forum I need help with developing my characters...

Started July 22, 2018 by @Sybil

tune

I have a lot of ideas for stories and many characters to put in them, but once I try writing them down, they just seem dry and unlikable. Can anyone give me advice on how to make readers connect with my characters?

Sure I'd love to help, what genre are you writing in?

Okay, so one of my big suggestions is to just write as much as you can until they are likable and realistic and so-on. Regardless of genre (which I would know, because I've written in a lot of genres) you just need to take time to develop you characters. I haven't liked any of my characters until recently, and I've been writing for three years now.

But, as for how to make change right now, I'd work by practicing. Pull a writing prompt off of the internet and try different things: Making something that is usually considered a positive trait into a negative one (i.e. the character is patient, but so much so that they become too passive, the character is happy to everyone but that makes everyone else think that they don't need the help that they do, etc.), try making a conversation in only dialogue (two characters is easiest, but if you get really good at developing speech patterns and such you could probably get up to four or five without it being too confusing), or just try to write a normal scene but try to write it better than you have in the past.

Anyone who tells you that you can't practice writing because it's not a physical skill but a mental one is naive and needs to learn that writing well (whether that's realistically or persuasively or something else) is a skill like any other and you can't just read books and expect to be perfect.

Thanks for the advise! The genre I'm writing in is a mix of mystery/action, which is different from what I normally write (Magical Realism). I guess I was shaping my characters around the genre instead of making them their own person.