Clusterfuck Draft To Legible Story

Element 1: Character: Creation.

Character creation

Now that we delved into where to start, and you already surely have your pick, let's get into the actual creation of the character.

Now I will not tell you how to create your character as this is a very subjective thing in fiction. The only rule there is to creating characters is:

There are no rules!!!

From their personality, to their background, habits, hobbies, favorite foods, quirks, gestures, appearance and anything you can think of, there is no rule on how to write your character. This is all on you, the author to choose and nobody can tell you that your character can not be a certain way.

Do you want your character to be a lovely little angel with diabetes? Go for it! Do you want your character to be a racist scumbag that murders pets in his house? Go for it!

There is however one thing that needs to be done in order for your character to be called “well written” from a character creation standpoint, and that is to make your character “3D” and not a cardboard cut out.

What is the difference?

Well, a cardboard cut out is exactly what you would think. It is a cardboard figure with a nice smile and you can tell their personality just by looking at them. Let's say they were glasses and wear tomboyish clothes while their hair is up. Is this familiar to you? Why yes, this is the wattpad main girl starter pack! I'm pretty sure anyone who has been on wattpad for more than a week knows what a cardboard cut out is now but just in case you aren't sure, this basically means that the character only has one or two traits and that is all there ever is to this character. Are they a nerd? Yep! What else is there to them? Nothing! All they ever do is read books after all!

A 3D character would be someone who has depth to them, or I could even say that they are ‘real’. There is no person on this earth who is only a nerd and there is nothing else to their personality. Everyone has their own positives and negatives and this is something you as an author are obliged to make your characters be like too.

But how do you know if your character is 3D or cardboard? Simply ask yourself: does this character seems like a real-life person? If the answer is no, you have to go back to the drawing board. This you also have to do with side characters obviously.

To be continued in the next chapter.