Preptober Prompts Day 8 – 2019
Category: Characters (Writing)
5 Traits of Realistic Characters
As a character-driven author whose stories almost always come into being due to a cool character who took up residence in my brain, characters are something I often create by a subconscious process rather than by consciously fleshing them out. That’s why, for so long, roleplaying was a huge part of my character development process. Over the past few months, however, my character-building process has become more conscious and I’ve been able to identify some details that help make more engaging, realistic characters. Here are five details to think about when creating your characters. Continue reading “5 Traits of Realistic Characters”
5 Traits Every Good Antagonist Should Have
Today, to finish out the last week before I get to start a super epic blog series I’m really excited for (you’ll find out just what that is next week when the first post of the series goes up), I’m writing about antagonists. I really like antagonists. It should probably be worrisome how much I like antagonists. But when they’re written well they can be some of my favorite characters in a book, at least for their depth. So we’re going to be talking about things you can focus on with the antagonist in your book to make them deep and resonant with your readers. (Hopefully your readers aren’t like me and won’t make them favorite characters, but…)
Also, thanks to Savannah Grace and her video on whether Loki or Thanos is the better villain for inspiration for this post. (She mentions a good number of other helpful traits for antagonists, if you want some more inspiration.)
1. Give Your Antagonist Motivation
No character is going to be compelling or interesting to read about if they don’t have Continue reading “5 Traits Every Good Antagonist Should Have”
Character Profiles – Help or Waste?
When creating characters, you’re often told to use character profiles. But do they really help you flesh out your characters or are they just laundry lists of useless facts you’ll never use? I think they usually tend to be a combination, and it depends on the profile. There are some character profiles with more hard-hitting questions and there are some with more shallow questions, and how much you get out of a profile depends somewhat on what the balance is.
Character profiles are also more or less helpful for each writer, since every writer is different. I tend to like them because they give me things to think about regarding the character that I won’t necessarily think of on my own, and then a place to write them down, but others just find them time-consuming and would rather learn about their characters through writing. Neither of these is wrong, and I’ve used both methods in the past.
So what should you look for or put on a character profile? Continue reading “Character Profiles – Help or Waste?”
Preptober Prompts Week 3 Day 1 – 2018
*blinks at prompt* Is there any possible way I can make this not repetitive…
The only way I can think to not emphasize Coraline’s intense love of apples is to answer this for Ismena instead, so we’re gonna do that. Ismena is the second main character in The King’s Paladin, and likely a second POV character. She’s the princess of Mandoria, and she’s fully prepared to be queen when the time comes.
Ismena doesn’t Continue reading “Preptober Prompts Week 3 Day 1 – 2018”