Writing Tips &Tricks

Nico Di Angelo

  This is my first character profile and I am excited. I felt the need to include character profiles because it will help you keep existing characters closer to the canon ones.

  The first thing I want to say is that canon characters are not your characters. If there is no mention of them having an interest in certain bands, tv shows, etc. Then there probably shouldn't be a mention of it in your story. At least not without some explanation.

  A lot of readers seem to be stuck on emo Nico. They want him to be into MCR, Panic!, FOB, etc. They want him to sing and play guitar. Ok, great. Give me the 6 ?s and I'll go with it. Throwing your readers into a situation where he already has these abilities is a little jarring. 

  You have to answer some very important questions in your story before you give a canon character new skills. Questions such as:

  Who taught him/ got him started? Who notices? Who is he comfortable with showing? Who knows about this talent/skill/interest?

   What relevance does this have to the story? What is the point of adding this? What difference should this make to your readers?

   Where does he practice this skill and how was that place established in your story? Where did he learn it? Where does he keep his materials? Where did he get the materials?

  When will this be included in the story and at what point in his life did this become an interest? When did he first learn the thing?

  Why does he do these things? Is it self expression or just because you want him to? Why is it important for you to tell your readers.

  How does he get ahold of the materials allowing him to do these things? How did he learn how to do it? How did he teach himself or afford lessons.

  Your readers will buy a lot of things, if you only give them a reason to. In my story I made Nico an excelent artist and a decent cook. Here is my reasoning for each question.

Who: Nico is unique in the sense that he is such an unknown character. No one knows what life for him was like before the Military Academy. So no one really ever knows who.

What: I did it to make Nico more relatable. More human. Because no one really knows about his life before the mind wipe, no one really knows what he is capable of. Can he draw? Who knows? Can he cook? Don't ask me! I gave him a simple skill that is artistic and requires very little from him material wise.

Where: because all he needs is a sketch pad and some pencils, he can conceivably draw almost anywhere. He can cook at the manor under Alfred's supervision.

When: he learned he had this ability while he was bored one night at the manor. He had actually started drawing years before his mother's death and just forgot when Hades erased his mind. Same with the cooking.

Why: As I said, I gave him this skill to humanize him. To him, drawing is a form of expression. He draws things that he sees in his dreams, he draws to relax, he draws to pass time.

How: Just like with who, no one really knows how, not even Nico.

You need to show your readers that you know what you are doing. Any changes that you make to a character that they loved has to make sense. There has to be a purpose.

Another thing I see a lot of is making Nico extremely powerful. Overpowered, in a lot of cases. Percy too, but we'll get to him later.

  The problem with this is that it forces your readers to suspend disbelief. Suddenly Nico is the most powerful demigod to walk the Earth? Not believable. Hard to read. It makes them doubt your credibility.

  It seems like you are trying to shove ideas down your reader's throats. It's aggressive. It's impossible to counter without leaving him feeling lopsided.

  What I mean by lopsided is: that either your character will be unbeatable or they well have some extreme weakness that keeps them down. Let me explain further.

  What usually happens is that they give him a whole lot of cool powers that he can kill thousands with, and a a poorly displayed mental illness or other magical weakness. Or even wings (what the heck, guys). This does not  balance out your character.

  Now you've got this crazy powerful character than can be brought to his knees by a single trigger, or he gets injured in his dreams, or he's too depressed to function, etc. This isn't fun for your reader. Normal people don't work like that (though we don't have powers at all, so...). It is hard to have empathy for something that doesn't even appear human most of the time.

  What I'm trying to say is: what makes Percy and Nico so cool is that they are very human characters. They have all of these human flaws and restrictions and that doesn't stop them from being BA. If you ask me, that makes them even more awesome.

  Nico is a very cool and complex character and one of my favorites in the PJO universe. He is also the easiest one to write a fanfic around and I'll explain why.

  Most PJO fanfics feature Percy. Don't get me wrong, I love Percy, but he isn't a good choice for crossovers. The problem with Percy is that he has too many attachments. His mom, Annabeth, Paul, Tyson, the seven, etc. He is too attached to so many different people. His flaw is loyalty, so it isn't like he would drift away on his own, at least not without a good reason.

  You can't put Percy in an alternate  universe without him either being betrayed, abandoned, a child, dead, alone in the world, or 'dead'. There are too many variables that you have to take care of before you can even start the story.

('Dead' meaning that he is in a position where everyone believes that he is dead, but he really isn't.)

  With Nico, It's easy. He has no living family, he's presumed dead, he has no criminal record, not too much emotional trauma, and travels where he pleases. One little shadow slip-up and he's where you want him to be. Piece of cake.

  As for making him like the book, that is the hard part. You kind of need to know how he thinks. It is easy for me to do this and I've often been told that I have a natural gift for this particular aspect of writing. I have a gift for keeping them canon.

  What I mean by 'keeping him canon',  is how he makes decisions, what is important to him, how he reacts to stress, etc. All of this should come from your impression of him throughout the pjo/hoo series. He doesn't have to be 100% like the book, you have a right to creative license.

A lot of deviations can be resolved using simple means. Here are a few tips for getting away with a slightly ooc character:

  If you show the readers the thought process behind your Nico's actions, and they make logical sense, you could get away with it. Your readers will believe a lot of what your version of a character does if you can just explain why.  THOUGHT PROCESS IS KEY!

  Another really important thing is consistency. You have to keep writing him in the same manner, unless there has been something that happened in the story to change his behavior. i.e If he is rebellious, he has to stay rebellious until he has thought it through, or some event has happened to change that behavior. People don't change on a whim. Keep it consistent

  Honestly, as long as you give solid reasoning, you should be able to get away with a lot of what your characters do.

  Please feel free to ask questions!