do you have tips on katseye characterization jdhdjs im worried that my fic is a bit ooc
hello!!! wow im honored that youโre coming to me for writing adviceโฆ i apologize ahead of time if itโs questionable ๐ณ
i think i try to approach characterization primarily through contrast and dialogue. like i think dialogue is the easiest to make someone sound in character or out of character, and in my writing, i try to give distinct traits or voices to each of the girls and try to stick with them via both story content, and writing form.
Story content wise, i think thatโs pretty straightforward โ for me, at least, a lot of ooc-ness comes through a lack of realism. I feel like itโs harder to โaccuratelyโ write characters if theyre place in situations that they are completely separate from (eg im imagining an assassins creed black flag au of the girls right now lol) but you could try and just go off of what the girls are already known for.
For example, everyone knows manon is the visual of the group, and i personally think itโs pretty clear that she is talent and knows how to sing and dance, but she also constantly dissed, just because sheโs not exactly as experienced and thus โgoodโ as the other girls; in my PJO au, i imagine sheโs similar to a child of venus: looked down on for having a pretty face, but working hard to overcome that stereotype. same for the others, with yoonchae being the youngest (and what that might mean for how she is trested vs wants to be treated), dani always asking questions in the group (according to that one interview) and seen as a little โtoo goodโ at one specific thing, Lara being extremely mature and non confrontational (based on how she speaks in a few interviews iโve seen), Megan being an all rounder (and what that might mean for her feelings in a group of talented people, each with distinct spikes), Sophia being the leader (and how that might work with being the liaison or handling pressure), etc. As long as any part of the story is consistent with a trait that each of the girls is associated with, someone could write any of the girls in a strange role, and i genuinely think it could still be in character.
the other thing is dialogue: i think itโs very helpful to have a voice for each character, and to know how to write the voice to differentiate each of the girls. I also think itโs very important to not have TOO much dialogue, which can sometimes start making all the characters start sounding similar, if you donโt make their dialogue all distinctively different. I try to both not rely too much on dialogue (introspective writing is my preference, so I like to do free indirect discourse when possible), but i also try to stick with some distinctions between how i write each girlโs dialogue.
for instance, to me, megan has a very east-coast, fast paced voice filled with run-on and comma-spliced sentences and pretty casual vocab โ i also recall watching a few of the kats interviews and she says โlikeโ a lot (so does Lara) compared to the other girls. Yoonchae, on the other hand, i usually stick with things that kind of show a bit of slower speaking and the language barrier: shorter sentences, simpler words, sometimes forgoing contractions. Lara tends to be my voice of reason or neutrality in most of my works, and her voice is pretty similar to Meganโs but itโs just contextual differences for when sheโs speaking, and I try to give her more grammatical structure and periods at ends of sentences, just to show that sheโs also a bit of a slower speaker than Megan. Manon and Dani I imagine to be snarkier, and I like to give Manon the unserious or blunt one-liners (i kind of based that bluntness off of one of my college best friends, whoโs gay and German lol), while Daniโs snark comes through less often, and I try to place her as the more oblivious/curious in the group (noted from that one interview where I think it was Sophia who said Daniโs always asking questions about where theyโre going). Sophia is also a voice of reason, similar to Lara, but I try to make her voice sound grammatically perfect, and sheโs also the only one of the girls Iโm willing to let have exclamation points (which i usually use for short phrases and greetings, because imo, itโs pretty ooc for most people to say a longass sentence with an exclamation point at the end)
All in all, i donโt think thereโs one specific way to write in-character, since we are all a little parasocial and interpreting the girlsโ dynamics differently. However, i think picking one or two things about each girl and expanding on that, through plot elements, external/internal descriptions, and dialogue, while keeping this consistent throughout a story, will make anything you write sound in character.
happy writing and good luck! thanks for dropping by and good lord this is a long answer but i hope itโs helpful! ๐
