hi omg i loved ur writing tips and i was wondering how to give characters more depth? i have three as of right now that are pretty well thought out but i want them to feel like real people with a messy atmosphere, not just plain book characters
my tips for character creation
stop making it hard for yourself, creating characters shouldnt feel impossible. dont use character sheets, especially dont start creating your character with them (why? because you dont need to know their last name or random things they dislike immediately)
‘what to do instead?’ you may ask
start with an idea and let it guide you. this can be anything. a picture of pinterest that sparks something, maybe a tiktok of someone telling a story. anything that gives you a slight image of a possible character
use better guidlelines (astrology, mbti, etc) i always make my characters a birth chart
choose about 3-4 main traits and work off of them (make sure they are different from each other—not happy and joyous but maybe happy and selfish)— how do these traits work together? (for every positive trait, give them a negative trait for example direct but can sometimes seem mean) what are the reasons? the backstory? how do these traits affect them? etc heres a video on youtube related to this
make sure eveything has reason and context (dont just write ‘selfish’, why are they like that?)
talk to yourself as if gossiping to friends about your characters and their backstories. believe it or not thats when the best ideas just find you
want (+reason) versus need (example: want: fitting in, need: accepting themselves for who they are and embracing it)
have a source of inspiration in your notes app, pinterest, tiktok, etc—a list of things that inspire you (character ideas, trait ideas, backstory ideas, habit ideas, people on tiktok that would be great character, etc)
instead of only writing what they're like to you as the author, write how they themselves and other characters perceive them
instead of only writing what they are also write what they are not (dont just list what they are like, write things they would never do, traits that dont associate with them at all) trust me, this helps to get a better idea of your character
an unexpected side of them we dont discover right away (example: the ruthless villain that has a pet cat they absolutely adore and would do anything for) you dont need this but it could be helpful for adding depth
activities once you have an idea of what your character is like
use prompts, quizzes, hypotheticals and let them reveal thenselves more (find these on the internet)
do things as them (make playlists as them, journaling—what do they think about most? what kind of situations make them feel a certain way? what do they notice? how does that make them feel? which themes come up a lot? what do they focus on? what do they fear (subconsciously)? how has their past changed them?) to get their pov straight and find out information about them
list people/characters that remind u of them. archetypes, things, songs, etc
some examples from pinterest
hm. have things that you know about your character that your audience will never know
let your characters reveal themselves once you already have an idea of them. you don’t have to know everything about your character to start writing because you’ll find out the most about who they are how they react in situations while writing
extra resourches that could help you
ill be adding more tips and resourches to this post today
