You really need to make non-tragic past for your characters, significant people and events that impacted their lives, non-dramatic mundane moments that shaped them, happy memories, bitter memories, embarrassing memories.
Like yes the space princess lost her whole civilization, but did she have friends before that? Favorite place? Does she miss the sound of her favorite music she use to listen to?
You really need to make non-tragic past for your characters, significant people and events that impacted their lives, non-dramatic mundane moments that shaped them, happy memories, bitter memories, embarrassing memories.
Like yes the space princess lost her whole civilization, but did she have friends before that? Favorite place? Does she miss the sound of her favorite music she use to listen to?
The combination of 'unnervingly flawless self-control' with 'occasional tendency to engage in reckless, dangerous, and borderline self-destructive or death-seeking behaviour' in a character is SUCH catnip to me
vampirism poses the question "what if there was a fundamental, horrible, unending well of want in your soul that, if truly satisfied, would lead to great pain for all those you hold closest and, in turn, their absolute and total revilement of you?" and naturally as a person with no problems I don't relate to this in any way at all.
vampirism also poses the question "what if someone you loved, through no fault of their own, needed something from you, and giving it to them and seeing them happy provided you the greatest joy, and you were the only one who could do it, but at the same time it was slowly draining all your life out of you?" which is also a completely unrelatable idea to me because I'm a normal person with no issues.
Honestly? My main piece of advice for writing well-rounded characters is to make them a little bit lame. No real living person is 100% cool and suave 100% of the time. Everyone's a little awkward sometimes, or gets too excited about something goofy, or has a silly fear, or laughs about stupid things. Being a bit of a loser is an incurable part of the human condition. Utilize that in your writing.
you can instantly make a cool female character if you just take any stereotypically masculine character type and make him a butch lady. easiest trick in the book. you can try this at home
im not talking even about broad scale archetypes like Action Hero. those are cool don't get me wrong but if you take more specific stock characters such as "cartoonish mob boss" or "gentleman detective" or "elderly mad scientist" then you have an instant hit on your hands. lesbians WILL love you forever and you WILL be the most interesting person around
PSA to fan creators who don't have a lot of regular contact with children: They are almost always bigger than you think. A 1-year-old baby may already be walking. A toddler is likely already hip-high. A 10-year-old may already be taller than at least one of their parents. A 14/15 year old may already have reached their adult height.
Here's the link. It was actually not immediately easy to find, so I thought this might help.
WEIRDLY SPECIFIC BUT HELPFUL CHARACTER BUILDING QUESTIONS
It's good and cool to give your characters a single simple, straightforward, non-urgent, super-achievable goal that shouldn't really cost anything or hurt anyone, make that the driving factor for most of their decisions, and then have the Plot do everything in its power to stop them.
Goals include but are not limited to:
- skewed sense of time eg; i can easily get there and back before my eggs cook!
- altered sense of reality//tendency to get sucked up in daydreams and temporarily lose track of real life
- extremely vivid daydreams// alternative realities
- feeling really lonely but getting the urge to isolate yourself for no reason
- getting overwhelmed by too many choices and freaking out
- hearing the instructions but not really being able to hold onto them
- people cant speak to you while you’re really focused on something because you can’t hold on to multiple things in your brain at once
- repeating things over and over in your head to try and remember them
- feeling like you never really appreciate things as much as you should because you get too sidetracked
- getting super excited by small things but sometimes feeling indifferent towards the things everyone’s raving about
- being self conscious from everyone telling you you’re annoying but being scared you’ll come off as boring
- getting hyperfixations on a certain person and getting really wrapped up on them regardless of if they like you back
- putting too much into things and getting disappointed when it’s not reciprocated
- constantly being told that you’re too intense and need to chill it out a bit
- ^ thinking you’re cool and desperately wanting to just be chill and laid back but your personality is just 24/7 overdrive
- building things up so much in your head to the point that it gets stressful because what if it doesn’t live up to expectations??
- extremely over-emotional (this includes when it’s inappropriate such as giggling at sad things and then feeling really bad after)
- feeling when you just don’t know when to stop
- getting increasingly uncomfortable in a situation for no apparent reason until you feel like you’re gonna cry or scream but you do none of that and just sit there
feel free to add on!
Every urban fantasy/comic book character who complains about how they wish they could go back to their normal life of being ugly and bullied and uninteresting because now they can teleport or levitate truly does not deserve the powers they were given
Socially bankrupt teen who only wears zip-up hoodies in navy, gray, or maroon, discovering he can crack the earth with his mind: “OhhHHhh nOoOoo, wHaT abOUt pROm wiTH aliSOn”
Clearly there are two major problems with this ongoing cliche and two easy solutions:
I’d rather see what happens to the minority kid living in oppression suddenly gifted strange powers than another whiny loser. Or see someone given abilities that are frustratingly contrast to their ideas or personality: introverts given flashy powers, hyperactive characters given powers that require stillness of the body and mind, a character out for blood given a very non-violent power and learns how to point it toward violence anyway, a pacifist character granted a very volatile ability who manages to use it in a creative non-violent way.
for everyone wondering it was DnD fantasy based stuff obv like calling dwarves beard faces but this title blew me away
No this is important to accuratly roleplay high elves
How does anyone hate kids they are so funny I sold tickets to incredibles to this little girl and her mom and she’s like mom are we sitting next to each other and the moms like ya and the kid screamed YES so loud it broke my ears
The other day I was bringing an older gentleman up the hill in a golf cart and we drove past this huge YMCA group of kids like 100 kids and driving past the first chunk like 10 of them yelled out “let me on” in unison and then since I’m driving so slowly to be safe, halfway in some kid leaned up and said “do you play fortnite” and I told him I played a little and he just pointed and shouted “THIS GUY PLAYS FORTNITE” and then like 20 kids started talking to me all at once about fortnite
A kid asked me if I lived in the ambulance. I said yes.
The hero we deserve
When I was on register at Kohl’s a little girl came through with her grandma and she was so very excited to tell me the meaning of her name (I think it was like warrior of god) and she begged her grandma for her phone so she could google to find out what my name means too
i wear two spinner rings on one finger and one time at my last job a young girl (probably 6-8) said “your ring is very pretty” and when i showed her it was two rings she GASPED and said “does that mean you’re marrying two people?!”
I have this necklace with a mermaid on it that I wear to work a lot and I got asked by a kid if it gave me magic powers. I leaned in real close and told her in a low voice it gave me magical girl powers but it was a secret. She got this real serious look on her face and said to her mom “that lady has superpowers, don’t tell anyone or the government will take her away”.
The other day i had to give a speech at my school despite my horrific fear of public speaking and afterwards i had kid come up to me and say well done to me. It was so cute.
god I love tiny kids
there was a kid in one of our science camps and he spent the whole week in a lab coat and goggles screaming “CHEMICALS” at the top of his lungs. he wouldn’t even tell us his name for the first two days just screamed CHEMICALS instead.
I was watching these kids at church today and one of them screamed and threw a toy car into the wall and it broke and the other one looked over calmly and said “does your insurance cover that?”
Imagine telepathic aliens. Imagine aliens who have no concept of language, who maybe didn’t figure out writing or math until they were figuring out electronics, who still struggle with the entire idea of symbolic thinking, and then they find us. And they’re going “I can see the technology and cities, and it all looks made for and by these bipeds, but where is the sapience and WHAT IS ALL THIS EFFING HOOTY MOUTH NOISE?!” until someone wonders if the hooty mouth noise has meaning in it.
Imagine aliens going “OMG they’re communicating by noise” and “OMG they’re using code naturally” and “OMG they’re using open-ended productive recursive code how is that POSSIBLE” and “OMG writing” and “OMG they have THOUSANDS of codes”, and it’s all paraoxysms of academic delight and then someone discovers metaphor, and someone discovers encryption, and someone discovers slang and l33t and txting and emoji, and this entire telepathic species has its minds completely blown and the one who went “what if the hooty noise has meaning” wins the alien Nobel.
*hooty mouth noise of approval*
Tag yourself I’m ‘sampler of drugs’
I can’t decide if I am fifty two years an imbecile or a fatuous pauper.
no more ‘vampires who correct history books’
more vampires who don’t remember more vampires saying ‘i don’t fucking know man, google it’ more vampires not remembering important historical figures more vampires not recalling centuries worth of history more vampires saying ‘ that was at least 300 years ago, how the FUCK could i remember that detail?’ more vampires whose brains work like human brains
More vampires who 300 years later can’t remember what was the truth and what was the lie they told to get out of trouble.
More vampires who are like, “I don’t know, man, I spent most of that decade in an opium den.”
More vampires who weren’t paying attention because they didn’t think it would be important.
More vampires who don’t know because there was lot of conflicting gossip and they don’t want to point any fingers.
More vampires who are just bad at dates. “Back in 1620, or was it 1645, wait, what year is it now?”
More vampires who were on a totally different continent when it happened, so get off their back and stop asking them questions already.
“She’s not coming.”
Clark nodded, not looking away from the ridge. “I know. I didn’t really expect her to. I just thought maybe she would at least come to say goodbye. I thought I might have earned that much, even if I didn’t deserve anything else.” Her signed, slipping off the rock slowly.
Nate looked at him sadly but didn’t say anything. For once, Clark found himself grateful for Nate’s reticence. Pity right now might finally break him where everything else had failed.
He accepted his pack silently, shouldering and settling it quickly, always too familiar for comfort.
