One Direction Writing Guide

Characterization Wrap Up

So, this is just a quick Characterization wrap-up. I’m going to skip the OC’s for now and just go on to Plot. HOWEVER, I’m not going to leave those of you who wanted to hear about the OC’s hanging. So this is just a quick guide on creating good, likable OC’s. I’m sorry if it’s not specific; I’ll try to cover it in more detail later on.

CREATING AN ORIGINAL CHARACTER (OC)

An original character is harder to create (obviously) than a self-insert. It’s even harder because you’re trying to create a real person. First of all, let’s start with appearance. An OC can look anyway you want him/her to look, but the Mary Sue rules still apply to her.

It might be tempting to make your OC flawless, but exercise self-control. Maybe she has acne; maybe she has a birthmark, etc. Or maybe, she’s even described as average. There’s nothing wrong with average people, the boys don’t always have to date supermodels (actually, that’s a good idea: Make them not give her a second glance at first, then fall in love as they got to know each other).

But appearance is the easiest thing about an OC. The personality is the hardest. I’ve mentioned earlier that you can’t summarize a personality in three words. But, earlier, you had yourself to draw on. This time, you’re making a separate person.

 Of course, to make it easier, you can still draw ideas from yourself, but, like, if she is a puppet of her beliefs, attitudes, and feelings, she’s not an OC. She will automatically become a self-insert right then and there.

 To keep her being her own person, draw, not only from your personality, but other’s personalities too. So your bookishness, your best friend’s bubbliness, your boyfriend’s… um… optimism, you get the idea.

  Of course, you could go all the way and make it up completely, but that’s a heck of a lot of work and, personally, I don’t think a noncommercial fanfic is worth it. However, if you want to do that, the easiest way is to think of a bunch of common traits, combine them, and breathe life into them through your plot. This is very risky though, and you might end up with clichéd characters, the very last thing you want.

  As always, make sure they’re not perfect. Curse/bless her with an over-the-top temper, or irritating naïvetés, or maybe an awful sense of direction, or painful shyness. 

 So that was a really quick guide on how to make a good OC. It was neither in-depth nor specific. After plot, I will give you a better guide, but for now, this’ll have to do.

 And I also forgot something major: Characterizing the boys. I’ll just cover it really quickly right now.

CHARACTERIZING ONE DIRECTION 

This will go by really fast. I’m pretty sure you know how they look like and you have a good idea of their personalities from their video diaries and other videos.

 Now, appearance. You know how they look like; you know they’re cute. Chances are, we do too. You don’t need to mention how attractive they are; a simple “brown hair, blue eyes” will do.  Of course, if the character is a massive fan, she would probably go into more detail, but I don’t think even she would feel the need to mention how good-looking they are in every single sentence.

Personality. We know roughly their personalities (Zayn-quiet, Louis-funny, Niall-cute, Liam-sensible, and Harry-charming). Sometimes, writers go overboard with that. They just make everything insanely big, every little trait blown up into something huge. Now tell me, is that realistic?

Even though funny and loud is what Louis is most of the time, sometimes he has his quiet and depressed days, just like us. Sometimes he might be crazy, other times he might be serious.

 That’s really the biggest mistake in 1D Characterization, ridiculously blowing up traits. It’s also something that can easily be fixed with just a little attention and work. 

That wasn’t in-depth either. Huh. I’ll cover it more specifically after Plot if you so wish. That’s pretty much it for Characterization. Here are a couple of tips: 

A COUPLE MORE CHARACTER TIPS

·     -Looks are not what matters, personality is. Even if a flawlessly beautiful character is annoying, many of us do overlook that. However, a flawless personality will lose you readers and it will take a massive success to bring them back

·      -Sometimes, you can make your character’s looks flawless, but it’s very dangerous. I would wait until I’m well experienced in fanfiction to do something like that. Usually, if appearance is perfect, personality will soon follow

·      -NEVER make personality perfect

·      -Keep a character journal

·      -Don’t use every single piece of information that you’ve brainstormed about your character-that’s only to make your character more real to YOU

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I'll post Plot either later today or tomorrow.