#writing a character

[3hks]

How to Write a Character with THAT *Sad Aura*

Have you ever stumbled upon a character, who, despite radiating wholesome, positive energy, also has a subtle undertone of sadness? It's kind of intriguing, isn't it? If you've ever wanted to write a perhaps more complex character or explore writing emotions, why not check this out?

What am I talking about?

Let's do a quick introduction as to what I mean. I've said this a couple times already, but to the reader, this character feels despondent even though they act nothing like it. This doesn't mean they have to act happy all the time (like my first example); they might act cold, or apathetic, but the point is they don't act visibly sad.

This faint melancholic mood provides a charming, or even nostalgic feel to the audience through ONE character! Isn't that kind of fun?

Eye Expressions

This character will not show sadness on their face--that contradicts the idea of "sad aura". But you know what they say, right? Eyes are the windows to the soul; they do not lie!

When trying to highlight some of this unhappiness, write about their eyes. Talk about how their eyes look oddly dim sometimes when they smile, or how they don't meet their friend's eyes when they laugh. These cues are simple but powerful.

Adverbs

You always have to be mindful of adverbs, but here especially, adverbs (and adjectives) unconsciously influence how your audience views the character.

For example, avoid saying too much of "smiled brightly" or "talked excitedly". If these are the adverbs you purposefully want to use to portray your character, then by all means! However, these adverbs add a happier connotation, which you must be aware of. If you want something more neutral (which I recommend for the most part), consider using lighter adverbs/adjectives, such as "smiled softly", or "offered lightly".

Reasons

A reason is normally needed for almost everything. Here, you want genuine reasons to back up why your character doesn't ask for help, thus forcing them to work through their unhappiness alone.

This could be because they think other people can't solve the problem, they don't want to bother others, they don't think their issue is a big deal, or they simply believe there's no solution.

Physical Hints

And if all this isn't enough, then drop some physical hints! Perhaps your character gets distracted often, tends to hesitate before speaking, deflects concerned comments with jokes, or has a hard time acknowledging reassurances, even when it's unrelated to their personal troubles. These habits suggest the idea your character has more than meets the eye.

Mood Changes

When people are upset, their mood tends to fluctuate. For most of us, we're typically upset for a short period, so we cycle through emotions such as anger, sadness, and even joy during these moments.

However, if your character is consistently sad, not just for a day or two, their mood might shift on different days. Maybe they're really tired one day, hardly speaking. Maybe the next, they are more frustrated, snapping at people or ignoring them. Maybe the day after that, they are overly energetic, bouncing everywhere and talking all the time, providing a bit of whiplash.

Purpose

Similar to having a reason for their reluctance of reaching out, you also want to ensure that they have a purpose for fighting. Why haven't they given up yet? This is especially crucial when considering the real world, where feeling upset leads to a lack of motivation.

So, what keeps them going, then? Do they want to fix their regrets? Do they want to change?

Backstory and Actions

To be honest, I wouldn't consider a backstory an absolute necessity, but I highly suggest creating one. Why? Because you can accurately identify the reason for your character's guilt, regret, and sorrows from the past with an actual backstory.

The events of your character's past always influence their future actions.

For example, if they were a part of a severe car accident in the past, perhaps they only feel comfortable when they are the driver in the future because that means they can control the car.

Conclusion

This character is not especially different from any other character, besides the fact that they are neither obvious nor overly secretive of their genuine feelings.

With that being said, focus on embodying their eye expressions, be careful about which adverbs and adjectives you choose to use--I recommend choosing ones with more neutral connotations for a sense of melancholy, explain why your character keeps their sadness to themselves and why they keep fighting despite it, show mood fluctuations, drop physical hints, such as actions and/or specific personality traits, and make sure to connect their past to their present!

Happy writing~

3hks ^^

[choshashio]

12 Writing Exercises to help develop your character and their voice.

Editors note - There's a lot of boring writers drivel. So, to spare you from the headache if you're not interested, your characters individual voices and personalities are important for engaging stories and interesting plots. You can skip down to the end for the exercises.

Think about the people you know, the people you love. What's one thing they have in common, besides the obvious? They're all uniquely different. Everyone in the world is different in some way, even in media. Books and movies all have unique sounding characters that are different from each other. In Harry Potter, for example, All of the characters have their own voice, even the Weasley twins are different in their own ways.

Complex and unique characters that sound different, interact and speak differently, make for engaging books and dynamics.

I don't know anybody who would want to read a 50,000 word novel about two boring characters, who're exactly alike, and talk in the same monotonous tone. You can have a character who is "boring." who speaks monotonously and still have an interesting novel that people would read.

Having different characters who come together to create funny, interesting, or weird dynamics makes for a readable piece. Take your monotonous character, by themselves, they're kind of boring. They're not engaging to follow. But, introducing different characters to come and interact with your "boring" character, creates funny and memorable dynamics.

Think the anime Saiki K, or Veronica Sawyer from Heathers. If you took only those two characters, and stripped away all of the background characters, they wouldn't make for very interesting stories. Saiki would be happy, living his days in peace and quiet. Veronica would just be a normal edgy high school girl. But if you bring the side characters back, you bring the story and their conflicts back. Saiki goes back to being annoyed by his weird and goofy friends, wishing for peace and quiet. Veronica goes back to being tormented by JD and the group dynamic in the Heathers clique.

These stories utilize background characters to create conflict in their main characters' lives, and makes fun and interesting stories and dynamics with them.

Without further ado, here are 12 exercises to help you develop your characters, and get you thinking.

Ask your character what they want, and have them monologue about it.

Think about who, in your life, does your character remind you of.

Ask yourself, What does my character want, and what does my character need? How do they conflict with each other, and how does this affect my story?

A good exercise to help you write characters interacting, and practice dialogue is to do the ABCD exercise. 

The ABCD exercise is writing a full page, or 500 words, of dialogue between two characters, character a and character b, talking about what they think character c thinks of character d. Then, write another page depicting how character c actually interacts with character d.

Write journal entries from the pov of your character.

Think about your character's habits, nervous tics, or tells, and write out a page where they do those things.

Think about something your character holds dear to them, and give the item a backstory.

Think about how your character interacts with other characters, and write a page for each interaction. 

Think about a belief or opinion your character has, and write a page of dialogue, where your character is explaining their belief, and why they believe in it, to another character.

Write a page about your character reminiscing, or talking, about a cherished memory from their past, or childhood.

Write a page of dialogue about character a telling character c about character b, whom c has never met before, what kind of things do they say? What do they think of b? Then write another page from character c’s point of view, what are they thinking? How do their thoughts of b change? What do they think of character a? How do they imagine character a and b’s relationship?

Write a page about a character being forced into a situation with their greatest fear. Then, if you want to go a step further, write a page of the same thing, but introduce another character that the first holds dear to them, or wants to protect.

[filmcourage]

What Writers Often Forget When Writing Scenes - Matthew Kalil and Angelique Pretorius

Watch the video on YouTube here.

[wowstrawberrycow]

Music to get me in the mindset for writing specific characters (part 3)

Elrond

(I'm gearing up to do some writing for him and Thranduil soon!)

B'Tayhi - M'Sadder- Waverly consort

Dream a Little Dream- Pink Martini

Bolero- Pink Martini

Quizas Quizas Quizas- Pink Martini

Ninna Nanna- Pink Martini

Una Notte a Napoli- Pink Martini

The Girl From Impamina- Jose Gilberto

Sway- Pink Martini

Fly Me to the Moon- Claire

Beyond the Sea- Bobby Darin

Volare- Dean Martin

Baía - Nestor Amaral

It Only Took A Kiss- Big Bad VooDoo Daddy

Sh-Boom- The Crew Cuts

I've Got You Under My Skin- Frank Sanatra

[feelingthedisaster]

The Ultimate Character Guide

Even if you are not going to use some of this, getting to know your character will make writing them way more easy.

General info

Gender/Pronouns

Age

How do they talk?

Nicknames? Where does it come from?

Quirks

Personality. Shaped by what?

Charms

Current situation. Why?

Childhood

Reputation. What happen?

Habits. Why?

Biggest challenge.

How do they face said challenge? Avoid it or confront it?

Morals. Shaped by what?

Strenghts. Why is it their strenght? Moment when it was shown.

Weaknesses. Why is it their weakness? Moment when it was shown

Is the character relatable? Or at least, easy to sympathize with? Moment when it was shown

Childhood ideals/morals. How have they changed.

Diference between their thoughts and what they said out loud.

The story

Motivations

Obstacule to their final goals

What do they do about it?

How do they change during the story?

Their relationship with what is happening to them.

When and how is their first appearence in the story?

When and how is their final appearence in the story?

Situation/Mental state at the beggining of the story

Situation/Mental State at the middle of the story

Situation/Mental state at the end of the story

Looks

Species (for fantasy-ish stories)

Race/Ethnicity

Skin tone

Eye Colour

Type of hair and its colour

Type of body

Height

Firsts impressions (relating to the way they look)

Characteristic features (something that make them recognizable)

Clothing style (both for casual and work)

Accesories they often wear

Social/Work Life

How do they behave when they are with strangers? And with friends? Special Other? When nobody is looking?

Do they have a job. Why that job? Are they happy with it?

Relationship with authority figures and peers (and in the work space, their subordinates)

What are their worries about the future?

Personal Life

Are there any values that they dont share, but family members, friends, coworkers, etc have?

Family structure

Who do they consider their friends? Do those people share the same feeling? Who is actually their friend?

Are they married or have a romantic interest? How is their relationship?

Any ex-partners?

Relationship with parents. What happened between them?

Relationship with siblings (if they have any). What happened between them?

Relationship with neighbours/roommates/coworkers/anyone in their everyday life that isnt really relevant.

Relationship with their bestfriend (if they have any). What happened between them?

Relationship with other friends (if they have any). What happened between them?

Relationship with their enemy/antagonist. What happened between them?

Private Life

What are their morals? What is wrong and right in their worldview? Shaped by what?

What do they do when they are alone?

What do they do in their free time?

What do they love? Why?

What do they fear? Why?

What do they hate? Why?

What do they aspire to be/do? Why?

Reactions to... (and why do they react that way)

Affection

Insults

Betrayal

Death of a love one

Injury

Surprises

Failure

Achivements/Wins

A true they dont want to hear

Animals/Pets

Comfort

Other people crying

Kids

[writing-is-a-martial-art]

truly some people have no genre savviness whatsoever. A girl came back from the dead the other day and fresh out of the grave she laughed and laughed and lay down on the grass nearby to watch the sky, dirt still under her nails. I asked her if she’s sad about anything and she asked me why she should be. I asked her if she’s perhaps worried she’s a shadow of who she used to be and she said that if she is a shadow she is a joyous one, and anyway whoever she was she is her, now, and that’s enough. I inquired about revenge, about unfinished business, about what had filled her with the incessant need to claw her way out from beneath but she just said she’s here to live. I told her about ghosts, about zombies, tried to explain to her how her options lie between horror and tragedy but she just said if those are the stories meant for her then she’ll make another one. I said “isn’t it terribly lonely how in your triumph over death nobody was here to greet you?” and she just looked at me funny and said “what do you mean? The whole world was here, waiting”. Some people, I tell you.

[theaftersundown]

the holy grail types of fanfic

[knebellindemann]

[bebx]

[allthingswhumpyandangsty]

reblog if you have skilled writer friends and you're damn proud of them

[heartbreakincident]

nothing but respect for our troops (smut writers) but listen. i dont want to be the person to tell you this, but not every character is going to be a dom or a sub. some people. and i know this is hard to hear. but some people do have vanilla sex. and some of those people might even be The Character.

[001x456]

people who don't experience hyperfixation don't know what it feels like to hyperfixate so much on something that it becomes not only your subject of obsession but also your source of happiness and literally the main reason why you still keep going; literal source of strength and life.

shoutout to my favorite fictional characters, favorite people, favorite ships, favorite movies, favorite tv shows, fanfics and archive of our own

[going2hell4everythingbutbeingbi]

yall gotta learn the difference between "this character is an asshole" and "this character was supposed to be super cool but the author is an asshole" and "this character is a teenage girl who was mean once"

[luna-azzurra]

When a Character Is Grieving Someone They Never Got to Say Goodbye To

✧ They talk about the person in past tense… then correct themselves. Then stop talking entirely.

✧ They touch things that belonged to the person like they’re fragile, sacred, about to disappear.

✧ They hoard the last voicemail, last message, last anything. Play it. Don’t play it. Just knowing it exists hurts enough.

✧ They leave something untouched, an empty seat, a half-packed bag, a coffee order that isn’t theirs.

✧ They get irrationally angry when someone else seems to be “moving on.” As if forgetting is betrayal.

✧ They don’t let themselves cry all at once. It comes in pieces. Like they’re afraid too much grief will drown them.

✧ They over-apologize. For being quiet. For being distant. For not being okay.

✧ They become hyper-aware of time, dates, anniversaries, time zones, the exact moment everything ended.

✧ They get superstitious. Ritualistic. As if doing things "right" might reverse something.

✧ They smile when they talk about the person. But it’s brittle. And it never quite touches their eyes.

[wowstrawberrycow]

Music to get me in the mindset for writing specific characters (part 2)

Gimli

Earth- Hand Zimmer

Mulan's Decision- Jerry Goldsmith

Path to freedom- Audiomachine

Improvisations on Tres moricas m'enamoran -Waverly Consort

Scotch Cap- Baltimore Consort

Katherine Oggie- Baltimore Consort

Lux Optata Claruit- New London Consort

Stella Splendens- New London Consort

We Die For Earth Main- Atom Music Audio

True Love- EMVN

Pillars of Earth- Audiomachine