/lit/ - Literature

>>14869839
>i keep feeling like im not writing my characters correctly, like im either ignoring their personality traits or apeing them. how do I write them better?
Here's some good advice from a very useful book I have that is to be applied to central characters. It needn't be done of course, but it's a good exercise if something doesn't feel right about your character. If they're too much cardboard or if their personality doesn't show and needs fleshing out.

>1. Write a brief biographical sketch. Where were they born, who were their parents? Are they educated, illiterate? What's their job? Don't just pick these at random, get a feel for where you're going with it as a whole.
>2. Write a description of the character as seen by another character in the story. It's useful to describe them from the viewpoint of two other characters at least. This will sharpen both your view of the character and their relation to one another. What does one see that the other doesn't in the same person?
>3. Write a scene in which the character comes home and does whatever he routinely does at that time of day. What does he do? Feed a pet? Light up a pipe? Fuck his wife? This will both tell you something about the state of normalcy of your character and something about him.
>4. Write an incident in the character's life which you will not use in the story, but which reveals something about him as a person.
>5. Invent a second character who is just like the first in a general way, the same stereotype, and write a scene between this new one and the original one. If you have come up with a crusty old sailor then make another one. You need to be able to differentiate between the two besides their names, in how they talk, their attitudes, how they act. If they are too much the same then you need to do something about it, maybe the second character grows some more personality than the first as you write, then use him in your story instead.

The interview method is also a good one, but Knight recommends less of a friendly chat and more that you torture your characters a little to find out their deepest secrets. Twist their arm a bit, waterboard them until they reveal their motivations and desires. The stuff you find out if you ask them nicely is bound to be less interesting.