Rid your mind of the notion that characterisation is hard. There are two reasons why you find few good characters in the stories you read, and the first is this superstition that you have to be able to fly on a broomstick to do it. The hard things about writing are telling a good story, and writing skilful prose. The rest – plotting and characterisation, particularly – are easy.

The second reason is that far too many writers are interested only in themselves. It's good to be interested in yourself, but it's fatal to be interested ONLY in yourself.

Characterisation aims at three things. If you do any two of them pretty well, you've got it whipped.

First, characterisation distinguishes one character from another, particularly in dialogue. Mousy Janice does not talk (or act) like Brassy Jane or Heroic Joan. ‘Do it! Once you start, you'll find yourself wondering what you were so afraid of.’ ‘But what will people say? My mother … ‘ ‘Screw your mother. And screw Ralph, too. Get out there and get yourself a life, kid.’ Can you tell who said what? Sure you can.

Second, characterisation takes the reader into the character's psyche; it makes us feel we've known the character for years: ‘Another mouth to feed. Well, hell.’ Jake pushed his sweat-stained old hat onto the back of his head, picked the ginger kitten up and scratched its ears. ‘You don't look like no big eater to me,’ he muttered.

Third, characterisation makes the reader care what happens to the character – his or her successes and failures become the reader's: