Writing can be hard. There are so many things to take into account: character personalities and development, timelines, setting, conflict, how that conflict is resolved, and, worst of all, Writers Block. Cue ominous music. But don't worry, we've all been there before, wanting to write but not having the ideas, of having ideas but lacking motivation to get them written. Creativity and motivation just don't seem to want to work together. In any sense, here are a few tips that have helped me in basically all aspects of writing.
Characters:
Character personalities, backstory, and development are all essential to writing. With good characters that readers can connect with, everything else really doesn't matter. There many ways to go about making characters, but there are some main point to hit when doing so.
Characters - Personalities:
Ah, personalities. Difficult to create, even harder to maintain. One thing that is a must when fabricating your character's personality, make sure it's believable. No one is going to believe that someone who is afraid of heights is going to go skydiving for their birthday.
Give the readers someone to connect with; make them feel very strong emotions when thinking of your character. Whether it be hate, love, anger, or amusement, connecting certain emotions to characters is an important step to making them feel real to the readers and yourself.
Remember, and this is an important one: you do not have to agree with your characters actions or beliefs. I cannot stress this enough. You don't have to agree with every characters' political stance or person views and beliefs. Frankly, it's good to have a few characters that have differing opinions to your own, it makes the story more colourful and diverse.
Speaking of diversity, make sure to have it. I'm serious. No one wants to read about the problems of five cis, straight, white men with business jobs who all make a lot of money and have the perfect family. This also goes hand in hand with giving your readers someone to connect with. It is totally okay to have a character like I described before, but please, do throw some diversity in there. Appeal to minorities; let them know that they are not invisible.
I know it's hard, but try to make sure to follow a character's personality throughout the book or whatever you're writing. Meaning: don't let your own views/reactions/beliefs affect the way a character actos or responds so something. And if they haven't undergone some major amounts of character development, don't completely change their personality by chapter five. It makes characters hard to connect with and confusing to read about. Don't be afraid to take a moment to think about what your character would do in a certain situation; you don't have to decide right that second. Sleep on it; make sure it's right before you do it. And even if it isn't, you can always go back and change it.
In connection to my last tip, it's also okay to just simply not know what they would do. This happens a lot with new characters. Their personality and backstory are spotty and you're unsure how they would react. Give it your best guess, and later if you realize that's not actually what they would've done or how they would've reacted, that's okay. That's called character development (which I'll go more in depth about later). The point is, not all wrong reactions are really wrong. They-and you-just haven't developed their personality yet.
Don't force a character's personality. If you feel a character should be one way, but are forcing them to do/be something else, I guarantee readers will pick up on that. Let it flow; do what comes naturally.
