Connie?? for the writing meme??
Pick a character I’ve written and I will explain the top ~three to five ideas/concepts/etc I keep in mind while writing that character that I believe are essential to accurately depicting them.
First thing, for me, is definitely to remember to keep her character development in view. Connie has come so far since the beginning of the show, so while I certainly never want to forget that she’s the same girl who once looked at boats because she didn’t swim and didn’t have friends, and who was terrified of disappearing without having ever made a single friend, I also know that I can’t write her as if that’s still the case. In the same vein, though, I don’t want to write her as if she’s just always been this badass sword-fighter that she is today; it was a long road for her to reach this point and I don’t want to negate her journey. Finding the balance there is always pretty important for me when I write her.
I also like to try and keep in mind that she's not afraid to have fun. Sure, there's a lot that's serious going on around her, so a lot of the time she is focused and down-to-earth... but she also shares dumb jokes with Steven, and is quite capable of goofing around when things aren't at their most serious - or even in brief snatched moments at times when they are. I feel like this is something I don't keep in view as often as I could, because she so often is the voice of reason / 'straight man' character to the wackier personalities around her that it can tend to eclipse her own goofier side; but mostly it's just to remember not to always play her as dead-serious.
On a similar note, to remember that, while she is certainly mature for her age and already knows exactly what she wants to do with her life... that at the end of the day, she's still a child. I think people can forget that for much of the main series she's 12 / 13, and I always want to make sure that she gets those little moments where she can still be a kid, even as she's a swordfighting badass too. Again, it's an interesting balance, and one that I want to do justice too.
Likewise that, because she is still so young, it's perfectly okay for her to make bad decisions, too. While she's certainly smarter than I was at that age (or than I am now for that matter!) she doesn't have a perfect perspective on the world, or the common sense to always make the right call. This is, after all, the same girl who thought that a great idea to avoid being forbidden from seeing Steven was for them both to "just hop on a bus and live somewhere else without telling anyone"! She's not perfect, and I want to make sure that's true of my portrayal of her too.
