Writing: Tips and Tricks!

How to Develop Your Characters:

Welcome back to Sienna's writing class! 🤓📝

Today my little butterflies we shall be discussing how to develop your characters to make them more real and relatable. 👩🏽‍💻👩🏼‍💻👩🏾‍💻

Step one: who do you want your lead male or female to be. Fun? Rude? Nasty? Kind? Kinky? After you've picked your adjective branch out from there. Think of someone you know who is like that - (try not to think of movie characters because they're usually slightly exaggerated.)

How does this person you know act? When they're kind do they have a way of phrasing their sentences, when this person is nasty to people do they have a way of scrunching up their nose or do they use particular words?

The point I'm making is that you're trying to evoke feelings from your readers. If your characters are shallow in the sense that they have no depth to their personalities your readers will find it hard to develop a connection, even if they don't like them.

If it helps; make a mind map! If you're as secretly into developing your stories like I am then character mind maps will be your new best friend.

Start with a name, what names suit your character? Think of this process like how parents go about naming their new babies. Do some research, type in "baby names and meanings" into google. Don't pick something just because it's pretty!!

EXAMPLE: i picked "Lily Villanueva" because the calla Lily flower is one of the most beautiful lily flowers there are. Not only do they have a delicate appearance but it also turns out that LILY's are typically used for funerals. Lily Villanueva had a dark past, right? See how it works? Kinda???

I picked "Tia Maria" is a dark liquor made in Jamaica - Tia like reggae music. Its ingredients is rum, vanilla and sugar. Rum is kinda strong like Tia's personality, vanilla is the (sorry if this taken wrong) side of her that's white because she's mixed race. And the sugar, is how she is when she meets Justin. Nice and sweet!!!! Get it?!?!?!

AS SILLY AS THIS SOUNDS, YOU WILL GROW TO LOVE THESE LITTLE CREATIONS BECAUSE THEY ARE JUST SIMPLY THAT - YOUR CREATIONS.

MAKE THEM COME TO LIFE. GIVE THEM A NAME THAT MAKES SENSE, GIVE THEIR PERSONALITIES DEPTH.

what I mean by depth is make sure they so extraordinarily ordinary - that people feel like they're reading about someone they're growing to know.

Think about: hobbies, habits, likes and dislikes, music taste, film taste, pet peeves, catch phrases, hair styles, fashion style, obsessions... the details of their ethnicity, their parents backgrounds, siblings, high school, university choice ... !! Some of these can be seen as petty BUT THEY ARE IMPORTANT. I can't stress this enough.

Sometimes you might have to make compromises. If you have a sensitive flower of a character, who is very sweet yet clingy and stuff - you make have a negative reaction. But once your character has adopted their personality - DONT YOU DARE CHANGE IT BECAUSE SOMEONE GOT MAD.

NOT EVERYONE WILL LIKE YOUR CHARACTERS.

I SWEAR MOST PEOPLE THAT HAVE READ ROSES HATED MIRA IN THE BEGINNING. BUT JUST BECAUSE YOUR CHARACTER HAS A LITTLE BIT OF NEGATIVE BACKLASH - IT DOESNT MAKE YOUR STORY BAD. IT MAKES IT INTERESTING.

LIKE, oh this girls a c*nt... I wonder if she'll change once she falls in love ... you get me!??

Having negative backlash on your characters can be really disheartening and annoying, the amount of times I've had to stop myself replying some sass to people who have insulted my lead girls is in its hundreds , sometimes i slip up - and you will too maybe! - but try and remember before you do, the reader cared enough to comment. And what does that mean?

INTEREST!! YOU'VE DONE SOMETHING RIGHT! 🗣🗣🎉

(Sometimes you do get assh*les just commenting sh*t for the sake of it but most of your readers will be absolute darlings who are just chillin' and enjoying themselves. Love and appreciate them by producing good ASS WORK!)

But to sum up:
1) Give your characters a real personality
2) Give their personalities depth! Hobbies! Ethnicity! Music taste! Etc!
3) With every good trait comes a bad one, be consistent! Don't give in to the negative comments about your babies.
4) Take the negativity as a compliment! Your readers care enough to share their opinions!

Darlings, developing your characters will take a while - but it's fun! And you can add depth to them as you go along and as you, as the author and almighty creator, will get to know your character you will find traits and likes and dislikes easier to put together for the story.

Don't feel like you need to sort them down to a T immediately. You don't need to let your readers know everything in the beginning!🗣

Hell, wing it if you must!!! But make sure when you do wing it, you wing it WELL. And hopefully this has helped!

More tips and tricks coming soon! Thanks for reading!
- Sienna xoxo