Once you’ve come up with a flawed character, come up with a situation (or a person) that directly targets and challenges their flaw. The key to a good antagonist/conflict and good character development is the tension between what the character is (namely, flawed) and what the antagonist/conflict is driving them to be become (namely, less flawed). 

Not every story has a “person” as an antagonist. It could be an animal, a monster, a societal structure, a storm. Whatever. Is your character deathly afraid of dogs? Good! Challenge them by having a dog chase them down. 

Some people argue that choosing a goal for your character is the same thing as having a flaw. I disagree on the basis that goals fundamentally come from flaws (aka we want to better ourselves). For example, if your character desperately wants to be prom queen...they likely have some sort of reliance on what other people think of them. Which is a flaw. 

Once you have a flawed character and a conflict, you can move on to the next step.

2. Outline a Dramatic Structure

Maybe it’s unoriginal, maybe it’s not, but Freytag’s pyramid is tried and true. Whenever stories execute it correctly, it almost never fails. Follow this structure and most readers will agree that you’ve got a pretty great story. 

Basically, here’s how it works. You take your flawed character(s). You place them in a world. That world can be whatever you want, but this part is key: the world cannot be challenging the person’s flaw. Not yet. 

At the start of story, the character should have little to no reason to act on their flaw. The world is “balanced,” essentially. Things don’t have to be perfect, but they should be fine enough that the character isn’t pressured to act. Otherwise, we’re left wondering why the character didn’t take action earlier. 

Then comes the inciting incident. The inciting incident is the introduction of the conflict/the antagonist. That doesn’t mean that a supervillain necessarily has to swoop in and kick the shit out of your protagonist as the inciting incident. It just means that the world has become “unbalanced,” and the character can no longer sit comfortably with their flaw. They’re going to have to act—and answer the challenged posed by the conflict/antagonist. 

From there there’s:

Rising action: little events that add insult to injury in terms of making the character’s flaw more and more detrimental to them

Complication: the high-stakes situation that brings on the climax

Climax: usually a choice the character has to make. Will they chose to overcome their flaw? Will they make a sacrifice to do it? Will they make a mistake?

Falling action: usually the direct result of the climax. Basically the consequences of the character’s choice. 

And then resolution/denoument: the audience gets some time to reflect or examine the changes the character underwent. The character could’ve overcome their flaw, and seen character development. Or they could’ve failed to change, and the conflict punished them for it somehow. Either way, the conflict should be resolved. 

When you’re planning this shit, make sure to OUTLINE!!! Outline everything. The structure, the characters, the setting,etc. The more in depth your outline, the easier it will be to go from one scene to the next. I know plenty of writers who do not outline and I legit DO NOT UNDERSTAND HOW. I guess you might be able to store your basic dramatic structure in your brain, but I doubt you have space for the fun stuff that really makes your story powerful—like foreshadowing and metaphor and complex worldbuilding

Oh, and the climax doesn’t have to be a major showdown or anything. Literally all that’s necessary for a successful climax is that the character makes a choice that resolves the conflict. For example, if the conflict centers around learning to let go of the past, that choice could be as simple as throwing out an old photo.

3. Listen When People Speak

A lot of people struggle to write dialogue, and this struggle is what causes characters to seem ooc in fanworks, or downright inhuman in original works.

As a writer, you really need to sit down and master the art of listening. Listen to the way people speak—their intonation, their pacing of words, their mannerisms and catchphrases. If you’re writing an original character, choose either an actor or a person in your life to be their “voice model.” Listen to that voice model. Write the habits that you hear. Incorporate those speech patterns into your writing and voila! Dialogue that sounds like it came from a human (because it did actually come from a human).

For TV, movies, and podcast fanworks, finding content to listen to is relatively easy. You’ve got hours of existing dialogue. Fanworks for books, though, can be tough. You really got to analyze that written dialogue for clues. But it can still be done!

My friends will often say that I’m uncannily good at imitating them. In reality, though, I don’t really alter my pitch or tone. I’m just good at copying the way they talk—not the voice itself. 

4. Cut the Crap

You’ve heard of “Kill Your Darlings,” which basically means cutting out unnecessary characters or side-plots. Now I raise you: Cut the Crap. 

One of the most common things I see (particularly in fanworks) are these long and winding scenes that seem to drag and drag and drag. It’s usually done in this misguided effort to “fill in the blanks”—to move from one relevant plot point to the next without ever taking a break. 

For example, let’s say we have a story where something important happens to the character at school, and then another important event happens to the character at home. For whatever reason people, many writers (including me, sometimes) end up trying to fill that space between relevant plot points. The scene will include the day at the school, the walk from school, and the arrival at the house. 

But guess what? You don’t need to chronicle the character’s uneventful walk home! So...cut the irrelevant crap! Instead, focus on spurts of relevant action and events. Ever seen a cut between scenes in a movie? You can do those in writing too! Use a page break/line separator to separate critical moments, thereby creating smaller vignettes while still maintaining the passage of time. These can be especially helpful when building suspense. Did something surprising just happen? Make the reader hold their breath with a page break, and then hurtle forward at full-speed. For example:

“And that’s when the murderer raised his axe, and charged.

---------------

[Character] sprints, jumps, pants—determined to keep that vicious axe from cleaving through their body.” 

The one challenge with using line separators/page breaks is that you have to have a good opening and closing line for every vignette. Otherwise, the story will seem too choppy. But on the plus side, these powerful opening/closing lines will keep readers consistently engaged.

5. Vary Paragraph and Sentence Structure

You’ve probably heard about how varying sentence structure can make your writing more interesting. And yes, I absolutely agree! But the same can also be said for paragraph structure. 

When writing, you can play around with the ordering of phrases, the presence of verbs in sentences, the use of punctuation, etc. Write like you’re describing a moment to someone, rather than like you’re telling a “Once Upon a Time” story. I know that sounds counterintuitive, but you don’t need to be so formal. Life isn’t formal. Narrate like a person!

For example, instead of saying, “She was so very guilty, she felt overwhelmed and utterly helpless,” you could say, “Guilt. So much guilt. It overwhelmed her completely—left her feeling utterly helpless.” The second one (at least to me) sounds better because it sounds like what a guilty person would say as the emotion hits them. Varying sentence structure is how we emulate those emotions. 

Now onto paragraphs. For some reason, I feel like a lot of writers are afraid of short paragraphs, instead opting for long paragraphs that exhaust the eyes. 

Teachers will tell you that you should break a paragraph for every new idea. I disagree. I say that you should break a paragraph on every new thought. There’s a difference between these things in my mind. To me, every “new idea” means every new topic. But every “new thought” means each time your brain pauses and considers something—some new piece of info, some distraction that caught your attention—that’s when you break paragraphs. 

Here’s an excerpt from the vanishing point to exemplify this concept. First I’ll present it to you written without short paragraphs and varying sentences...and then I’ll show you how I actually wrote it. 

Mediocre version:

No, someone was not standing over Catra, but hunched over her, searching Catra’s features for any sign that Catra was alright. She realized that it was Adora leaning over her. Catra had never seen Adora so unkempt, so beaten and brutalized, her cheeks stained and streaked with tears. Her face was coated in dust and debris. Even her ponytail was gone. The hair was broken apart. The strands were singed and splayed like broken wires.

Technically, this could all be one paragraph, as shown before. But it just doesn’t feel right. These thoughts connect conceptually, but Catra’s brain would likely process all of these things slowly, and separately. And the paragraphs should be used to demonstrate that timing. For example: 

Good version:

No, not standing. Hunched. Someone was hunched over Catra, searching Catra’s features for any sign—any indication—that Catra was alright.

Adora. It was Adora, leaning over her.

Catra had never seen Adora so unkempt, so beaten and brutalized. Her cheeks were stained and streaked with tears. Her face, coated in dust and debris. Even her ponytail was gone. Broken apart, the strands singed and splayed like broken wires.

Now this one is interesting! We see Catra shaking off something that she misperceived, and then abruptly noticing Adora hunched over her. And then, because Catra is in love with Adora and basically drinks in her every feature, we’ve got a slower, meandering paragraph in which Catra describes her appearance. So yeah! Experiment with your sentences and paragraph length.