#writing character

[lunas-desks]

╰┈➤ Is Your Character Stagnant? 5 Ways to Kickstart Their Arc (Before They Become a Potted Plant)

✦ Hey there, my magnificent story weavers and word wizards! Luna here, perched precariously on my ever-so-slightly-wobbly desk, ready to tackle a problem that plagues even the best of us. You've got a character, right? You crafted them with love, sprinkled them with quirks, and plopped them into your story. But then... crickets.

✦ They're just kinda... there. Like that one houseplant you keep forgetting to water, slowly wilting in the corner of your literary living room. Their arc is less of a soaring eagle and more of a sleepy snail, barely inching along. You're thinking, "Did I accidentally create a cardboard cut-out instead of a living, breathing being?"

✦ Fear not, my friends! Your character isn't doomed to an eternity of staring blankly into the middle distance. They just need a swift, metaphorical kick in the pants to get that glorious character arc a-movin'! Think of me as your character's personal trainer, ready to whip them into an emotional, plot-advancing shape.

✦ So, if your protagonist is starting to look less like a hero and more like a very fashionable mannequin, pull up a chair, grab your favorite beverage (mine's a lukewarm, forgotten coffee, naturally), and let's resuscitate those flatliners with five foolproof ways to kickstart their arc!

╰┈➤ 1. Slap 'Em with a Seriously Inconvenient Inciting Incident (The Bigger, The Better!)

✦ Okay, so maybe "slap" is a bit aggressive, but you get the idea! If your character is just chilling, minding their own business, they have absolutely no reason to change. Life is peachy, right? Wrong! Life needs to be a pickle-throwing, alien-invasion-level inconvenient mess for them.

✎ An inciting incident is the event that violently rips your character out of their comfy routine and shoves them headfirst into the plot. It's the moment their ordinary world goes boom, forcing them to actually do something.

✦ Did your character wake up to find their entire house replaced with a giant rubber duck? Did their pet goldfish suddenly start reciting Shakespearean sonnets in fluent French? Did the coffee shop run out of their exact preferred blend? Whatever it is, it needs to be big enough that they can't just ignore it and go back to scrolling TikTok. Make it personal, make it painful, make it so utterly ridiculous they have to respond. No more snoozing, buttercup!

╰┈➤ 2. Introduce a Nemesis Who Gets Under Their Skin (And Maybe Their Underwear Drawer)

✦ A good antagonist isn't just someone for your hero to punch. They're someone who actively challenges your character's beliefs, exploits their weaknesses, and forces them to confront parts of themselves they'd rather ignore. Think of them as a highly annoying, yet incredibly effective, personal growth coach.

✎ This isn't just about a villain with an evil laugh and a penchant for world domination (though those are fun too!). It could be their perpetually perfect sibling who accidentally ruins their favorite sweater, or a rival at work who always gets the promotion. Make this nemesis so irritatingly effective that your character has to evolve just to deal with their existence. They provide the external conflict that directly opposes your protagonist's goals. Bonus points if the nemesis accidentally teaches them a valuable life lesson while trying to thwart them. "Oh, I learned resilience from Brenda's relentless passive aggression! Thanks, Brenda!"

╰┈➤ 3. Force a "Meet the Monster" Moment (And We're Not Just Talking Literal Monsters)

✦ Sometimes, a character needs to come face-to-face with the very thing they fear, avoid, or fundamentally misunderstand. This could be an actual monster, a crushing truth, a moral dilemma, or even just their own reflection after a really bad hair day. This confrontation shouldn't be easy; it should shake them to their core.

✎ This refers to the crucial moment where your character confronts their central conflict or deepest fear, often leading to a significant turning point in their understanding or capabilities. Imagine your perpetually cynical detective accidentally stumbling upon a genuinely good deed, and it horrifies them. Or your germaphobe protagonist is forced to hug a mud-splattered puppy. Or, gasp, they have to admit they were wrong about something! The more uncomfortable, the more revealing. Just picture your character sputtering, "But... but I thought all puppies were just tiny, adorable disease vectors!" The ensuing internal chaos? Pure character arc gold.

╰┈➤ 4. Give Them a Mentor Who's Less "Wise Sage" and More "Wiseacre"

✦ A mentor doesn't have to be Gandalf. Sometimes the best teachers are the ones who don't coddle, who give tough love, and maybe even accidentally lead your character down a few wrong paths before they find the right one.

✦ This mentor should challenge them, not just hand-hold.

✎ A mentor provides guidance, knowledge, or challenges that help a character overcome obstacles and grow. Maybe their mentor is an eighty-year-old barista who only speaks in cryptic coffee metaphors. Or a talking squirrel who insists on teaching them squirrel parkour.

✦ Or even a grumpy, retired superhero who communicates exclusively through grunts and eye-rolls. The point is, this mentor pushes them outside their comfort zone, even if it's through utterly bizarre, frustrating, or just plain weird methods. "You want me to learn the ancient art of 'squirrel-fu' by climbing that tree, Barry?! I have a bad knee!"

5. Strip Away Their Security Blanket (And Their Favorite Socks, Just for Fun)

✦ Humans (and characters) are creatures of comfort. We cling to what we know, even if it's not serving us. To force an arc, sometimes you have to yank that security blanket right out from under them. Take away their money, their home, their support system, their prized collection of antique thimbles – whatever they rely on.

✎ Removing a character's usual resources or comfort zones forces them to adapt, innovate, and reveal their true resilience and inner strengths (or weaknesses).

✦ Did your character's lucky socks mysteriously vanish? Did their super-fast internet suddenly become dial-up? Did their favorite armchair spontaneously combust? Make them lose something mundane but utterly crucial to their comfort. This isn't about grand tragedy (though that works too!), but about the small, infuriating losses that force them to improvise, adapt, and realize they're stronger without their crutches (or socks). Just imagine the dramatic internal monologue: "My socks! My beautiful, lucky, slightly-smelly socks! How can I possibly face Tuesday without them?!" The ensuing character development will be legendary.

✦ There you have it, five ways to inject some much-needed dynamism into your character's life! Remember, a stagnant character is just a character waiting for a good shake-up. So go forth, embrace the chaos, and watch your creations evolve from wilting houseplants into glorious, plot-driving masterpieces!

Now, if you'll excuse me, I think my own coffee just achieved sentience. Gotta go deal with that arc…

[redd956]

Don't write blank slate characters for readers to imprint on

Write relatable characters for the readers to connect to.

By relatable, I don't mean the exact demographic and lifestyle of the expected audience. I mean, they are relatable and human enough in tiny little ways that make them so.

[topazadine]

Writing Relatable Characters; Or, Using Human Failures to Your Advantage

Estimated Reading Time: 9 Minutes

There's been a backlash against relatability in characters lately, which I think is undeserved. I provide my thesis for this post right up here, but I'd like to expound a bit more.

Knightkneeler does bring up an excellent point, and one that I agree with in the context provided. People now want every character to reflect their specific life circumstances, and if they don't, then they are unrelatable.

In all honesty, I think this speaks to the concerning trend of rising narcissistic tendencies (especially in the United States), which is paired with a lack of empathy. That's not the point of this post, though, so we will put it aside for now and maybe discuss some other time.

But it's possible to "brute force" this empathy by creating characters who are relatable not because of life circumstances, not because of appearance or identity, but because of deep human motivations. We can do this by going back to what makes a person human: flaws that, when combined with a lack, force a shift in equilibrium.

(Typical disclaimer of course that I am not the end-all be-all authority on writing, this is just my opinion, you could totally disagree, etc, you know the drill.)

As writers, we tap into the wellspring of human desires

A character who desires something that we can relate to will be much more realistic and fascinating than one who just has a bunch of buzzword identities slathered on.

In fact, when you try to make a character too "relatable" by just adding whatever identities feel woke enough, you make a cardboard cutout that feels like you were just trying to make a Representation Sandwich. They're off-putting.

So our characters need to want something. Thankfully, centuries of philosophy and psychology have given us a roadmap for how to do that.

Starting off with the flaws. It's been said that while there are Seven Deadly Sins, they can all be traced back to one overpowering "sin:" lust. How so?

Pride: Lust for acknowledgment

Greed: Lust for material possessions

Envy: Lust for better status than others

Wrath: Lust for vengeance

Lust: Lust for sexual satisfaction

Gluttony: Lust for comfort

Sloth: Lust for idleness

Essentially, every Deadly Sin is about wanting too much of something. Pride is wanting too much acknowledgment, from oneself or others, and sloth is wanting excessive idleness.

Deep down, these are all human needs, just blown out of proportion. What would each one be in the correct measurements?

Pride -> Healthy self-esteem, a sense of self-efficacy and accomplishment

Greed -> A desire to improve one's material circumstances within reason

Envy -> Self-competition; using one's current flaws to improve

Wrath -> Recognizing injustice; protecting oneself and one's family or community

Lust -> Healthy attachment and physical desire

Gluttony -> Seeking enough of whatever one needs, whether that is food or resources

Sloth -> Recognizing one's limits and engaging in self-care

When a character wants too much of something, we can connect that back to a time when we felt out of control, consumed with lust for what we lacked (or felt like we lacked). A character's flaw may remind us of someone we know, and in that way, they are relatable.

The most intriguing stories push a character to the limit and show their most prominent Deadly Sin in abundance, then demonstrate how they reel it back in and come to balance.

This is because at its most fundamental level, a good story is about shifting equilibrium, both within characters and within the storyline.

That's all that a plot is. Let me demonstrate with an extremely shitty MS Paint map. (Look, I'm a writer, not an artist.)

The point where the line starts to rise is the inciting event.

So, a relatable character starts out with a flaw that may or may not be known to them. They are pushed by circumstance into an unstable position, and they make choices that either exacerbate their flaw (fall from grace) or allow them to come to balance with this flaw (character growth).

The flaw probably does not go entirely away because no one is perfect, but it becomes less of a problem for them because they have resolved whatever was causing the excess of whatever their flaw is. This may be an external problem, or it may be an internal problem that was spurred on by an external problem.

Let's just imagine a character and a plot to see how this might work.

I'm not an investor or a gambler, but I can resonate with someone messing up and trying to hide their mistake, then being forced to come clean and deal with the chaos that has ensued from my poor choices.

Even though I may have nothing in common with this character on a surface level, I empathize with the feelings of helplessness, guilt, fear, and frustration that this character must experience throughout the course of this story. This is a deeply human issue that all of us have experienced at least once, even if not to such a great extent.

Let's look at one more which gets at one of my favorite character archetypes: the Reluctant Hero. (I am lazy too so I feel this.)

Lack creates desire, which creates a shift in equilibrium in accordance with the character's specific motivations

Characters must want something, which means they must lack something.

For this, we turn to psychology: the hierarchy of needs, which you are likely familiar with so I won't explain it in excrutiating detail.

Now, the hierarchy of needs is not perfect. Maslow hypothesized that we cannot move up the pyramid if we don't have the previous step met; we will essentially be "stuck" on that level, with the above steps remaining unfulfilled or even not considered. But research has proven that it is possible to have need above a certain level met even while one's basic needs are unfulfilled.

The example in the link above points to homeless people who still felt loved and a sense of belonging in certain instances. I'm sure there's many other examples: people in a war zone finding connection or self-actualization, or those struggling with self-esteem issues who nevertheless find love.

So yes, the hierarchy of needs is not perfect. For writers, though, this gives us a rough guide of what we can remove to create lack and, therefore, motivation to fulfill a goal. We can also mix and match what is or is not fulfilled in order to create a more complex character that is still relatable.

How much that lack bothers someone will be related to their fatal flaw, creating unique motivations and a different path toward equilbirium.

Let's look at the Greed example from above. A character without that greed may not have been in that situation in the first place because they weren't gambling overinvesting in stuff. So this plot never would have occurred to them.

But let's assume the Greed character and the Sloth character both had the same thing happen to them: they lost their jobs at Widget Technologies and had their houses foreclosed on. They both now have the same lack of shelter.

The Greed character is going to have a significantly different experience with this than the Sloth character because they value different things.

Greed is going to be furious, heartbroken, and scrambling; they will work incessantly to find a new job that allows them to make even more money. Their climax may be having to accept something that is below their means and learning to be okay with less.

The Sloth character may have an entirely different problem, which is that they find it almost impossible to motivate themselves to change their circumstances.

Sloth is fine with couch-surfing, borrowing money from others, going further and further into debt until even worse consequences happen to them. Their climax is recognizing they need to take control of their own lives instead of drifting along letting shit happen to them.

By combining flaws with lack, we remove equilibrium and force a shift toward a new balance, which creates relatability

So to recap, characters:

Must lack something instinctual and they must have a basic human flaw.

Their flaws will change the way that they seek to obtain that thing.

Removing the thing creates instability, which they strive to rectify in accordance with their flaw.

And, in obtaining it, they come to a new equilibrium.

If you master these things, any character you create will be relatable.

This is where the magic happens: the true joy of books. Where we are transported to different worlds and see the world through the eyes of characters completely unlike ourselves. It's where we build empathy with those whose perspectives we had never considered before.

Your character could be a farmer living in the middle of nowhere, Bangalore, beset by tigers eating all their crops. They could be a 15th-century Irish peasant who was magically transported to a spaceship in the year 4023 who has no fucking idea what's going on.

Hell, they could be a hungry hungry caterpillar who has no human features at all, but we still recognize and relate because they were anthroporphized in a way we understand. Even children's books with animal protagonists follow these same principles.

The "add-on" identities you include cannot come at the expense of these principles. That's when you get a boring, wooden character who is just used as a prop for representation points. Focus on these essential elements, then add in the exact type of character you want, and you'll make a truly magical story that touches peoples' hearts no matter who the MC is.

I've created a masterlist of writing resources that you can peruse at your leisure, all for free.

The posts I write can sometimes take me hours - they're always intricate, always thoughtful. This one took me about two hours to complete.

I do this as a labor of love for the writing community, sharing what I have learned from almost 15 years of creative writing.

However, if you'd like to support me, maybe you'll consider buying my book? It's $0.99, which is about 11 cents for every minute you spent reading this post.

9 Years Yearning is a gay coming-of-age romance set in a fantasy world. It follows Uileac Korviridi, a young soldier training at the War Academy. His primary motivations are honoring the memory of his late parents, protecting his little sister Cerie, and becoming a top-notch soldier.

However, there's a problem: Orrinir Relickim, a rough and tough fellow pupil who just can't seem to leave Uileac alone.

The book features poetry, descriptions of a beautiful country inspired by Mongolia, and a whole lot of tsundere vibes.

Oh, and horse!!! Horse love!! SO MUCH HORSE LOVE.

You can also check it out on Goodreads for a list of expanded distribution.

Amazon.com: 9 Years Yearning: A Gay Fantasy Romance (The Eirenic Verses) eBook : Sidhe, Cameron: Kindle Store

If you do purchase my book, don't forget to leave a review!

Reviews are vital for visibility on Amazon and help to support indie authors like me. Whenever you love a book, be sure to let the author know! It's much appreciated.

[crackedteeth]

writer diary: went to a workshop today.

exercises:

freewriting around tooics like what makes us sad, mad, hopeful, happy, embarrassed. to find OUR voice.

character: someone you know

writing 5 big facts (nationality, gender, age etc) and 5 small facts (favorites, dislikes, quirks, behaviours) of someone you know really well. choose a place, a time, and if theyre alone. for 10 minutes, write in their voice, the way theywould exist in this place/with those people. to borrow someones voice in order to develop the skill of stepping into people's voices and speech patterns.

character: someone completely new

find one line from exercise 2 that reaonates with you. choose one of the emotions from excercise 1. choose 1 of the facts of your person. make up 3 more.

choose a place, time, and if they're alone.

write a little introduction to the scene, and see what you'd like to reveal.

start in the middle of the scene, and work towards a reveal, so that the reveal is included at the end of your text.

10 minute on the timer, see what happens.

[deardragonbook]

Character flaws I'd like to see more often plus uses for them

1.- Talking too much. Specifically, with adults. I see this a lot with hyperactive children. But a lot of us don’t grow out of this and I want my representation! Plus, this can be very fun and useful! You can use it for exposition and world building. It leaves plenty of room to hide small details. It also can give a lot of context about other character’s around them. 

When they start talking word after word for about a hundred words more than necessary to say they  are happy, do the other character’s seem entertained? Annoyed but say nothing? Annoyed and say it? Do they look like they’re not listening? Do they look like they’re listening but later on we find out they’re just really good at pretending to listen? So many possibilities! And how does the original character react to this? 

2.- Being terrible with names. I mean, as someone who once forgot the name of a co-worker I saw every day and had been working with for years, it’s kinda upsetting when character’s in books just hear it once and remember. 

Especially when I’m just dying to be reminded this character’s name because I forgot. It’s not only a very relatable character flaw, it’s useful for reminding readers of who’s who! Something a lot of authors don’t do enough of (including me, I know my characters better than my co-workers, so of course it’s obvious to me). 

3.- Hoarding. Not like to the point where’s it’s dangerous and a problem that needs to be solved, but to the point where you have a shoe box full of receipts from seven years ago for stuff that never had a guarantee. To the point where you have leaflets from concerts you went to at the age of ten and can’t throw away “because of the memories!” To the point where you have magazines because, “look at the pretty pictures! I can use that in scrap booking somewhere… some day.” Or stickers from when you were five years old that won’t even stick anymore. 

Again, lots of people do this, it’s relatable, but also, it gives you lots of opportunities to show us stuff about the character, about their past and how they’ve changed with time. Natural exposition baby! 

4.- Gets anxious when there’s too much noise, or too many people. Not as a plot point, not as a symptom of autism or something. Just normal, over stimulation. Because over stimulation can happen to anybody, and our ability to withstand it is different. 

This too can be useful, it can be a good way to separate two characters from the group. “Oh, I’ll go with her, you guys stay, don’t worry!” 

Also, it’d be nice to see a character realise the environments not good for them, communicate that calmly and leave before over stimulation. Like, you think after years of this shit I don’t know before things get too bad? You’d be right sometimes, but not all times. Sometimes I know my limits, and I never see that in media (if you know any media that does do this, tell me!). 

5.- Having zero sense of direction. Because after four years I still manage to get lost on my own street if I come in from a direction that isn’t the one I use every day and again, I want representation. 

Plus, you can have character’s get lost (especially in fantasy worlds with no GPS) as a way to discover new locations or send other characters to find them. 

I hope you found at least one of these ideas useful. Or, they inspired you to think of other good and not often seen character flaws. 

I want to state that I’ve used the word character “flaw” but that might not be entirely accurate for some of these I just can’t think of a more accurate word right now. 

As usual,  check out my book, stories I’ve written plus other social medias: here.

Which one of these can apply to one of you characters? What flaws did I miss out? 

[vinniehorrible]

Story Character art!

✨Manuel Luzardi ✨

I wanna start reposting these with the one I am most proud of. :D

Manuel is a mentor character from my story Arcane Deliveries. A powerful wizard with an overblown ego and a bit of a massive god complex. Nevertheless, his heart is in the right place.

This semi-immortal enforced a single rule upon the world - no more conflicts. But as it turns out, the complete eradication of war also meant getting rid of protests, revolutions, etc. His actions froze the world in a centuries-long stasis, bringing joy in one place and suffering in another.

You can read more about him here.

[filmcourage]

How A Writer Can Get Inside The Head Of A Character - Steve Harper

Watch the video interview on YouTube here.