For The Forgetful- The Complete Writer's Guide

See Through An Opaque Character

Princess Analaya Rose was beautiful and she always had been, she was loved by all the courtiers and adored by her father the King. Analaya was slender but had curves in all the right places, her eyes shone like looking at the sea through an emerald. She hated going to Princess school but still went because Prince Wolff went and though he would bully her constantly, she loved him with all of her heart and had done since they were children even though he was a complete jerk and was powerfully handsome. Analaya's mother had abused her as a child, and Analaya therefore found it hard to trust and hard to love. She cried alone most of the time, high in her beautiful room of silk robes and golden walls. The world was unfair. 

Princess Analaya Rose is a cliche, her story is a cliche. Avoid cliches. 

You've probably seen a lot of stories like this on Wattpad, and if your story is something like this then I give you my sincerest condolences because you need to start again. Sorry.

A main character does not HAVE to be strong, brave, goodhearted, attractive, or positive. A main character does however need depth and more than one dimension to them. It doesn't matter if your MC is panty-drop gorgeous, if your MC has dark brown hair that is recurrently compared to chocolate or types of wood, it doesn't even matter if your MC has eyes that are so piercingly coloured with the bluest of gem stone colours. What you need to focus on is MOTIVATION, DECLARATION, AND ACTION.

Motivation= Why your character does what they do. No, no, not backstory.Don't bog the reader down with flashbacks from childhood or a traumatic incident- real people aren't that simple. Motivations are often accumulative and subtle and the MC usually isn't aware of their effect.You need to know your MC's motivations, your reader doesn't necessarily need to. Is your character doing things because they want to hurt someone? Are they doing things because they want to be famous? Are they doing things because they're trying to impress their friend? Because they want to die? Because they want someone's love? Trying to win back money? Trying to stay alive? 

Why is your character making the choices they are? Why has your character just said that? Why did they choose those exact words? 

Motivations will corollarily affect each word you write. Every letter you write should BE a consequence and HAVE a consequence. 

Declaration= What your character thinks/says they will do/have done. Perhaps your character intends to murder a man because he hurt her. She may gather weapons, make a plan, but you as the creator know that she would never kill someone because she's a devout catholic who has been talkng about her immortal soul throughout the entire book. It could even be the opposite.

When your character thinks/says something that the reader/writer may know(or later find) to be untrue: your character is an unreliable narrator, meaning that what your character thinks/says is unreliable information. This comes in handy when you're including a plot twist but can't be used in omniscient narrative. 

Action= What your character actually does, obviously. Your MC's actions are the steer of the entire plot, that's why they're the MC. Your MC must constantly make decisions, whether small or world-changing. Around these decisions you'll build each scene. For example: 

Your character chooses to be lazy that day, they're tired and in the kitchen they spill hot water on the floor while making tea. They can't be bothered to mop it up, they're in their pyjamas! The spill will wait until the morning. Your character goes to bed, but their daughter gets up in the night and goes to the kitchen. The daughter slips and falls, hitting her head and your character is therefore filled with guilt at their laziness. Your character may then become neurotically aware of the possibility of accidents. Her behaviour will have therefore changed from her behaviour patterns at the beginning. 

It's interesting because it could happen to anyone, it's real and possible. It's an action we've all chosen at some point, and so the reader relates to your character because of that single choice to ignore a spill. Actions are everything.