Lost my ‘magic’ concerning characters
I love creating characters, and for me it’s been the joy of writing for however long I’ve been doing it. I have maybe three or four unfinished projects which house characters whom I love, and they’re like little pieces of me and those around me. (I’m working hard to finish one of these in particular) Recently I got an idea for another book—and I don’t think that’s a bad thing, I like a break from my other story sometimes—and I was super interested in this certain character idea. But... once I tried putting it on the page, all of the characters I had thought up seemed super unnatural and even unlikeable. I don’t understand why it’s not working. I used to throw out characters and they would have instant chemistry.
What can I do when this happens with my characters? Perhaps I just hit a bad idea and should throw it away? Thanks to anyone who answers or comments.
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For many of us, our first dive into writing consists of writing plot-driven stories peopled by one note characters, characters who are just types with a name assigned to them. That's fine. Writing is a complex skill and the way we learn complex skills is by practicing one aspect of them at a time. So the first skill we practice is plotting and the stereotypical characters we create to animate those plots seem perfectly fine because they do the job they are required to do in the plot.
But at some point in our development as writers we realize, tacitly or not, that there is more to it than plot, that plots are pretty meaningless without characters that are genuine interesting and complex. So then we move on from plotting to the character development stage of learning.
But, of course, since we are so new at this aspect, the characters we create at first, in search of depth and complexity, are somewhat awkward lumpen creatures. They may be a step up on the stereotypes we were creating before, but they are not good yet, and the bits of originality the do have don't add up to a whole, leading to something misshapen and odd.
This can feel like a real setback. It can feel like your process used to work and now it is broken. That is not really the case. You are learning and integrating a new skill, and it is going to feel awkward for a while and you are going to have some false starts. But this is still progress and it will get better if you keep going.
That might be your issue. It might be something else. But if it is this, know that it will pass if you simply keep on writing, and if you do what you should always do as a student of the craft: read with attention writers better than yourself.
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In my experience, characters generally feel flat and unnatural when they're there to fill a role in the story, instead of being allowed to act like themselves. Meaning, the events are written the way the author wants rather than the way the character wants.
The result is a character who is more puppet than person. (You've probably seen them before - the unconvincing villain who's there mainly to make the hero look good, the love interest who has no chemistry with the MC because he's meant primarily as a plot device.)
Sometimes, it helps to step back and try to let your characters write the story instead. Pretend there's no plot for a moment - drop your characters into the scenario you've set up, and let things play out the way they would want. You may find you need to tweak the plot, or abandon the character and create a new one. (If you're having trouble, I've also found it helpful to take the characters out of the story completely and drop them into situations they might never experience otherwise. How do they react to being stuck in a traffic jam? A difficult co-worker? etc.)
In summary: Make sure you're writing your characters as people, not as plot devices.
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