𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐒𝐇𝐈𝐏𝐒, writing tips

( 6. ) Despised & Loved Characters ✓

This sort of counts as a part 2 to my "Character Details" but really it's just a tip to help you accept your character.

Notice how I said accept your character, rather than love. Because no, you do not need to adore your character for your story to work. It's great if you feel a certain way towards them. (i.e; You feel sympathy, you dislike their decisions though it matches their personality, you admire their quirks, etc...)

Okay so let's take a random character for example. Let's say his name is Craig. Craig's description — self-made business man, worth a million, socially awkward around women, stresses too much which makes situations worse for himself, and he has a fear of birds.

Now Craig, our man, can make plenty of mistakes throughout his story. You can allow him to fix those mistakes or take it as a lesson learned (unfixed). This is where his traits come in and you can literally go wild with it.

     After gaining the confidence to ask his close friend, Marina, on a date and being rejected, Craig finds himself taking a stroll through the central park. He goes into deep thought wondering if it was only himself to blame for the cursed non-romantic aura he carried around with him. Craig sits himself on a bench, so lost in his own thoughts that he hadn't noticed the pigeons slowly making a formation around him. Finally snapping back into reality, Craig attempts to befriend the birds by feeding them what's left of the granola in his pocket. His faint decision will change his life forever.

     Now not afraid of birds, Craig was free of that fear and he only had to work on himself as a flirtatious figure. The pigeons would help him with that, as they felt it was their destiny. Craig was happy.

I didn't know how else to end it there, but you get the idea. Anyway so the issue was that Craig asked out Marina and was declined, thus he took a walk and his problems were solved by giving granola to hungry pigeons who then paid their debt to him by convincing Marina to give him a chance.

You can connect with your character personally by putting yourself in their situation. Imagine yourself as Craig, with his personality and everything. How would he react to rejection when he finally worked up the nerve to ask? Craig was not an angry man — no, he was calm and collected. He fed pigeons and did charity work in his freetime. Can you connect with Craig?

Alright — so the hatred part is not necessarily for the author, unless you choose to hate your character. It is for the readers. :) Let me explain,

When you dislike a certain character, it may be because you are out of your comfort zone. You cannot connect to them (which I am stressing so much about in this). So as a reader, you should try to see yourself as the character as well. Take their situation and make it your own to really understand why the author wrote it that way. This is great if you plan to start writing, too.

That's all for now, I guess. Hope it helped ??