This is where we talk about writing romance. Everyone is welcome!
Tips Corner is an interactive learning format rather than teaching. We all love to read or write romance and whether we realise it or not, are experts and have ideas to offer.
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Last time, we discussed compelling characters, which brings us to a question today:
What compels us towards a character?
For me, if the characters are relatable, I can't put down the story.
If they make me FEEL, I love them.
But how to develop relatable, unforgettable characters? Well, it's not as complex as it sounds.
The first step is to give every character a purpose. It doesn't matter how small their roles are, if they are a part of your story, they need to have some value. Now decide their names and outline their age, gender identity, appearance, mannerisms, moods, background, education level, viewpoints, motives, desires, peculiarities, relationships, and so on.
Remember, they all should be distinct.
Is that enough to connect readers with your characters?
No.
In order to develop a relatable character, your story needs to have some relatable theme/topic. You must be wondering, how are the two interrelated?
If your story explores loss and love, grief and anguish, adventure, power, struggles, subjects of society, then readers can put themselves in those circumstances because, at some point of our lives, we all have experienced and faced such and such. Haven't we?
It's easy to empathize with characters. We can see ourselves in them. They depict us in one way or the other.
Furthermore, characters having flaws is very important. If your characters are perfect and always winning throughout the story, do you think readers will find them intriguing till the end? I think not. Although seeing the characters win makes us excited, that doesn't happen in real life all the time. Failure, tears, selfishness, breakdown, anxiety, insecurities, jealousy are the key to realistic characters. Clumsy and awkward behaviour is not enough. Make their shortcomings more real so that when readers read about the characters, they can shout,
This character is so ME.
So, how do you do this?
Look at yourself and your surroundings. When I say look, I mean observe. You'll see how different one person is from another and in so many ways; not just in terms of their physical features but also their voices and opinions.
It's truly fascinating.
Keeping this in mind, let's go ahead and create characters with whom we can identify.
