#i've never like. studied creative writing in a formal setting so i know there are like certain techniques people will use but i simply

[rollercoasterwords]

Hey! Hope you're enjoying the holidays:)

I think the way you've fleshed out characters like Dorcas, Marlene (and everyone in the marauder's era, to be honest) in your stories is really interesting considering that most of them are blank slates in canon. You made the characters your own, and I was curious to know your process. Marlene and Dorcas as they're portrayed in THTF are, in my opinion at least, your own original characters due to how deeply you fleshed them out and how human you made them. I'm trying to find better ways to flesh out my own characters and would love some tips. How do you go about fleshing out/creating characters? Do you have any templates you use or techniques?

hello!! i have very much been enjoying the holidays although i regretted that somewhat this morning lmao WORST hangover i have had in. months. possibly years. but i am mostly recovered now <3

and thank u so much!! so happy to hear that u liked my portrayals of dorcas + marlene -- ur definitely right that they're essentially ocs lmao. when it comes to fleshing out characters, i don't really have a set technique or any templates that i use, so i'm trying to figure out how to give tips...like, generally speaking i am not a very organized writer on paper and most of my process for anything is just. coming up with a centerpoint in my head and then building out around that, if that makes sense? like, there'll be something that initially sparks the idea for a story, and then it's just a long process of coming up with details that can get me to that point.

(ended up rambling on as i tried to explain this so putting the rest under a cut lmao. also spoilers, kinda)

like--okay, so with dorcas and marlene, the reason i was interested in their story was because canon left such a blank slate. so the initial spark for the story was seeing the hc that dorcas + marlene were together + dorcas went after voldemort after marlene died, and that's what got her killed. i was like wow that sounds like SUCH a fun tragedy! i wanna write a story where that happens. and so then it was like--okay, i basically need to sculpt two characters to fit into these narrative positions that i want to write.

and u guys know me, i want everything to be as angsty as possible. so i was like, trying to make two characters where i could include just as many heartbreaking details as possible in the story of how they come together. like it's a doomed love story, right? and so one of the first things i knew was that i wanted to have a setup where marlene joins the war despite dorcas trying to convince her not to, and then dorcas joins the war for marlene to try and keep her safe, so there's sort of this underlying resentment to their relationship that makes everything hurt so much worse when they both ultimately fail in what they were trying to do. that dynamic of somebody sacrificing something for a person they love and then resenting the person they love because of it is something that i find really compelling. so having all that in mind, i needed to think about what would motivate these characters and how they would think differently about the war and where they would be coming from, which was like the foundation of much of their personalities and details about them.

and then i also knew going into the story that i wanted to start off with like. a fun little enemies-to-lovers setup where they're in different houses and get forced to work together and end up falling for each other despite hating each other at first--so that was like, another foundation i was building off as i was deciding what houses they'd be in, who their friends would be, what about their personalities would make them clash in the beginning, etc. etc.

so...yeah, i guess my writing tip of what works for me is finding a centerpoint--something you want to have you character do, or a relationship dynamic u want ur character to have with someone else--and then building out from there! that is my usual strategy :)