How to make characters feel more real: by Errand!
(The mod of @employee1618152017 and @161815201715-fireexit)
1: Have them ask questions, a real person wouldn’t accept the craziness of their situation so easily
2: Make sure their actions have thought behind them, you don’t have to explain their thought process to the reader, it just needs to be there
3: Things that happen to them should have lasting impact, especially if it’s traumatizing
4: Your character has memory, they should adjust their actions based on past experiences, this is crucial
5: Create a little meter in your head that tells you how mentally stable your character is at any given time. Upsetting thing happen recently? More emotional (in my characters case he has trouble talking and tends to have outbursts) Good thing happen? More easygoing. Or however your character reacts to different stimuli, it doesn’t have to be just ‘emotional’ or ‘easygoing’
6: Try not to make your character do things just because you want them to do it, if you want it to happen, give a proper reason, again, you don’t have to explain that reason, just make sure it’s there
7: Keep your characters perspective in mind
8: The information your character has should be limited, that way they will ask questions the reader is also asking
9: Your character is allowed to be wrong, your character is allowed to make mistakes, your character is allowed to have regrets, your character is allowed to change their mind, your character is allowed to accidentally mislead the reader, Your character is allowed to lie
10: Limit the amount of thoughts you show, the thoughts should still be there, but hold back on letting the reader read them, you can’t usually read real people’s minds, so this will help the illusion
Bonus: Creating a rigid set of rules for your universe prior to launch will help the characters actions make sense, but you can also make them along the way
Bonus: Creating a backstory for your character in preparation is not bad per say, but you should definitely hold back on revealing it all at once, the more information your readers have, the more boring it’ll be (I made the backstory up as I went along, as well as how his shapeshifter power works, I really had no plan at all, so the readers and I were figuring things out at the same time)
Bonus: Make sure your character actually has, y’know, conflict to deal with, or an overarching plot, and make sure to never try to speedrun that overarching plot, let other plots take the lead for a bit if it happens
Bonus: Ride the wave
