Developing Characters In My Picture Book

I already have a strong starting point for my main character in my picture book. I have established a clear plot and a driving emotional turmoil that propels the story forward. The main character has a clear desire (to play rugby), a challenge/obstacle (fear of being ignored and left out), emotional turmoil (a need to belong), and a key misbelief (that being exceptional is required to belong).

To begin building up my main character, I started with a bit of research. According to one website, it is important to create a character who is relatable, believable, and helps children understand their feelings. It is useful to draw on personal experience to add real depth to characters’ personalities. While it can sometimes be challenging to achieve character depth in a shorter children’s book, it is still possible to create a strong character and give them a specific voice. This can be done by including the character’s wants, needs, fears, and joys, and by giving them specific turns of phrase or sentence structures.

I used ChatGPT to provide me with some tips on how to integrate a strong main character into the storyline I have developed so far. ChatGPT offered me 9 strong suggestions to add depth to my main character and turn them into a figure children can relate to. Overall, the AI feedback I received emphasized that I do not need to add more to the plot; I need to adjust what I have to:

• Make the main character’s feelings more visible
• Deepen moments of the storyline by layering the main character’s thoughts
• Emphasize the main character’s fear, then resolve it

See my prompt and the ChatGPT output here.

I took the feedback from ChatGPT and revised my storyline accordingly, including more emotion-focused language, strengthening key turning points in the plot, and refining the language to be more child-friendly and less narrative. I went through my outline several times, continuing to edit and revise. I now have a copy that I am very happy with. I think my storyline conveys the key message I am to get across, yet it is also an entertaining story for children.

See my current storyline draft here:

The next step in my inquiry journey is creating the illustrations. This is a process I anticipate will take a significant amount of time (longer than our course will run). For my remaining inquiry posts, I plan to:

• Document my progress on creating illustrations
• Seek feedback from elementary teachers on my plot/storyline
• Summarize my key learnings and takeaways from my inquiry process
• Highlight next steps in my inquiry journey (outside of EDCI 336).

Resources

Mikhail Nilov (2021). A girl looking at an alphabet book. https://www.pexels.com/photo/a-girl-looking-at-an-alphabet-book-8923583/

OpenAI. (2026). ChatGPT (March 19 version) [Large language model]. https://chatgpt.com/share/69bc97b5-d054-8006-ae7b-267496d4e806

Southbank Centre Co. (2025). Arts unravelled: How do you create a compelling children’s book character? https://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/magazine/arts-unravelled-how-do-you-create-compelling-childrens-book-characters/