Creating Interesting Characters - A Beginner's Guide

Comments · 902

• HI

  @HilaryLayne · 1 year ago (edited) · pinned

  You can read my novel, The Blue Prince, on my website <a href="https://www.hilarylayne.com/the-blue-prince">https://www.hilarylayne.com/the-blue-prince</a><br>Or on Royal Road <a href="https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/122619/the-blue-prince">https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/122619/the-blue-prince</a>

  70

• JE

  @jessmcraney6263 · 1 year ago

  I love how you take an anti-formulaic approach to writing. It’s exactly the opposite of what you tube is full of. No recipe, no “five steps to creating the perfect life”, just solid exposition of the ingredients.

  1.5K

• B0

  @b0xf0x13 · 1 year ago

  Ive been trying to finish a story...any story...for about 12 years, so I consumed hundreds of hours of how-to&apos;s, books, podcasts, and more. &nbsp;This has left me so paralyzed by indecision that I haven&apos;t been able to write ANYTHING for over a year.<br><br>After watching several of your videos, I&apos;m starting to feel like the Tin Man after Dorothy gives him some oil.<br><br>Thank you. &nbsp;Please keep them coming.

  1.2K

• CR

  @CreamsicleJersey · 1 year ago

  Thank you for this. I hate all the writing &quot;guides&quot; that say things like, &quot;Give your characters complexity. For example, a murderous sociopath may love cats.&quot; The irony of talking about complexity seems to be lost on them.

  495

• DA

  @DavidLangLeadership · 1 year ago

  Long ago I had the privilege of an in-person conversation with Ray Bradbury. During the conversation I asked him what he did when he was blocked. His immediate answer was &quot;I take my character for a walk.&quot; I see that same honest and simple advice in your work here. Well done. By the way, Mr. Bradbury mentioned later in the conversation that his entire book Fahrenheit 451 was inspired by taking a character for a walk while writing a short story that he never published. Strange how writing works!

  413

• BE

  @betterthantheworst · 1 month ago (edited)

  I&apos;ve written 35 novels, starting 36. It is HONESTLY so refreshing to listen to an intelligent, articulate, organized, thoughtful mind . You&apos;re close to a unicorn with your whimsy and charm. I love your videos. Ty for all the effort and consideration you put in them. I don&apos;t think I&apos;ve disagreed with anything you&apos;ve said yet. I long ago gave up on writing rules and outlawed critiques as I found the vast majority of editors or well meaning people have either no foundation in the structure of writing or they simply project their own wounds, regurgitating insecurities forestered upon them by, yet, another ill-formed &apos;critique&apos;. I am no technical writer, I&apos;m a total panster. But via trusting your sound, thoughtful discussions, I am willing to give my writing some much needed, fresh structural support. Ty! You are wonderful! ❤

  6

• DA

  @damioncastellano5299 · 1 year ago

  This is now the second time in a row you&apos;ve gotten me unstuck in my writing.

  369

• FA

  @falks941 · 1 year ago

  This channel is exactly what I’ve been looking for. Genuine, honest and intelligent advice about the creative process and not just “Top 10 tips for…” with a load a character sheets and formulaic resources. This is the most useful channel I’ve come across in about 4 years of attempting to write a first draft.

  220

• CA

  @CatTrails_awe · 9 months ago

  <b>What I learned from the video:</b><br><br>[Complexity]<br>- Character complexity isn&apos;t just about &quot;good or bad&quot; morals. As my example: It&apos;s a family of traits and their relationships with each other. Old grandpa &quot;Brave&quot; would interact with his son, &quot;Selfishnes&quot; by overcoming a huge fight to win the million dollars for his son. Or Selfishness would convince Brave to help him with getting something he wanted. With real life family trees not everyone is going to know everyone. Which isn&apos;t a bad thing! Its better to have close relationships instead of having acquaintances with everyone. Quality over Quantity!<br><br>[Flaws &amp; Weaknesses]<br>- Honestly, this is OUTSTANDING method of creating flaws/weaknesses(and/or strengths)! It helps you develope your character&apos;s traits, and you don&apos;t really need to have a bunch of traits flying around everywhere. You just need some main character traits. The main traits.<br>- Basically, you take a trait; cheerful. And you take it to the worst extermes. Example: This character is SO cheerful that they can easily ignore serious matters at hand. Another example for cheerful: This character is exremely cheerful that most times people don&apos;t see that they are really struggling. One last example: This character is cheerful to the point that they can&apos;t handle any negative emotions maturely.<br>- Another example but with the trait; aggressive. But, it&apos;s a flaw already! You might say. Well instead of going to the worst extermes, you try to locate the roots/stem of the negative trait. So, this negative trait sprouted from, say, protectiveness or loyalty. A part of protectiveness can be aggressive. There we go!<br><br>[Creativity]<br>- I feel like everyone should know this. You aren&apos;t writing for thousands or millions of people. You are making a story! From your own imagination! It doesn&apos;t matter if you copied the same &apos;theme&apos; of another story! Every story will have a different perspective of that &apos;theme&apos;! Wow I&apos;m using so many exclaimation marks LOL. But, if you aren&apos;t making a story for love, but for money, then man your writing the wrong book.<br><br>[Consistency]<br>- &quot;This is so important...&quot; oh no... I feel like I&apos;m SO bad with consistency, especially with the small mannerisms and tiny character actions. Basically what I learned from this was, character sheet = good for consistency.<br><br>Overall the video is just, beautiful done and edited! Great advice, great lessons, great explainations, and just overall amazing!!!

  57

• AU

  @AuthorGuy1 · 1 year ago

  I don&apos;t create characters so much as discover them. I rip a bit of my soul out and throw it on the page. Then I poke it a bit and see what it does. Then I follow them around as they discover the plot, whatever it is. I never know that when I start.

  229

• HA

  @HalcyonSerenade · 1 year ago (edited)

  &quot;I can&apos;t do <i>anything</i> with characters until I have the basic story concept&quot;<br><br>That&apos;s actually a relief to hear, because I tend to be very high-concept creatively, thinking of the big-picture plot or setting ideas first and basically <i>never</i> the characters first, and <i>so</i> much writing advice out there talks about how important the characters are, to the point that it feels like they <i>need</i> to be the jumping-off point rather than something that can be reverse-engineered. &nbsp;You&apos;re the first person I&apos;ve seen outright admit that they don&apos;t write that way, so it feels like you&apos;re gonna talk about the sort of process that might help me the most 😅

  60

• ME

  @Merione · 1 year ago

  Your perspective on not being afraid of being unoriginal just because something similar already exists was exactly what I needed to hear. The character I&apos;m developing is coming dangerously close to become an Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader clone, but it has his own unique traits and I like him this way, but I had this constant shadow of a bad breathing, laser wielding masked dude looming on me, and this video helped me to push it away a little. Thank you!

  51