Jorrisy

Here are a handful of quick tips to help you write believable characters! 

1. A character’s arc doesn’t need to grow linearly. Your protagonist doesn’t have to go from being weak to strong, shy to confident, or novice to professional in one straight line. It’s more realistic if they mess up their progress on the way and even decline a bit before reaching their goal.

2. Their past affects their present. Make their backstory matter by having their past events shape them into who they are. Growing up with strict parents might lead to a sneaky character, and a bad car accident might leave them fearful of driving.

3. Give reoccurring side characters something that makes them easily recognizable. This could be a scar, a unique hairstyle, an accent, or a location they’re always found at, etc.

4. Make sure their dialogue matches their personality. To make your characters more believable in conversation, give them speech patterns. Does the shy character mumble too low for anyone to ever hear, does the nervous one pace around and make everyone else on edge? 

5. Make your characters unpredictable. Real people do unexpected things all the time, and this can make life more exciting. The strict, straight-A student who decides to drink at a party. The pristine princess who likes to visit the muddy farm animals. When character’s decide to do things spontaneously or in the heat of the moment, it can create amazing twists and turns.

6. Give even your minor character’s a motive. This isn’t to say that all your characters need deep, intricate motives. However, every character should need or want something, and their actions should reflect that. What’s the motive behind a side character who follows your protagonist on their adventure? Perhaps they’ve always had dreams of leaving their small village or they want to protect your protagonist because of secret feelings.

Hi :)

Oh, I love me some good enemies to lover trope. But there is some things you have to be careful with, so I start with a little reminder what not to do and then go into what to do and even though you didn’t really ask for it, I thought of some prompts while writing this answer.

How to write enemies to lovers

stay away from non-consensual

they are enemies and will likely be awful to each other in the beginning

but if you want them to be a happy couple at the end they shouldn’t be abusive to each other

because even if they later get together it will always leave a mark on that relationship

forcing someone to do something is wrong and even if the victim later loves to do it in the relationship, it doesn’t change the fact that they were once forced when they didn’t want to do it

Now that that is established here is how to start with the trope.

Why are they enemies?

how do they know each other?

why do they hate each other?

are they literally at war with each other or are they people who met each other and really didn’t click in the beginning?

give them reason to hate or at least strongly dislike each other

you can give them the same reason for hating each other

or spice it up and make both of them dislike something else about the other person

How can you fix it?

now that you’ve established why they hate it each other you have to find out what needs to be done to fix it

it’s important to find a way to make them both see the other person as a normal human being with their own hopes and problems and not just this unshakeable image of an always bad enemy

maybe they don’t know all the information, maybe it’s a misconception that could be solved by talking

but don’t just make them say those things

let actions speak louder than words

for example character A thinks character B is rude and inconsiderate and only interested in themself - but then A sees B doing something completely selfless

Slowly falling in love

it wouldn’t be enough to see them being selfless to make them completely change their mind and fall in love

but it would make them rethink what they thought about the other one and maybe try to get to know them better, because they realized there is so much more to learn and they maybe judged too soon

a changed behaviour in one character could then trigger the other one into rethinking their bad relationship

finding something that they have in common or that they like about the other one can pave the way for a neutral relationship that then turns into something more

so it rarely goes directly from hate to love, especially because this could be an indicator for rash actions and mood swings towards each other that could be harmful in a relationship

it’s more like hate turning into acceptance and understanding and then slowly to love

Prompts

“Well. well, well. Look who came to their enemy’s door holding presents.” “Oh cut it, I’m here to pick you up for our date.”

“I’m scared that it could end badly if it doesn’t work out.” “You’re already enemies. How worse could it get?”

“Why did you save me?” “Just because I’m the bad guy doesn’t mean I’m a bad guy.”

“I can’t tell them. They would make fun of me! We used to hate each other!” “Used to - that’s the important part.”

“I can’t really remember what we were fighting about all this time.”

“That guy is not good for you. Hell, even I would be better for you and I’m your enemy.”

Hi :)

Oh, I love me some good enemies to lover trope. But there is some things you have to be careful with, so I start with a little reminder what not to do and then go into what to do and even though you didn’t really ask for it, I thought of some prompts while writing this answer.

How to write enemies to lovers

stay away from non-consensual

they are enemies and will likely be awful to each other in the beginning

but if you want them to be a happy couple at the end they shouldn’t be abusive to each other

because even if they later get together it will always leave a mark on that relationship

forcing someone to do something is wrong and even if the victim later loves to do it in the relationship, it doesn’t change the fact that they were once forced when they didn’t want to do it

Now that that is established here is how to start with the trope.

Why are they enemies?

how do they know each other?

why do they hate each other?

are they literally at war with each other or are they people who met each other and really didn’t click in the beginning?

give them reason to hate or at least strongly dislike each other

you can give them the same reason for hating each other

or spice it up and make both of them dislike something else about the other person

How can you fix it?

now that you’ve established why they hate it each other you have to find out what needs to be done to fix it

it’s important to find a way to make them both see the other person as a normal human being with their own hopes and problems and not just this unshakeable image of an always bad enemy

maybe they don’t know all the information, maybe it’s a misconception that could be solved by talking

but don’t just make them say those things

let actions speak louder than words

for example character A thinks character B is rude and inconsiderate and only interested in themself - but then A sees B doing something completely selfless

Slowly falling in love

it wouldn’t be enough to see them being selfless to make them completely change their mind and fall in love

but it would make them rethink what they thought about the other one and maybe try to get to know them better, because they realized there is so much more to learn and they maybe judged too soon

a changed behaviour in one character could then trigger the other one into rethinking their bad relationship

finding something that they have in common or that they like about the other one can pave the way for a neutral relationship that then turns into something more

so it rarely goes directly from hate to love, especially because this could be an indicator for rash actions and mood swings towards each other that could be harmful in a relationship

it’s more like hate turning into acceptance and understanding and then slowly to love

Prompts

“Well. well, well. Look who came to their enemy’s door holding presents.” “Oh cut it, I’m here to pick you up for our date.”

“I’m scared that it could end badly if it doesn’t work out.” “You’re already enemies. How worse could it get?”

“Why did you save me?” “Just because I’m the bad guy doesn’t mean I’m a bad guy.”

“I can’t tell them. They would make fun of me! We used to hate each other!” “Used to - that’s the important part.”

“I can’t really remember what we were fighting about all this time.”

“That guy is not good for you. Hell, even I would be better for you and I’m your enemy.”