Enjoy Writing

Making Good Characters

Who doesen't fall in love with a great character?

Especially when the character just keeps glowing up, and with every word, you'd like them better and better.

It's important to not let the lovely relation a reader have to a character die out. Good relations with characters hooks the reader.

But how do we keep the funny character funny, and the agent proffesional? How do we change our characters and still make them great?

Tips number one:

Making a character.

Take notes from each important character you make (even better if its every character you'll see again).

Write keywords about their look, personality, childhood, habits, basicually whatever is important to know about them.

Later, if you expose something about a character while working on your story, add it to the characters note. Then you'll have all the information about your characters at one place.

You can check out your characters with just peeking at the note. The risk of accidentaly change your characters eyecolour due to the story will minimalize.

Also, it is easy to see how your characters turns in the story, and to keep shaping them the way you'd like.

Tips number two:

Moral compass.

Everyone has a different moral compass. Try to keep your character inside their compass. Remember, Everyone has their own personality and consience. What one thing is wrong, another could think its right (or don't give a shit).

If you keep the characters inside their own compass, it's easier for the reader to know the characters.

People don't change over night, (except if it's some sort of a spell or another unnatural reason). If the character is gonna change, lead them slowly out of their compass. Let them feel their consience stretch. Let the reader recognize the character all the way through the change. This makes a credible character.

Tips number three:

Changing a character.

A great change to a character gives a story life, but make sure it's not turning into a dissapointment.

Give the character a new job, turn them to good or evil, change their personality, make them brave, but don't take away the last spark who defines the character. This spark makes the reader recognize them and keeps the relation.

Make the readers hate them, love them, get mad at them, feel bad for them, share joy with them, but keep our expectations for the characters high, cause we'll always believe in them.