I'm writing a novel that is told in four different points of views from four different characters. Two of them I absolutely adore (mostly because they were the characters created first), but the other two are less developed and less interesting to me in general. Does anyone have any advice on how to become interested in my own characters, or any fun character building prompts that I could work with?
Oh! Oh! I like this! I've had to deal with this!
Here's what I did to get into my characters better.
Sit back. Close your eyes. Maybe play some music, or draw, whatever. But don't write. First, just picture your character. Now think of their past. Every single boring detail.
Now, what did that past do to your character?
Get in their head. What are they afraid of? Who would they die for? What are they motivated to do, and why? Just sorta… think. Just be with your character for a while.
If you can't think of anything, sit down and start working on a better backstory. It's the soul of any character. Once you have that background, try again.
Now think of the darker stuff. What would break your character? What do they think is the worst way to die? What could you take from them to force them to do anything you want them to? Are they anxious? Depressed? Traumatized?
Good. Now the lighter stuff. What makes your character laugh? What makes them smile even though they don't want to? Who makes them want to keep on living?
It's hard–like REALLY hard–but in my experience, there's no better way to get to know your characters than by getting in their head.
Hope my weird ritual helps you!! :D
@CinnamonRoll This is fantastic, thank you!
I've had this issue before, and if I still don't love my character after REALLY trying to work them out, scrap them. (This works depending on how far you are into the story. If you are really far into your story than this might not help lol.) Come up with something completely new if you have to. It might take a while but inspiration will hit you super hard and you'll be like "Ooh a new character that I actually love and want to write about!!" My verrrryyy first characters I made I was excited about at first, but then after a while I got annoyed with them and didn't even want to write! I got rid of them and started over. Feeling like you are chained to a character can be tough, but sometimes learning to ditch them and start fresh is what's best for your story. If you don't want to scrap them, then try Pinterest for inspiration. Not sure if you have a Pinterest account, but I have found many posts on there that really help with character building.
Good luck <3
Pretend to be your character for a day! Think about what decisions they would make and how it would affect the story. This helps me a lot! <3
I develop my characters by asking myself a bunch of questions about them and getting really deep into who they are. If I still don't like them, even after I've gotten to know them, I do what @Grace<3 said and scrap them. (Unless I absolutely have to have them for the plot, in which case I just grit my teeth and bear it).
I don't do this for all my characters but with some of the ones I ended up really liking I had put a little of myself in them if that makes sense. Like I may give them a hobby or a particular habit of mine, or I might give them part of my personality or a disorder or trauma. While I may alter a few things after I initially assign them a particular characteristic, I find that I can relate more to and kind of express myself through these certain characters. This also helps with making them less two dimensional, and more believable as characters. I end up really liking these characters, because of the degree of relatable-ness I put in them. Granted though I don't recommend this for /every/ character you may have.