#a bunch of brainstorming on what bella was doing between voldemort's death and lucius's

[greenerteacups]

This is ofc very random but I absolutely love how you wrote Harry and his reactions to people arguing loudly or just generally arguing around him. SO that being said, do you make a written sheet keeping track of each characters personalities and traits and maybe even background stories? I really think all of your side characters are well written and isn't two dimensional at all and thats one of the MANY reasons why this fic is one of the best Ive read ((maybe not just fic but books in general))

This is really lovely, thank you so much! I don't keep a spreadsheet, though I do have a section of my outline doc that's basically a mini-bible for misc. characters — eye color, hair color, what their parents do, where they live, trivia that I can't remember on command. When it comes to characterization, I keep consistency through voice. If a character sounds the same, they'll feel the same, and inversely, if I can't imagine a character's voice saying something, then it's a good sign I need to stop and figure out what I'm actually trying to have them say. Or just restructure the story! Sometimes I throw something down in my outline, get around to writing the scene weeks later, and realize that the character went somewhere different, and I like the new direction better. Some authors describe this as characters having "lives of their own," but I think it's just ... authors having fun. You explored a new direction, you liked it more, you went with it.

Voice is much easier to get right when you've been working with the same cast as long as I have — Draco's voice has become so easy it's sort of like slipping into a second skin, though that's probably not helpful (like, "try writing 300,000 words from your character's POV, really helps you nail the cadence!" is not exactly Hemingway-grade advice). But even when you only have someone for three lines, it's crazy how much information you can fit in. Accents, slang, forms of address, level of formality, how fast are they talking, how long do they talk, do they gesture, how much — answering those questions requires you to think about where they come from, and how they approach a situation, and once you do that, you have a person. Even if you don't have a story arc, you still have a person.