Posts tagged character-development
Joe is the worst. Nobody likes him, not even the so-called friends he teams up with at school, filling other students with terror. He's sarcastic, nasty, and a bit of a racist, and especially ant...
OK; I'm obsessed with Toonami and their event Trapped in Hyperspace features the computer virus antagonist Swayzak, who I base almost all my computer virus characters on. Swayzak behaves like a on...
I am attempting to write a relatively complex SciFi military novel following 3 primary characters. A male and female protagonist, and a male antagonist. So far none of those characters are aware of...
Protagonist-Centred Morality is when a fictional work is eager to point out when an antagonist does something immoral or distasteful but fails to acknowledge when a protagonist does the same or som...
Edit: I looked at What are some ways to get to know your characters? and while I noticed similarities, I think that question asks in broader terms about what tools can be used for developing charac...
I have a little contradiction in my story that may well be fatal. In my high sci-fi setting, one of my main characters is an android. Let's call him Bob. Bob is efficient, cold and straight-to-th...
I'm currently writing a novel with 3-4 character POVs in it - two male, two female. Each have different upbringings, different cultural backgrounds, different professions, different motivators and ...
In my story, I have found myself in somewhat of a pickle: Although the hero is more than powerful enough to defeat a villain (which is your typical 'Dark Lord’) I don't think my protagonist is read...
In a school setting, what is a way to allude that a school is full of students, without making new characters or overusing pre-existing ones? A school is the main setting of a book. The main and s...
I notice in a lot of media there is a strong emphasis on the greatness of evil characters. They can often end up more popular than the good guys in the book or on the show, and overshadow everyone ...
I want to write a short story from the perspective of a cat who wants to kill a bird that extremely annoys her. Just like Tom is trying every time to kill Jerry or do something to him. However, I d...
My question is, is this even realistic? She's a woman in her early twenties who specializes in torture, only working on her victims when they're tightly strapped down and confined so she can go a...
One of my secondary characters is going to play an important part, more important than at present, in the story. Is it OK to introduce him, make the reader love him, and then leave him behind til ...
So I wrote a short text recently in which the character has a very strong political opinion (anti-LGBTQ), which in addition is totally different to my own opinion. Now, I wanted to make the charact...
I have a tendency to forget to describe character's appearance. But I always describe them, though often a little while after their introduction. So, how long after someone's introduction is "accep...
In many books novels or other forms of fictional writing, the reader is introduced to a so called 'chosen one'. This character or being is of higher power or in general, of different nature than ot...
Let's say you're writing super hero fiction. The hero of your story is struggling against the villain, but suddenly awakens a power that allows him to best the bad guy! Problem: you're unsure of h...
Last Christmas my sister bought me a tome called The Book of Human Emotions (by Tiffany Watt Smith). I just started reading it and it got me thinking about how a writer might arouse emotion in a re...
I've never seen or read Game of Thrones but I hear that the author is in the habit of killing characters off quite frequently. I have no idea what these particular characters in the series are like...
I am currently writing a character that represents Lust and is a demonic entity... but to tone it down for a YA audience. I thought of trying to make them "Love-based" instead, but I always envis...
I am currently writing a novel where the main character will be far more powerful than most of the people in the world and I am worried that I will end up losing sight of what I am writing and star...
I have been interested in writing a litrpg book with the skill systems functioning as a path system that progresses on one direction as you work hard and each skill will have a rank that determines...
A lot of people die in my story, some of them are parents. One of the main characters for example lost his father (and one brother) in a car crash when he was young, which he was a part of. He beca...
I'm writing a story written in third-person limited, and the main character has no real name. They simply go by the nickname they're given by the people they hang around at the time, resulting in m...
As mentioned elsewhere, it has been a stumbling block for my readers to understand what drives my characters. I had thought I had communicated character desires through showing, and action, but it ...
I am currently writing a war story written from different perspectives on both sides of the conflict. Every primary character of the story has their own side story with a family, life, etc., yet th...
If I think about the characters I came up with in my mind so far, I usually get a pretty big list: (Gyvaris (ENTJ), Martha (ENFJ), Adam (INTJ. It's hard to describe that you're constantly seeing...
My protagonist lives with a deep lie that causes internal conflict and pain throughout the story but it basically cannot fuel any struggle to the external plot. This subconsciously motivates the ch...
Following the answer of @Cyn and my comment (on Doubt about a particular point of view on how to do character creation ): I would like to know more about how to "know" more about a true alived char...
What sites, libraries, or other organizations have strong, easy-to-browse collections of letters, diaries, and other primary sources that are great for authors doing research for historical fiction...
In my novel, at the point where the MC meets her would-be boyfriend, Rufus, I have added a small backstory about his job. Later on, the story is almost entirely focused on the MC and what happens t...
In a story I am about to write the best friend of the protagonist is a good, caring and benevolent person, lets call him John. The antagonist is not really a bad person but because of the circumsta...
I've been reading a lot of books about plot and character arcs. Most structures—and I believe this is generally good and true—require that the character come back from their journeys changed, usual...
In my story my MC has suffered a severe injury and has no recollection of who he was before it occurred. He knows what happened and where he was when it occurred as he was told by the people who fo...
I have been told by my friends that my writing seems a bit blunt in the sense of I rarely practice "Show, Don't Tell" (SDT) in my stories. However, I personally find SDT hard because...I just don't...
I am planning to write a book about a life of a person. However, the protagonist is a black person. The main plot is not about ethnicity things, but where the plot happens I have to talk about some...
I'm Jewish. My middle-grade fantasy novel is very Jewish. Most of my characters are either Jews or converts/future converts or people with at least one Jewish grandparent. But some are not. My ...
(not a duplicate of Character Development - How much is too much? because that one is more about "overreaction" to smaller events.) TL;DR: How much can a character change without becoming unrecogn...
EDIT: Many people who are attempting to answer this question are severely misinterpreting the circumstances and setting of the book, so here is some information about Eris that I thought I had incl...
What should a character interview contain to be successful where the goals are: characters with strong voice who are established with a distinct 'personhood' (?) and are generally interesting to fo...
In my planned novel the main character is essentially from a less technologically advanced society and is learning about the "civilized world" beyond their village. He has above average intelligenc...
I have a character who, maddened by the suicide of his son, chooses to destroy the company the young man worked for, holding them responsible. He is a successful businessman who told his two child...
I'm trying to write torture scenes but I'm not really all that confident about it since I've never written anything like it before and have never really witnessed anything violent. I know the metho...
I am wondering if I should make the female characters speak in a different way compared to male characters, and I am wondering how to make sure they all sound different. What are some strategies, ...
Setup: 18 kids (ages 2-14) from 1995 America time travel to Ancient Egypt just before the Exodus. The MC knew this would happen (or thought she knew) and told people, but no one believed her. Now...
In most books I read and movies I watch, there are rarely any LGBT characters, and the LGBT representation I do see is almost exclusively gay men, with a smaller amount of lesbians and a handful of...
(Edit: I feel like I should clarify, these are the only LGBT characters in the story, and the only characters whose sexualities are even touched on, and they are part of a larger group of people, a...
(Another post-apocalyptic novel question! I'm just full of them.) My MC, Eris, has the power to manipulate life force. As a child, she accidentally killed her family and other survivors who inve...
I have been creating a story in my mind from early childhood. Now, I am very talented in writing, so I decided to give it a try one day. It was awesome! The book I imagine in my head was being writ...
I'm writing a fantasy novel. The story takes place in England (1900's) No matter how much I research I'm unable to move forward in naming my characters. For example, When we look at all the charact...
