/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.4155422]

Hey /lit/

For those hopeful authors out there, I come to you seeking advice:

What do you do when you feel disconnected from your characters?


I've become very disheartened with my writing, because the main character isn't coming across as I want him to. I wanted him to be snarky, sassy, a hard-headed brute with a temper. It's his way or the high way, and he has no issues with breaking the rules to get what he wants.

But right now, he's coming across and meek and whiny. Mind you, this is only 1/4 of the way in to the actual writing piece. As a reader, how long do you think it should take before we begin to see a character's true nature?

Thanks for your help in advance.

TL;DR - Feeling disconnected from character. HELP ME.

[Anonymous No.4155441]

[Anonymous No.4155480]

Honestly from that description of what you want him to be like he sounds pretty unlikeable anyway. If he's turned out whiny and insufferable that's because you don't like him. You need to go back and figure out why.

[Anonymous No.4155513]

It's called doing a character study. Watch videos of people who resemble your character. Think about his mannerisms. Go into a public setting, like a cafe, and role-play by striking up conversations and reacting as your character would.

[Anonymous No.4155533]

You should leave your characters breath their own life. The discrepancy between what you expect them to be and what they are is not as much as a failure, but the truth about them that is succeeding to emerge. The frustration comes from the difference between what you want to write and what you actually write. I think it is a way of your writing to fight back some kind of dishonesty you have with yourself (and I mean not to offend). Use that disconnection for a moment to see your character for what he is: a meek and whiny guy who, somehow, ought to have been a snarky brute. Isn't that perhaps you are holding this character down? In the sense that you want him to be brute, but while still retaining something that is contraditory to it, that you believe that should fit but just doesn't and, so, it comes off unnatural. Perhaps you have to abandon certain things for it to work, even certain beliefs of yours.

Writing is always about some form of truth and some form of inner discovery, regardless on whether it is fiction or not (maybe specially when it is fiction).

Allow more accidents, go against your own plan. Risk what you wanted at first and write about this issue in itself instead. Let him be what he shows himself to be to you right now. Some great stories were told by abandoning that first expectation, it can hold the characters down, they are like scarecrows, puppets of what they truly are. Do not cling to them.

I hope this is helpful.

[Anonymous No.4155721]

>>4155533

Thanks, this helped a lot. I'm still just feeling really bogged down by the way things SHOULD have turned out vs how they ACTUALLY turned out.

I'm considering either:

1) Starting all over again
2) Just giving up on the idea altogether.

[Anonymous No.4155732]

>>4155422
Kill him and change your hero halfway

[Anonymous No.4155734]

Usually I just let my Muse handle all that stuff. A plot is only a series of character interactions so most of it is probably not gonna stick to your outline but just flow in such a way that it creates something new. Rather than stick to an outline just finish it no matter where it leads you and fix it in the next draft.

Also an amateur should be doing a whole load of small stuff rather than trying at huge novels.

[Anonymous No.4155735]

>>4155734
Also if your character is a whiny bitch traumatise him and make him grow balls. It seems to work in a whole load of animes.

[Anonymous No.4155924]

>>4155734
But you're missing the point....he's not supposed to be whiny bitch, for some reason he's just coming across that way..

I need to find a method to fix it and get him back the way he's supposed to be.

[Anonymous No.4156459]

Bump!