Writing Tips And Tricks

Characters

Every writer has heard the advice "Don't make your characters two dimensional," but what does it mean and how do you do it? All characters are two dimensional, they're written on paper! Someone needed to tell Jeff Brown his characters shouldn't be two dimensional. (Get it? Because Flat Stanley?)

After you make any character, no matter how minor, needs a few things.

•A relation to the protagonist
•A complicated background
•Emotions
•A want
•A problem

These are things that differ characters from each other, but this is far from all you need in a character.

Make sure that all of your characters are different. Don't have every character be a cousin of the protagonist and raised in an orphanage with the problem being the family will, characters should be different enough from that you could write a separate story about each of them and they would still be interesting after reading all of them.

Now, if you need a character that is three dimensional, there is way more work. Not every character needs to be three dimensional, but for the best stories they do. Anytime you introduce a character, ask yourself if the character will be important to the plot. If not, rewrite and remove.

For a great character with detail you're going to want them to have insecurities - or anything a reader can relate to, for that matter. The best characters have flaws, but they also have a strong point.

Think of all of your favorite characters and think of their flaws. Haymitch Abernathy was an alcoholic, Sirius Black was a prankster, Tris Prior abandoned her friends. Every human has their flaws, if they claim they don't, one of their flaws is that they're a liar.

All good characters have their feelings described to the readers by hints, not telling "Sophie was sad" but "Sophie teared up at the mention of the words and she looked at the ground with a frown." Now you know how Sophie reacts in a sad situation and you get a visual in your head of what Sophie is doing. That visual is most likely three dimensional.

A character that can fit into a real world scenario is a good character, by which I mean with the same amount of flaws and personality, not no powers, nothing fantasy, I just mean plop your character with other characters and they should have a conversation.

Readers can tell he writers thoughts sometimes. The most important part of your writing is that it writes itself and you have to reread to know what happened, your hands moved on their own and created a world you didn't even know existed. When you write without thinking it comes more naturally.

But I'm just a girl, not famous in this world, you don't have to listen to my advice.