Clusterfuck Draft To Legible Story

Element 1: Character: Development

Character development

Now before I say anything about this, I just want to mention that there is a small misconception some people have about the meaning of this word so let me make sure you understand what we are talking about.

Character development does not equal character progression. But again, what is the difference between these two?

Character progression: a character goes through some kind of a change as the story progresses. For example, from being an asshole to a nice guy, or even something small like they learn to be stronger in some aspects.

Character development: the amount of depth an author gives to a character. So their explored personality, hobbies, quirks, positives, negatives.

Now you may be wondering “but this was already mentioned in character creation and you said all this is subjective!” And yes, I did say that and yes, this is still the case.

However, now I wanna talk about how to implement this in your story. Since we now know what development is and what it isn’t, let's say how much you should reveal about a character as you write the story.

When a character is introduced, it is up to you how much information you want to reveal about a character, however, there are certain rules to this:

If this is your MC, make sure you introduce at least some sort of information about them in the very first scene they appear. After a single scene only, we should already know something about them even if it is only their personality.

Show their uniqueness. Now, while this may not be a precise rule, it is good that your reader is aware of something that makes your character different from others. This way, it makes both your character and story more interesting.

Do NOT reveal everything! This is self-explanatory, but PLEASE do not write paragraphs on paragraphs about their biography and just exactly what type of person they are. This is the simple ‘show don't tell’ that I am sure you have heard of many times.

For God's sake, do NOT put a sob story as their introduction. This is yet again, a subjective opinion, but I have seen so many people try to force emotion on a reader and hoping that they will sympathize with the character. While this may work sometimes, this is really not something I would encourage you to do.

So now that you have introduced your character, it is up to you how to develop them further in the story. Remember that the first chapter is very important and make sure that you follow the rules above.

Now the development of characters after the introduction is subjective and you can do it however you want, but here are just a few tips which I think might help you write development better.

1. Introduce facts about the characters slowly. Your readers aren't fact machines. They don't eat up every single detail you tell them like a vacuum. Chances are, every information you tell them will immediately fly over their heads. For this reason, try to space the development out. This also helps keep your character interesting and your readers can have questions about them. After all, revealing everything is just boring, isn't it?

2. Keep the sad stuff for later. Like I have mentioned previously about the sob stories, this is what I mean. You have to understand that adding sad sob stories does not make your readers like your characters. Actually, many of your readers have probably already read hundreds of stories before and they have been catfished into sympathizing with a character hundreds of times. A sob story no longer works on them and they might actually start disliking your character instead of as a result. For this reason alone, you should ALWAYS first showcase their personality or anything positive about them. You should only add they're sad background when your readers had enough time to like your characters for who they are and not have to be forced to sympathize with sob stories.

3. Do not introduce too many characters at once. Just like I mentioned to not introduce too many facts at once, this is the case with characters themselves too. Choose slow over too fast if possible.

4. Your characters should face conflicts. The only way to truly make your characters progress and be developed in a way that it doesn't seem like everything is just being shoved at your face is to introduce your characters to conflict. To see how they react and their coping afterward is the best and most effective way of developing your characters.

5. A great way to make your characters interesting is by spacing out the good traits and the bad traits in a way that your readers keep changing their opinion on the character. This is a great method to keep them engaged though might be a bit hard to pull off on your first time. But the basic method would be to sometimes show the characters doing the right thing and sometimes they don't do the right thing. This way, you will not only make them more realistic but it will add a dynamic to the story that many authors on wattpad just don't include in their stories.

To be continued in the next chapter.