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 Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2008 11:05 am
I find it really important, when creating characters, to make sure they have actual emotion. And not the kind that you see in most prose, but realistic emotion. Making your character cry every time something bad happens is not going to help the reader connect with the characters. In fact, it will probably only make them seem like a phsycopathic maniac who is depressed.
I have also noticed that if the character has odd habits or does something that is unusual, it sparks peoples interest. For example, in the book "star Girl" (look it up on Google, it is amazing!) the girl uses marbles to gauge how happy she is (i.e. 1 marble=horrible 10 marbles=great).
Everyone I know who read that book said they liked it due to her oddities. They said it made the book pleasant to read. In the end, it is all about the audience.
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Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2008 9:58 am
I agree. I like to make my characters actually feel things, but it's a talent that took me a while to learn. My old characters weren't Mary Sues, but they were almost completely unemotional.
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Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2008 4:52 pm
It took me a while to learn how to make my characters actually feel what I wanted them to feel. I always knew what I wanted them to say/feel, but I couldn't always express it in words. In fact, I sometimes I have that problem still.
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Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2008 6:10 pm
I sometimes have that problem, but what I do, if this helps or anything, is imagine that I'm explaining how I would feel if I was the character. It's strange, but it works for me.
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Posted: Mon Jul 28, 2008 1:05 am
That's not strange, it actually makes perfect sense! I have that problem a lot, and though it does make perfect sense to figure out how you as the author would feel in the situation, it doesn't always work. Many of my characters are quite different than I am, physically and emotionally, so thinking about how I would feel isn't always the best way to go...but that could just be me.
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Posted: Sat Oct 04, 2008 3:17 am
i always imagine how i want my character to express themselves before writing it... that way people can understand it easily...
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Posted: Fri Oct 10, 2008 5:35 pm
My problem is that I'm pretty deadpan myself, and if I'm not careful I'll write like my readers are all deadpan too. I don't even use the word "feelings" much, or words like "sad" or "lonely". I just describe something that happened. Like I said, it took a while.
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Posted: Fri Oct 10, 2008 5:50 pm
What actually got me going was giving my characters weird habits, like in Stargirl. Something like this is pretty common in my writing (you don't have to read this if you don't want to; I'm just really bored);
"I had not had a bath in years; I must have been noisy, for I could hear the doctor chuckling quietly as he walked past the bathroom. I will give Louisa credit; she did not complain about my filth as I expected her to.
The first thing that Louisa did was look for dried rose petals.
'I know we have rose petals somewhere . . .can't have your first bath in years without rosewater . . '
'I don't need rosewater. It doesn't make a person smell like roses.' I pointed out. This conjecture was a bit of a gamble, as I had never heard of rosewater until then.
'Ah, there it is.' Louisa seemed to have ignored my comment entirely.
Coming in with a brush, Louisa rubbed me raw. I tried not to complain, but it was difficult. Even Louisa laughed a bit.
After a good deal of washing, it was ascertained that I did, indeed, have ringlets. This was a revelation, as I had never been 'special' before. Instead of filling up the emptiness I had discovered the day before, the fact made me feel even emptier. I did not know myself; in fact, I was not even completely sure that there was a 'myself' to know.
Louisa was sympathetic. She gave me a few quiet minutes to contemplate my new found trait before ushering me out of the tub.
'Dagnabit,' I muttered. 'Rosewater does make you smell like roses.'"
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