in one of the asks you mentioned dates and I feel persoNALLY ATTACKED???????????HOW DaRe u dO THiS TO My hEARt????????? ughhhtheyresocutetogetherrrr
Imagine them going on picnics with food with cut-up sandwiches and juice boxes Mikasa prepared for their date.
Imagine them going to a night market and trying feeding each other with delicious treats.
Imagine them taking a bubble bath together when they have the house to themselves and it turns into an all-out splashing war.
Imagine them going on a food adventure and trying to poke each other’s belly full of food.
Imagine them at the beach and sharing kisses underwater but only to go up for air because they make each other breathless.
Imagine them cuddling under the blankets after their date and Mikasa finding them in the morning still asleep, taking a picture of them and posting it up on social media for fans to go crazy for.
thieves in the night is my extended head canon about how I think Mikasa Ackerman would develop and behave if she had lost her parents, but not been put in the intensely shitty situation that Eren saved her from. I think she'd be a really cheerful person who is freely affectionate.
Okay, thieves is actually an extended head canon about how I think the characters would be if they were not in the SNK universe, but still.
Your kitty is so pretty! She looks so soft! I had to say it. I love kitties.
Piglet is so pretty that every vet we've ever gone to coos over her lovingly, and then they gasp at how soft and silky she is when they pet her. She is the best possible kitty, and I am so lucky that I stopped into the petsmart that fateful autumn evening and found her still awake for me.
Do you have any tips for getting to know a character you want to use in writing? Also, any tips on developing an oc?
Consume the media that the character appears in over and over. Read their dialogue and break down every meaning it could have. Come to recognize the little expressions they make, and what the context is to cause those expressions to occur. Take in all the various interpretations that other fans have, and figure out what you do and do not agree with. Sometimes you read something that changes how you've been thinking about a character, and it could easily be for the better. An example from me is, after being awash in posts from everyone about Ymir being a blundering nit, finding a post about Ymir being canonically cunning and sly, and that helped me redefine how I write her on the whole, but especially in Wolves of the North.
Don't be afraid to disagree with what you see being "popular" opinion. Popular does not necessarily mean right, best, or even most interesting. Sometimes it's just what's most amusing to people, and that doesn't make it good.
Because I like examples, I'll use some of my own characters as we go along. Something that is a common practice for me is to give characters traits of myself. This is because when they are traits you're familiar with, you can write them more convincingly. One of my characters, Cam Wilson, is an artist who is very mentally ill, specifically with the disorder that I have. I'm writing her a novel just as much as I'm writing it for me--it's catharsis and healing.
From myself, I took the disorder and the creative drive. For funsies, I also made her major comic project very similar to one of my fan fiction pieces. This allows me to write her struggles with a heavy amount of realism, because she actually going through what I went through in some of my worst episodes.
But let's take one step back from this and grow a character from the ground up. The first thing I do is figure out what the character's conflict is. What defines their story? How do they define themselves? For Cam, her entire world revolves around her creating art; she defines herself steadfastly as a comic artist. When she is diagnosed as mentally ill, it shakes her sense of identity to its very core. That is the story of that particular novel. But for another one--Crown of Fire--the main character Kailas's struggle is bound up in her desire to return to her homeland and claim the throne from her awful uncle, who has sent an assassin he sold half his soul for after her. There is also a few other things, but I'd prefer to leave those developments for when I do get the novel published.
For another example, Toby Ashton, the main character out of my werewolf novel (tentatively titled Discord), struggles with the fact that she is kind of a double victim. She was raped by a woman who immediately mauled her in order to strike a devil's bargain--die or be turned into a werewolf. And after that she was under this woman's thumb for a couple of years until she snapped and realized she could easily kill this woman now that she was a werewolf. So her story comes after she kills the woman, and her deciding to try therapy.
It's really important to figure out what the character struggles with to tell their story, if we get down to brass tacks. But it doesn't have to be a really big struggle! No, let's dispel that notion right away. A story can absolutely just be about a character's ambitions to get good grades in college, or find someone nice to be with. A simple life can be just as interesting if you give it your all and as much love as you do your big dramatic stories.
Now. What I love to do is find the character's name. This doesn't mean that you have to find the most unique name ever. What I do is I go to this website and peruse names by different nationality and gender. I have a general sense of the sounds of names in various nationalities, so sometimes I know that I was a German name, or Japanese, or Spanish specifically, and sometimes with more fantastical settings I'll take a peek at Egyptian names or Indonesian.
Names don't always come down to specific meanings for me. Sometimes it is just that I like the way it rolls off the tongue--or that I can see fastidious and stuffy parents picking that "sensible" name for their child. Names are very important, and you should try to find the one that fits them. Thereafter, you should call them by their name very often to cement it in your mind.
Next come the physical traits and behaviors. ...Oh, please don't give your character crazy eye and hair colors if they're in a realistic setting. I mean, you could play it off as the character dying their hair or using colored contacts to be kewl, but if you're going for real life characters, keep it simple. There's nothing wrong with someone having brown hair and brown eyes. But how do those eyes look to other characters? Are they eager, bright, open to the world--indicating a positive personality and someone ready to do things? Or are they closed off, veiled, and never meeting anyone else's gaze--which may mean they have a secret or have little to be happy about? How do they cut their hair? What does that say about their personality? (And don't rely on stereotypes here! Mohawks on women don't mean anything unless the lady wearing it gives it meaning!) Are they proud of their eyes or hair? Are they proud of their face? Their body? Do they have body image issues?
And what about their behaviors? For example, Cam has a habit of drawing her legs up to her chest and holding them there when she's upset or nervous. Toby crosses her arms and stretches out her very long legs when she is angry and defiant. How does your character walk, even? Shuffling steps? Confident and loping strides? Carefully walking to make as little sound as possible? Nervous tics and bad habits really define characters physically, and they tell a lot of stories when you break them down.
And, of course, what are their likes, dislikes, tastes, and biases? Gotta know those! And have fun with them! Here's another opportunity to use your own experiences, though within some reason. Try not to make them too close to yourself, because then it's just self-insertion.
Above everything else, make them unique in their own small ways. You don't have to write a person completely unlike anyone else in the world, because that's not all that realistic and it makes the character unrelatable. We gotta feel for your character, if we're to give a damn about your story on the whole.
That type of stuff happens around my house. It's just stupid kids on a dare. You don't have anything to worry about. They leave if they hear someone and you have a cop on patrol. you're safe. Though I'm not one to talk since I would freak out.
I think it was either a drunken mistake or kids on a dare like you said. I got my wooden sword out of my closet and carefully checked my door, and there's no note or anything that was left, so I don't think it was calculated maliciousness. But I think you're right about them being scared off by a patrolling officer, so much love for my security folks.
Hey, I just wanted to say that I really love the new chapter of Wolves and can't wait to see more interaction between Ymir and Christa. You're an amazing writer and I love your work.
Thank you very kindly for all your compliments! I am eager to get into chapter three because of all the interaction Ymir and Christa have. That and every other wonderful thing that's been percolating in my head for a while.
