Well, maybe your life isn't innteresting enough, idk but your mood in itself is quite interesting as a feeling and can create a good character who isn't up to his own expectations. That's it, in your feeling of "i'm not interesting enough", you found something interesting

L'éclectique It was funny until this comment was here.

@ I want to write such a character now!

This spoke to me more than any comment ever has

Nah I pretty much already assumed that for me.

whats great is a character can just be internally low at some point not externally low and thats not where we meet them or its not even where we get to with them..like you said we may never even see that point in there life or it may be a flashback...but just having that basis is a great way to make a better character...props to you for that as a starting point..it works for sure

@@razkable Flashbacks in and of themselves are usually poor forms of storytelling.

Your pic crew pfp is very cute

@@testedalexthegreat1759 I find flashbacks to be super annoying. I see this often on TV shows where it's pretty clear the writer doesn't understand where his own story is going. Just when you think the plot is advancing, ANOTHER FLASHBACK! There's a big difference between flashback and backstory. It's often worth the effort to come up with detailed backstory for the main characters, especially tragic backstory. But you keep it all way over there on a shelf collecting dust. You as the author know it's there, so the character knows it's there, but you don't wipe the reader's nose in it. A good compromise might be the way the story is told in the Dune books or the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy books. At the beginning of each chapter we see some backstory that intersects with the current situation, but never interferes with it. The writer doesn't screech the train to a dead stop to insert this backstory. At first it might feel this way to the reader, but then you quickly get used to the writing style. These mini-backstories take the form of their own stories, with a beginning, middle, and end. In the case of Hitchhiker, the stories are often humorous. In the case of Dune, the writer often takes the liberty of setting the common reference time well into the future of the main story, making the main story the backstory. In one example, the point of reference takes place many thousands of years in the future, and we're looking back on the main story in its historical context, in terms of how "modern" society was affected by these events thousands of years later. If you don't know what I'm talking about, I would suggest getting ahold of the first Hitchhiker book, as it's a much easier read than Dune. It becomes apparent nearly instantly what the writers are doing. And in this case, you may want to have 3 compartments. The main story, the main backstory, and the revealed backstory. The only time I recall a flashback being interesting at all, was in one of the books of The Chronicles of Amber. The story starts off very chaotic as the protagonist tries to reach Amber, the center of all reality in the multiverse. He unexpectedly meets his brother, who is also from Amber, who helps him get there. And maybe it was just a bit too convenient for him to show up at that exact time, but it moved the plot forward. Later on in the story (book 3 I believe) the chaos dies down for a moment so contacts his brother to ask him specifically why he was there at that particular moment of time. The brother (Prince Random) gives a very interesting data dump of his actions for the past several years. The writing style for this story is a bit different and it sounds like someone else is telling the story, which is true in-universe. The Amber series is notably written in first-person perspective. "I am a prince of Amber. I needed to get back. I had to fight all sorts of monsters along the way. I did this. I did that." In the chapter devoted to Random's story, he also uses the first-person perspective, but it feels a whole lot different. He was going through his own weird stuff at the time, with his own goals, his own struggles, etc. His story concludes at the point where he met with the main protagonist in the first book of the series. After that they have more of a shared history. When (in-chapter) he finally meets up with the main protagonist (Prince Corwin), he places him in the second-person. "I met YOU. I told you about the thing. I asked you about so and so. I helped you do this." I found this whole chapter to be one of the most enjoyable chapters in the entire series, and it might even be a good starting point for someone interested in reading the series. Maybe not, because there might be spoilers, but maybe so if they're on the fence about reading it at all. Other than that, flashbacks are almost always annoying.

@@protorhinocerator142 I don’t know I find flash backs as being very engaging if done correctly. I just finished reading Jurassic park and the times they use flashbacks or refer to events in the past it helped heighten the stakes in the present. But I agree that a weak writer might not always understand how to use flashbacks correctly.

That's a great tip!

liv, the hedgehog omg that’s brilliant. Thank you !

Omg thank you so much!!

tbh this is literally the only thing i do for characters, and to me it kind of making alot of other things not as important. once you know what someone did in their childhood, you know what kind of traits they will have. if they wanted a nice toy but were too poor, they will spend their adulthoods thinking about possessions from that viewpoint, perhaps from a mindset of scarcity, which in turn can become a limiting belief that "some people were just born rich". the arc will be complete when they find out either how to get rich, or that money isnt an inherently negative or positive thing, etc. kind of mind barfing all this, sorry lol

I don't want to be mean, but this is simplistic, and frankly, just plain wrong. For example, I have a scar in one eyebrow that I got by riding a bike too close to a rose bush as a kid, and although I'm imaginative, the other three traits you listed don't correspond to me at all. In the same vein, I know plenty of people who grew up poor but aren't obsessed with consumerism as in Kreative Chaos Guides' example. Did you folks get this idea from a psychology book? You can't take a single childhood event and draw those kinds of conclusions about someone's personality, or the impact their childhood might have on their future personality. Unless it's a life-altering one, and even then, different people react differently, because it's more complex than what you suggest.

"Specificity is my bread and butter." - Oh *yeah*? ... What kind of bread? Which brand of butter?! "Specificity is my vegan olive ciabatta and Anchor Low-fat spreadable."

Thanks dude🤗

Bless you.

Thank you!

Thanks!! I just love comments like it’s so useful :)

Love your work as well

Didn't expect to see you here, I must admit

Not gonna lie a bit surpised you're here.

Pleseant surprise seeing you here

Wow, seeing you here is kind of cool! I watch both her and you for writing advice, it's kind of neat that you watch her stuff.

i love doing checklists xd

@@leia2017 same

Thanks

thanks

Thanks 3 years late lol. I’m still watching but it’s very helpful to have it laid out like this

I don't even remember ever typing this out lmao but glad you guys are still finding it helpful!

@@Temperraryplaylist lol

I'm not familiar with the concept of The Shadow, but I'll have to read up on it, it sounds interesting!

You should, it's interesting and highly applicable to storytelling! Here's my favourite short guide on the subject: scottjeffrey.com/shadow-work/

ShaelinWrites ur so cute shaelin, read up on the subject of The shadow 😂

This is scary I JUST discovered this idea and its crazy. Yes definitely check it out

@@ShaelinWritesJungian psychology is good advice for writing. It has basis in stories like Harry Potter, LoTR, etc

Lmaooo

Alive?

Armadillo Panic love earth balance!! Lol 😂

Let's just say "bread and margarine" because there is margarine that is solely made out of plant oils. (It actually tastes a lot better than non-vegan margarine or butter. And it's a lot healthier too)

Any advice on how to write food while being realistic and respectful?

a big mood

I was gonna leave this comment too. 'It's my bread and Nuttelex.'

what you need to do is use others for inspiration for more minor characters and divide your traits into different main/side characters so each gets one trait and enhance that one trait in each of them to make them stand out...thats a good way to do it

Gabas Elamin it’s about a teenage boy who’s mom dies when he’s a freshman and his dad becomes an alcoholic who’s borderline abusive. He turns to drugs to cope with his depression and anxiety. His friends know that he has a problem but they won’t get him help because he doesn’t want it and they have too much fun. There’s also a love subplot but most of the book is ty (the main character) trying to overcome his drug problem

I know exactly how you feel. It's the same with my story 😂

I made characters for a comic I wanted to make and I was super excited, I went back over them today with my older brother and a lot of them were really dumb, to the point that I didn't want to show him because I don't want to get laughed at. It ended with me just staying quiet because I'm super insecure about my stuff. So now I'm looking for ways to improve my shite writing skills. Hope your first book doesn't turn out as bad as my cast of characters..

i know this comment is 8 months old, but if i have any advice it's to get feedback from people. whether that means getting an editor or just showing your book to some people you know or straight up releasing it. when you're locked in a bubble, you don't have the best vision of what it's like to actually read the book from the perspective of someone who doesn't know everything that happens, and that's the entire point of a book. if you want to make a good experience for readers, hearing about a reader's experience is extremely helpful. also, remember that life goes on after you're done with the book, and if you really want to you can remake it even better years later. don't stress too much about it. i hope my advice is in some way helpful.

I'm in the exact same position, the way I see it is that if it sucks its probably not getting released and then hopefully I'll write some other stuff and improve and then eventually come back and write the story properly.

Yes.

🤚

🫡

🙋‍♀️

"Here." 😂

Thank you!! This is very helpful! ❤

Thank you! :D

As I listen for the third time, I see this. :)

I can agree, I replayed the same part for AT LEAST twenty minutes so I could absorb it lol

mine are too!! love a disaster character!!

Actually I totally agree! Sometimes those really specific oddities/quirks are like a window into the character.

Ayeee I'm glad! Honestly it's such a hard topic to teach and I find a lot of content on the topic is /fairly/ repetitive or common sense

Don’t say aye ever again

Bob Marley calm yourself friend and it’s not polite to tell a lady what to do

@@BobMarley-eg3lv man what's up with you leaving all the rude replies

I struggle with secondary characters too! It can be a tricky one

ShaelinWrites What’s the problem with trying to make them all primary characters when not every one of them fits the spot

You could have the protag/narrator comment or be involved in stuff that a reader could know objectively and be biased about it. Or have an internal mechanism to ground the reader in the narrative reality that isn't attached to the protagonists experience

I recently read a book that did an excellent job with this, Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible. The book is about a missionary family in Africa, and it’s definitely not in favor of that at all. It’s a multi-POV (the family’s four sisters, some of whom are children at the start), and the characters all show up to the Democratic Republic of Congo in varied states of ignorance and unconscious bias/racism. And she puts a LOT of trust in the reader, letting us see the Congo and the Congolese people first through the eyes of ignorant Americans and only later reframing early events, as the sisters mature and become more informed about what’s going on (it’s set around the time that the Congo declared independence, had a democratic election, and then suffered through a CIA-backed military coup that installed a puppet government, extremely fucked up stuff). Anyway, in the beginning of the book she uses various devices to let us know that the book doesn’t share the prejudices of its narrators. In the case of one sister, she misuses and misspells a lot of words (not so many it’s distracting but pretty consistently throughout), blatant mistakes that would never make it to print, subtly separating the narrator from the author. In the case of another, she blindly worships the family’s missionary father, who we know to be a horrible person. Makes it clear she doesn’t yet understand what’s wrong with the colonialist mindset. Anyway those are the two devices I can think of off the top of my head, but I highly recommend the book, especially on this topic, it’s a masterclass in a certain type of unreliable narrators.

Ooooh good luck starting your draft!

No kidding because she talks so damn fast it's almost annoying.

Soup time!

@@melodine707 Uh, no she isn't?

@@melodine707 I listen to this on 2x speed and understand her well for the most part captions or not.

It sounds interesting and creative. I encourage you to continue your work. Do more research on writing and worldbuilding and utilize what you learn to make your work as good as it can be. I recommend looking into the worldbuilding of JRR Tolkien, he wrote fantasy, albeit European-based. Also, as you are 11, I encourage you to be very careful and vigilant on the Internet when it comes to who you interact with. God Bless

@@julia-nu4fj Thank you for ur feedback!

Adam Finch ME!

Thank you! Happy it helped!

Hi Emily, I was wondering if you would be interested in being a beta reader for my middle grade fantasy novel? It's about Pepper Poppins, a teen outcast whose quest to prove herself ordinary is derailed when she finds herself torn between protecting her town and keeping a dark secret hidden. If you're interested, please email me at lauren.elyse@live.com.au :)

I started writing stories as a hobby at age 10, so you arent alone here