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How does one make good characters?

It’ll be super easy once you get the hang of it.

All you have as an idea for your new character is a basic feeling or idea = line drawing (the green guideline).You don’t know anything about them other than the fact that they’re vaguely humanoid. They could lose parts, they could have parts added; it’s all up to you. Usually, for creating characters, my best ones come from pasts that are just “fine”. No burning trash fire of a childhood (usually ends up as a Mary Sue if you can’t spin it right) or a “I’m a royal” level of privilege childhood. My most commonly used muse right now is a guy who had a normal childhood and had a normal life (before the beginning of his character development). Super super boring. My main goal was having this character start off as boring as humanly possible so that my starting point was THE most blank slate. Anything I do with him ends up super interesting because I’ve cut off everything except for his idiosyncrasies. 

I’m developing the feeling I’m getting from my Blank Slate into Cute and Perky. Make up facts about your character as you develop them (I develop by drawing). What’s their favorite dish? What’s their parents’ most terrifying thought concerning them? Are they the type of person to slurp soup through a straw just to see the reactions from people around them or not? Why do they love the color green so much? Be as weird and random as you possibly can. Those idiosyncrasies will develop into reasoning and will create a full-bodied character out of your Blank Slate. Miss Cute and Perky here loves to eat the tips off strawberries before the rest because a cartoon character from her early childhood insisted that triangles must become rhombuses (through some educational programming). She cuts her bangs super short because she saw a picture of Audrey Hepburn and fell in love.

It’s time to spoil your Developed Blank Slate. Pour your time into them. Imagine them beside you in everyday life to judge their reactions to what may happen to them. Now that we have some weirdly specific traits developed for Miss Cute and Perky, we’re going to think about her a lot. I frequent a clothing store with very cute and stylish clothes. I imagine she’d love the dressy styles and insist on swimming laps in a pool with the new swimsuit she’ll sacrifice her paycheck for. 

Make your Developed, Spoiled Blank Slate upset. Put them in an unfamiliar situation, and urge them to make themselves familiar with it–or don’t. It’s entirely possible your character will refuse to interact with any environments but those they’re comfortable in. This is the moment where you’ll begin recording. Write. How will they act? Why would they act that way? How does this New Thing affect them? How does this change them? Is it a change for the better? For the worse? Or just slightly different? This is literary realism => a story about character development. This is the Grand Cheat to creating a fantastic story every time. Good, realistic character development. Miss Cute and Perky wilts while she waits for the doctor. Why? Well, we all hate waiting. She does, too. Maybe she just wants to get it over with already. Maybe she’s dreading the needle. Maybe she’s dreading the test she has to go to afterwards. Maybe her shoes are too uncomfortable and she’s been Suffering for the past hour. Maybe she’s hung over. That’s for you to explore.

TL;DR: Start as basic as possible. Give your character super specific habits/idiosyncrasies. Develop the reasoning behind them. Translate the idiosyncrasies into characterization.

#advice #writing advice #story writing #writing #diagram #writing diagram #characterization #characters

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What should one think of first when making a story?

Personally, I’d say inspiration. When I write, I try to convey a certain emotion or recreate a feeling. I often tend to look towards nature or music to inspire me. But I’d consider that the VERY first step. After that, you go from general to specific. 

Feeling/inspiration => Loose, basic plan => characters (character development) => planning => write a shitty first draft => polish it into a diamond. 

And that’s the cycle, pretty much. If you don’t gut and re-gut that shitty first (or third) draft, then you’re not doing it right. 

#advice #writing advice #story writing #writing

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Writing a Relationship Your Readers Will Ship

Relationships, especially in beginner writer’s works, have a tendency to feel forced. Even in some popular and famous works of fiction, the relationship doesn’t feel natural. It seems like a boring afterthought which the writer added in at the last minute. Far too often, I find myself completely indifferent to a character’s romantic life. A good romance in a story will give the reader a bit of second-hand infatuation. They’ll root for the relationship, beg for it. If the romance is well written, you can make a reader smile and blush just by reading a few sentences. When done properly, it can even compensate for a weak and cliché plot.

But first, decide whether the romance is needed. If you’re adding a character to the plot simply for the sake of being a love interest, it’s probably not a needed romance. You can still add it, of course, but it will be much harder to keep your story focused on the central plot.

Step One Make sure the characters have chemistry.

The characters should compliment each other’s personalities. If he’s loud, stubborn, and aggressively opinionated, a more tranquil and soft-spoken love interest would suit him well. Two headstrong people wouldn’t be likely to have a lasting relationship in real life, unless they (impossibly) agreed upon every subject. But, there should be some similarities. While opposites do attract, polar opposites will not and the whole relationship will feel forced. The characters should have something in common. It could be morals, a parallel backstory, the same motivations, whatever. As long as there’s a reason for them to be drawn to each other, there’s potential.

Step Two Slow burn ships are fantastic.

Don’t make your characters fall in love right off the bat. There can be attraction, of course, but genuine feelings of true love don’t happen instantly. Your characters should become closer as people, feel at ease around each other, and truly know the other before they fall head-over-heels. The readers will crave the relationship far more, like dangling a treat right in front of a dog’s nose, but keep pulling it away. Teasing is a beautiful thing.

Find ways of showing (NOT TELLING) the characters are falling for each other. Have them stand up for one another, be protective. Have them break their own normal routine for the other. For example, a callous, guarded character could lower their walls for a moment if their love interest needs emotional support. These scenes can be awkward for the character changing their typical behavior and that discomfort can demonstrate how much they care for the other, altering their own selves for the other’s benefit.

Howeve, make sure that you combine these cute emotional moments with distance. Make the characters deny their true feelings or even distance themselves from their love interest upon discovering their feelings. The more the characters long for each other, the more the reader will long for them to be together. Build barriers between them for your characters to have to work to knock down. Keep them close, but maintain that distance until the moment is right.

Step Three “_____” translates to “I love you”

The first example of I think of when I think of this is The Princess Bride, where the male protagonist tells his soulmate “as you wish” when he really means “I love you.”

This falls under the category of show, don’t tell. Hearing a character say “I love you” has become so boring. Unless it’s done in a surprising confession or unique way, it’s boring and stale.

Come up with a phrase that you can repeat in moments throughout the story until it has a meaning of love for the characters and both know exactly what the other means when it’s spoken.

Step Four Taking a break can help create tension.

You know you loved someone if you leave them and feel awful. Apply this into the writing. Your characters can break up, then get back together in a joyous reunion.

Step Five Not every couple has a happy ending.

Sometimes, things don’t always work out for different reasons. An ending that leaves readers craving more can be a good move.

#relationships

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Prompt #101: Write about (29)

Write a story about travelling by train and observing the other passengers.

#prompts #think heavily on literary realism

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#characterization

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Creative Writing Do’s and Don’t’s

Warning: This is the Editor in me that’s speaking. It’s going to be harsh, but when you’re writing, harsh is what you need.

My first creative writing instructor gave us an exercise on the first day of my Intro to Creative Writing class. I swear on my life this exercise will improve your writing instantly. If you just want the list, click the “keep reading”. Open a word document. Write down a few genres. Write down some clichés that makes those genres what they are and include a highly-genre’d example with it. Write as many as you can. Here’s a small example to build on:

Romance (Twilight)

The love triangle

“Their tongues battled for dominance”

The inevitable misunderstanding as a final attempt to inject drama before the resolution

Fantasy (Jupiter Ascending)

A highly detailed world/history

The chosen one

A super special important treasure/artifact/prophecy

Mystery (Scooby Doo (the live action movies))

The ”dun dun DUUUUUN” moment

The film noir style

The assistant who contributes just enough to the mystery so the detective can have all the glory and figure everything out in its entirety

Done with your list? Good. Kiss those vapid love triangles goodbye, send your needlessly convoluted history away, and dump the “dun dun DUUUUN” moment. They’re all USELESS until you learn how to properly twist them into something you can stomach. Relying on clichés kills creativity and promotes laziness. This list is highly condensed and should be used as a bare-bones reference.

When you write your stories...

DON’T:

Use clichés.

Unless you can mutate a cliché well enough to make it original (/make it your own), avoid them at all costs. They are writing suicide.

Fall in love with your work.

It’s important to feel pride in your work, but every word, every sentence, every phrase has to earn its keep. If something isn’t helping the story, cut it out; it’s useless and wastes the reader’s (and your) time.

Drench your work in purple prose.

Purple prose and excessive imagery are for prose poetry, not fiction writing. Purple prose doesn’t do anything but stroke your ego. Take, for instance, this sentence: “Luna felt her gasp caress her dainty trachea similarly to how her father cradled her in his strong, loving arms on her blessed and most anticipated day of birth, making her also remember the way, Reggie, her first boyfriend would lovingly embrace her under the moonlit glow and the cherry trees deep in the sticky, heavy summer nights of her teen years.” Chill. If you can’t say a sentence in one breath, it’s not worth keeping. This is an exposition dump. The reader has to drag their feet through it. It slows the narrative down to an agonizing pace. Just say “she gasped.” There’s no shame in using simplistic language if you know how to use it. For instance, gasping is a fast movement. You want the reader to feel the fast movement—that’s why it’s best to just say “she gasped.” She shouldn’t be stuck in a gasp for ten minutes.  

Put your first draft on a pedestal.

I don’t care if you’re Stephen King, J.K. Rowling, Shakespeare, Karen Russell, or Anne Rice; your first draft is always awful. Edit it, polish it, love it, commit to it. If that sounds like “too much,” then you’re gonna be stuck with writing crap, and I don’t ever wanna hear “I wish I was a better writer,” because I’m telling you right this second that you’ll never improve if you always accept your first draft as gospel.

Dump exposition on the reader.

There’s always going to be at least one writer that forces their character into a soliloquy about how “their entire village was burned down by thieves and murderers, and only they were left standing because their sainted mother tucked them away in a magical tree trunk which was blessed by whatever deity is in charge of this world.” OR, alternatively, “James climbs into Reggie’s window one day while Reggie is working at the coffee shop, finds Reggie’s diary, and reads about how Reggie was tragically in love with his twin sister before his abusive father killed both his twin sister and his mother before his eyes, and that is why Reggie is always so determined to find happiness in everything around him because he can’t bear to think back on the horrors of his past without going into seizures or spasms.” Let things unfold organically and at their own pace. Let characterization tell the story, not your general plan.

Rely on misunderstandings.

I swear that misunderstandings can be a whole sub-genre in itself for how often they’re abused. Usually, misunderstandings are used so James and Reggie will get angry at each other, Luna has to point out that they were both wrong, and James has to run through the airport after Reggie’s train (security be damned) with tears pouring down his cheeks in a desperate attempt to get Reggie back (who also dramatically brushes tears from his eyes) before he flies back to Idontknowwhereizstan for forever.

Focus on death (for the pure enjoyment of making your readers shriek “NOOOO”).

It’s lazy. It skews the stakes of your story, making all the other stakes boring. EVERYONE kills off their characters. No one’s “evil” or funny for doing it. It’s become cliche. Either start a story with death or eradicate it altogether because what’s important is the aftermath—the character development. Never ever focus on death. I don’t care what a saint little Suzie is; she’s not allowed to die from her terminal cancerheartattacklupusitis until you’ve made her human. And even then you’re not allowed to end the story with her dying either—Reggie has to be there at her bedside with the chocolate cake she’s been dreaming about having for six years. And you have to show that aftermath.

Use the same voice for every character and the narrative.

I know it’s very tempting to use the long-winded, intricate tone of The Whimsical Author, but I assure you that giving all your characters and narrative that voice will indeed hammer the final nail into the coffin on your writing career. I don’t care how smart The Author of Whimsy sounds, the Monty Python Babbling is way more interesting and varied. Your characters are ideas. You breathe life into them. They take on life of their own. If you use the same voice for everything, you’re telling your readers you can’t write worth a damn but you know what sounds kinda pretty.

Shove your characters in a corner.

This is one of the most common causes of writer’s block. If you’ve shoved your characters in a corner, you’ve stripped them of their organic movement. Characters will move and function on their own. You have to let them breathe and meander; that’s what will ensure that you’ll get a great story out of them. I don’t care how much you want James to sob and throw himself into Reggie’s arms so Reggie will save him from the school bully and also kiss James. James isn’t that kind of person. James is too prideful.

Use “(s)he felt…”

The best way to kick your reader away from their screen and scream “YOU’RE READING A STORY WRITTEN BY ME, SOMEONE. I EXIST. THESE ARE JUST CHARACTERS. YOU’RE READING SOMETHING FAKE” is to use “(s)he felt,” or “(s)he heard,” or “(s)he smelled.” It’s best to just outright state the feeling, sound, or smell rather than insist the reader see everything through the characters’ eyes. You want to draw the reader in. How can you do that if you constantly remind them they’re scrolling through AO3, trying to find more fics specifically about James and Reggie ignoring the canon and falling into each other’s arms five sentences in? “Heat radiated from his hand,” “The oven timer shrieked,” and “The scent of charcoaled biscuits filled the room” yank the reader into the scene to stand beside the characters and watch them up close.

Rely on adverbs.

The adverb is the lazy writer’s way to generate description. Take, for instance, this sentence: “Reggie scarily placed his hand by James’s head and glared at him.” Yeah, you shoved Reggie’s anger in our faces, and we have no idea what James is doing. Instead: “Reggie smacked his hand against the wall, snatching James’s attention away from Luna.” We don’t even need Reggie’s glare to know he’s mad in this context. This way, we can explore a greater range of emotions by carefully selecting our words based on connotations and speed. Jealousy, panic, varying attentions, varying reading speeds, and so on.

Use the “dun, dun, DUUUUN” moment.

I’m serious about this one. Nothing makes your story quite so flimsy, clichéd, and cartoony as the “dun, dun, DUUUN” moment. I’ve seen this moment plenty of times in workshops, and every time I have to struggle to be nice and say “maybe that makes your story seem a little clichéd. It’d give it more depth if it were open-ended or more realistic.” Don’t get me wrong. These were not incompetent writers by any stretch of the imagination. They just didn’t know what to stay away from sometimes. Writing this infamous moment into your story is the equivalent of euthanizing it and ensuring it looks like Floops’s Fooglies from Spy Kids as it goes down.

Use whatever tense or POV you want whenever you feel like it.

You can absolutely use 2nd person present tense for your story, but realize that, that sort of craft element is best kept to flash fiction-length stories. A reader (unless they’ve read Homestuck) will have a hard time reading 2nd person present tense for 12 chapters. 3rd person is nice and easy. 1st person allows you to cheat your way towards better inner-reflections for characters. Present tense indicates a sense of panic (it disallows moments for reflection). Past tense allows you to take your time. Whatever you decide to tackle, make sure you choose the right tense and point of view and stick to it. You cannot jump to whatever tense you feel like every other paragraph; there has to be a reason.

DO:

Let the characters lead the story

Time and time again I’ve seen writers get frustrated because their characters won’t conform to what they’ve planned. We forget that our characters are not dolls to play with. It’s good—GREAT, even—when your characters create a clear path for themselves! Your character knows their story. Let them guide you through it.

Remember that a writer records their characters, not forces them.

It’s hard to get a story to feel natural, yes, but if you just sit and watch your characters, they’ll tell you what to write. You don’t have to put a ton of brain power into it; it’s instinct. Keep your hands off that steering wheel. Just scribble down exactly how James’s nail taps against the wheel in frustration as Reggie leans his entire upper body out the window to demand the name of that corgi sitting on the sidewalk.

ALWAYS write literary realism.

You’re banned from genres. You have to write literary realism now. Literary realism is a record of characterization and of life progressing naturally. No clichés allowed unless you can spin them. If you can realistically see your character fitting in a Saturday morning cartoon, you’re doing it wrong.

Give your characters idiosyncrasies.

“Idiosyncrasies” boils down to odd habits and gives a lot of character with little effort on your part. This is an example of letting the character lead the story. If you don’t know enough idiosyncrasies off the top of your head, go people-watching. Why do they act the way they act? Why would Reggie cry when presented with chocolate cake? Why would Luna click her car lock button precisely four times every time she leaves it? How does James drink his soda? Why would a chin lift from Reggie make his dog instantly protective?

Be patient.

The tools you have at your disposal are versatile and vast. You have so much more to work with than you know; it’s overwhelming. Take some time and get familiar with your style. Be patient, you’ll get it. 

Set deadlines.

It’s hard for me to write every day so I write one chapter every week. You must do this to keep your tools sharp and strong. It also helps to look up writing exercises (specifically from The 3 A.M. Epiphany by Brian Kiteley; obey that word count.)

EDIT. ALWAYS EDIT. ALWAYS. EDIT. ALWAYS.

I can’t stress this enough. I don’t care if that sentence is the best one you’ve ever written. Take it out if it doesn’t help your story. I don’t care how nice the word ‘paraphernalia’ is, your 5-year-old character won’t know how to use it appropriately; it’ll throw off the reader. It’s not gonna make the kid seem smart; it’s gonna stick out like a sore thumb and announce that you have no idea how characterization works. If you’re not gutting and re-gutting your drafts, you’re not doing it right. Sometimes you have to break it down to dust and rebuild in order to make it perfect—in order to make it something you can be proud of.

Remember that every first draft is garbage (don’t worry about it).

If you can’t start your story or chapter, just write garbage (this works for school papers, too). Just write the worst first draft you can. It’s always easier to edit a physical document than it is to write something perfect from the ground up. It’s also a huge time-saver.

Write when you feel inspiration hit (because there’s no guarantee it’ll stay or come back).

Write your story from the final scene all the way back to the beginning if you must. The order doesn’t matter (of course this is why you always edit). You’ll never be in a constant state of inspiration for a scene. Write it while you can. You can adjust it to fit in your story when you get there.

Use active voice (don’t fear the simple sentence).

Passive voice makes the reader drag their feet. Using “Reggie was placed on the bed,” “James was stopped by the door,” and “I’ve been told by Luna that my writing has been lacking punch because taking my time is what I insist on doing so I have the ability to show everyone how annoying it is to read slowly” will absolutely burden your reader. It’s okay to use passive voice when you do want things to slow down (maybe during sensual scenes or silence/drama-heavy moments), but using active voice makes it easier on the reader and picks up the pace. “James placed Reggie on the bed.” “Luna smacked the door in James’s face.” “Luna said my writing lost its punch, but I just wanted to show the active voice’s benefits.”

Start your story at the beginning.

Whenever I open up a story, I scroll past the first few paragraphs because the author spends that long telling me what happened with James’s beloved pet cat he had when he was two and how it coughed up hairballs in his tiny shoes, and it is never mentioned again. Or, the author will spend the entire first chapter dumping all the history of their universe on me, so I’ll have to skip to the next one in order to get started. I don’t need your history in the form of a textbook—I don’t want it like that. I want to see it expressed through the characters. I want James to say, “Reggie, you can’t park your bike there. It’s illegal on west-facing streets” rather than see a full chapter with this kind of detail: “Back in the crisp Fall of 1952, there was a gang of 15-year-old bikers who kept the town soaked in fear. Eddie Haskell, the Two-Faced Town Tattler, was the ring leader, picking off people he saw unfit for the image he had for his town. Always, they’d park their bikes along west streets, facing their handlebars towards the sunset to indicate the day when they’d finally burn the place to the ground. This is why it is illegal to park your bike on west-facing streets.” Sure, it’s interesting, but it’s got nothing to do with Reggie and James, you’re never going to bring it up again, and you’ve wasted a paragraph (These things take up like 5 paragraphs usually). If you wanna talk about Eddie Haskell, then tell the story about Eddie Haskell, but if your story is all about Reggie and James getting over their pride and fessing up to each other, then start it there.

Incorporate the three imperative questions:

What are the stakes? Death? No. Get death out of your mind. Think deeper. What happens if the characters don’t get what they want?

What do these characters want? Ice cream, the world, Reggie. Anything. If you develop proper motive, it won’t matter what they want.

What’s the character’s motive? James wants ice cream because it’s hot out.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve exited out of a fic because I just didn’t care. “James killed Eddie.” Okay. So what? I’m supposed to care because James did something shocking? That’s it? How about: “In a fit of fear, Reggie smacked the offered chocolate ice cream cone from James’s hands. The two stared down at the wasted dessert as Reggie’s mind edged back to reality. James looked to Reggie with eyes filled with worry.”

We’ve got stakes (Reggie’s suffering), wants (James wants to give Reggie something nice and keep him comfortable; Reggie doesn’t want chocolate anywhere near him), and the motive (James and Reggie are friends; they care about each other). Every character needs a want, a drive, and stakes in order to be a decent character—a character worth caring about.

Write flash fiction.

Writing flash fiction (stories varying from 100-800 words in length) has helped me tremendously with cutting out any word, phrase, or concept that doesn’t earn its keep. A flash fiction is not a chapter of something. It is a complete story. A flash fiction is a smack of a story or a blast of fireworks. The reader will only have enough time to feel the burn on their cheek or stare in awe as the fireworks disappear into the night sky. Do not use the “once upon a time” 794 words “the end” structure. Flash fiction doesn’t work like that. You can only write enough to get the idea out and developed. Write lots of flash fiction.

Read flash fiction.

Reading flash fiction (since it’s designed to be short) is easy and fast. Flash fiction is filled to the brim with symbolism and interesting concepts (which is what this specific writing form is for). I recommend snatching up Flash Fiction: 72 Very Short Stories edited by James Thomas, Denise Thomas, and Tom Hazuka. The longest flash fiction in there is probably just three pages long. The shortest, I believe, is just over half a page.

#This is just a basic overview #dos and donts of creative writing #advice #writing #creative writing #fan fiction #how to #how to write #how to write creatively #how to write fan fiction