dangerous and vulnerable, generous and vindictive, perceptive about everyone except himself.
The Sopranos characters work because no one has a single clean trait. They all carry clusters of traits that pull in opposite directions, which is what makes them feel like real people.
Tony Soprano's psychology is the show's actual subject. He's in therapy, which means the show is constantly surfacing and examining his traits directly. What makes it compelling isn't that he's a villain. It's that his negative traits (narcissism, violence, denial) and his positive traits (loyalty, charisma, love for his children) are genuinely in conflict.
Neither side ever fully wins. For writers building ensembles, The Sopranos offers a practical model: give every major character a dominant positive trait and a dominant negative one that are somehow connected.
Tony's loyalty and his violence come from the same source. That internal coherence is what makes complex characters feel real rather than inconsistent.
Actors who use character traits
How actors use character traits
Writers use character trait lists to build characters on the page. Actors use them to build characters in the body. When an actor receives a script, one of their first tasks is identifying the character's core traits. Not to perform them, but to find where those traits live in real human behavior.
The Meisner Technique is specifically designed for this: rather than having actors indicate emotion or demonstrate a trait, it trains them to respond to what's actually happening in the scene.
The trait emerges from the interaction rather than being imposed on top of it. This is useful for writers to understand because it points to something true about how character traits work on screen.
The most convincing characters don't announce their traits. Their traits shape how they move through situations. An impatient character doesn't tell you they're impatient. They interrupt, they finish other people's sentences, they physically can't stay still.
When you're building your character trait list, try thinking about your character's traits as behavioral tendencies rather than labels.
Up Next
How to craft dynamic characters
Characters are most effective and memorable when they are complex. Starting with character traits is one way to begin crafting a character. Another consideration is what journey, or arc, the character will go on during the course of your story, and how they might change. Read on to learn more about character arcs.
Up Next: What Is a Character Arc →
