I'm trying to wrap my head around how all my characters are connected, but honestly I feel like I'm not very good at grasping the whole idea of loyalty, friendship, love, trust, and hatred. I personally have never felt pure trust with someone, and have certainly never loved anyone. I have 1 friend, my best friend..but we aren't as close as I thought best friends were supposed to be and we've been friends for 10 years. I don't really know how relationships work since I've never really been in a functional one. How do I go about this? It's a very important part of my story but it just seems like I can't get around it! Please help!
@Wolfheart-Is-Happy I already made this thread, and it does sort tie into what I was asking about how to give a character depth. SO how do?
Well for one it depends on how your character thinks.
What makes them tick? What motivates them to get out of bed? Why do they do something the way they do? What is going to make or break their day? What is guaranteed to make them freak out?
The first part of putting depth in your characters is t know them as a person. You have to look at things from their POV.
A good example for this is my character Silver. He's a healer. The most important thing in a friend to him is the ability to have compassion.
The thing that is going to break his day is someone getting hurt.
Making it would be perfecting a new potion.
Guaranteed to make him freak out would be someone messing up his hearb collection.
He gets out of bed because he's grateful to still be alive after stuff that happened when he was a kid
He's a healer to honour his parents.
Can you answer all those questions with any of yours?
If you can't, or aren't very good at it, one other way you can get better, it to take personality tests online as if you were your character.
Take the hogwarts house test from the protagonists POV. Then do it again from your villan's.
For me, I do a lot of roleplaying with my characters. It's how I figured out that several are LGBTQ+
(Lemme know if you have specific questions. And if you wanna RP hit me up!)
With most of my characters, I'm able to sort of step into their roles, it's just with the main character I've been having a lot of trouble with because I honestly can't tell if he's too much like me or completely opposite. I think that I'm overthinking it and should probably approach it the way you suggested. It's just I'm in a period in my life where I'm growing as a person, and I think I'm portraying that too much into my character to the point where he's just a jumbled mess. But I'll try out the role-playing and see where that goes. Thank you so much for your help and advice, I wish I had more creative people like you in my life from a day to day basis!
Honestly, writing is a journey! I don't count myself an expert, though I have been developing characters for awhile now. I would suggest getting more advice, and trying different things. But the key is to have fun! (Trust me. You do NOT wanna make your writing a chore.)
I wish I could just stick to writing, but I'm an artist as well and I'm trying to write a comic out. My process for everything takes twice as long as a regular author because I have to sketch out my ideas as well as type them. It's tiring but honestly, I never get tired of it. I've been on this project on and off for 5 years now, and every time I return to it I pull myself deeper in progress. Comparing my progress from my first sketches and short story draft of it to my most recent stuff, it's pretty amazing. My art and perspective on what I want this story to mean to me have changed so much as I myself am growing with it. But it definitely hasn't gotten any easier since day one, it's actually gotten harder because I no longer have my mentor to guide me. I try to ask different people for advice but I feel like it's never very constructive compared to what my mentor would say. I want to reach out to him again but at the same time, I always thought that the next time I'd see him would be when I give him a fresh copy of my comic. It's just hard doing it all alone.
Okay, that's actually awesome!!
I can see why it would take so long and be so tedious. But I also know the satisfation that comes with actually reaching a goal.
My first goal was writing a chapter. I completed that first chapter one day, and it was oneof the best days of my life.
And Septemeber was one of my better writing months. Mostly because late septemeber I wrote 40+ pages of a now 60 page draft.
It really is a good feeling to finish something. And I apologize if I seem like I'm bragging, but I can tell you right now sticking with it is worth it.
(And if you really want you can ask me questions? I'm not a comic book creator, but I have a teacher who is a published one that I could ask)
Accomplishing something is very very satisfying, I remember feeling so relieved when I wrote my first draft because it felt like I was stepping into a very long journey that I've never experienced before. I was excited and had no idea what I was in for, but it made me very happy that the people who read it were very supportive and enjoyed it. fast forward 5 years, I'm still working on it. I'm not making as much progress as I was when I first started because I am juggling a lot more than I was when in school but I never would have imagined the story being anything like it is now than back then. My only thing is, I keep finding myself lost as to how to script the comic and "direct" it. Could ask your teacher how they went about creating their comic and any tips they have for page layouts and editing? That would mean so much to me!! And a question for you, are you able to sit down and just write? Or are you only able to write when emotionally distraught? Cause with me, I find myself only able to add the really juicy parts of the plot when I'm feeling strong emotions like anger or fear.
1, Yes I can try to remember to ask for you!
2, personally I find that for me to actually write anything, like sit down an just write, is actually impossible. For one, this is a mental thing, since I have ADHD, it does make it hard to focus sometimes.
But, I have learned to make that distraction productive, which is why I am always multitasking in school. During math class for example, when the teacher sets us loose on homework, I do a problem, the write. And that writing can even consist of RPing. But it's still writing.
That 60 page draft was started on a burst of inspo, but it was written during english class workperiods, along with my slow careers class, because I was bored.
(My ADHD can be my superpower.)
In other words, I write best when I let my writing distract me from semi important things.
I feel the same way, being distracted for some reason allows me to tap into some weird dark creative part of my brain. I just wish I didn't have to be distracted in order to be creative in the way that I want because I often get distracted from high priority tasks. I'm not one to procrastinate but I also do it way too often without realizing.
If it makes you feel better I have been procrastinating on an overdue project all weekend.
@Wolfheart Following up on this post, any advice from your teacher?
Other than the usual practice, and experiment, not really…
Sorry I almost completely forgot about this!
Sorry about that…. Things have gotten really crazy over this school year so remembering stuff like this has been really hard lately…
That's totally fine, I forgot about this whole website ever since I logged off in November! But thank you for responding
Yeah no problemo!
And even if my forgetfullness is a little weird, if you ever want a roleplay, or friend to talk to, then feel free to PM me!
