Tips & Tricks To Improve Your Writing

The Not-So-Perfect Character

The Not-So-Perfect Character

       Aside from your plot developing your characters is one of the most important parts of writing your story. Making your characters seem realistic and relatable can be hard but here are a few tips to make it just a little easier.

Flaws Are Good!

Having the perfect love interest with the dreamy eyes and body of a god is unrealistic and makes your character seem very one dimensional. Why not give your character a flaw or two?

Maybe the girl in your story has red hair and not the 'sexy auburn' color either but orange hair like Merida from Brave or maybe your main love interest has braces. Or if you don't want to do that then at least don't write about how 'sexy' you character's six or eight pack is. I mean when was the last time you saw a guy with perfect abs besides maybe a bodybuilder or Channing Tatum.

When writing about your characters flaws think about your own flaws or people you know. Like maybe your character isn't good at keeping secrets, or they don't trust easily, maybe they're super forgetful.

But remember when you give your character a flaw give a reason why they're like that. let's say your character doesn't believe in love, ask yourself why she doesn't believe in love. Maybe she watched her parents bitter divorce or maybe her first love was caught sleeping with her best friend. Or say if your character is a player, sure it's all well and good for your character to just be a slut but that's boring, maybe his first love died or left him for someone else, so he sleeps around to forget his pain.

 Details. Details.

What I mean by this is if you're writing let's say a teen fiction story where your MC still lives at home with their parents, make sure you remember to include the parents in the story. A story sounds unrealistic when let's say, your 15 year old character's parents are never around. I mean at least mention them occasionally or at least think of reasons why they aren't around as much as they probably should be. Do they work a lot? if so what do they do that takes up so much time? Those are the sorts of questions you have to ask yourself.

Description

When reading the stories on Wattpad i often see characters described like this:

''I looked at my best friend Ashley who had blonde hair, green eyes and pouty pink lips that whenever she would smile would show off her perfect white teeth...''

I get why authors write it that way, they want their readers to be able to visualize the characters. But think about when you walk up to your best friend. What goes through your head? Do you recount her entire appearance every time you see her? Probably not. Although maybe there is one feature that your character is jealous of like Ashley's green eyes. That's normal, that's the sort of thing you could write in when describing a character that your MC is familiar with.

So keep in mind that when describing someone your character is familiar with, try not to describe every little detail about them.

Then how do I describe them then, you ask?

Through actions. What I mean by this is, for example '... as she ran her hand through her (insert hair color here) hair .... '

But be careful when doing this not to use it too much.

However there is a time when it is okay to describe a characters appearance. That is when your character is describing a stranger. Again, think about what goes through your head when you look at/meet someone for the first time? You probably only notice the things that stand out. You probably didn't notice the freckle just underneath their jaw did you?

So maybe your character notices how tall the stranger is, or their unusually colored eyes, or how mysterious they look.

There's no need to include approximate height, skin, hair and eye color. I mean when you look at a stranger you don't have time to take in every little detail about them. Otherwise that would be staring. So when describing a stranger try to write down only the most noticeable things about the stranger that your character would notice in a glance.