What do you do if your fiction characters lack depth and originality?

If your fiction characters lack depth and originality, it's time to dive deep into their backgrounds and motivations. Give them unique quirks, flaws, and strengths to make them more relatable and interesting. Consider their hopes, fears, and dreams to add depth to their personalities. Try writing a character journal from their perspective to really get inside their head. And don't be afraid to make them flawed - imperfections can make them more human and relatable to your readers. Have fun with it and let your creativity flow!

The character journal is an excellent idea. Post-it notes filled with mental notes on the characters modus operandi, their personality and psychological framework are also interesting methodologies to play around with.

You can try a couple of things: Trace the biography of a character. If you can do it, you are on track. The character is more likely to be realistic. Second, imagine meeting the character in real life. Do they sound real to you? If not, you need to rebuild.

To breathe life into your characters, dig deeper: * **Beyond the stereotype:** Start with an archetype (hero, villain) but subvert it with unique traits and motivations. * **Flaws and quirks:** Make them real! Give them relatable weaknesses and interesting habits. * **Backstory matters:** What shaped them? A rich past informs their choices and reactions.

Show, don't tell is one of the best writing advice out there. Try to implement this in your writing and story. If your character is an angry woman then rather than saying it out loud, show it through subtle actions and her dialogues. If your character is a shy man, then show it using cues rather than directly saying it out.

Think about your character's motivation before you make them do something. Suppose an incident brings out anger in you, that is because there is some motivation for you to be angry. Think the same for your character and weave every action with a motivation.

Perfectionism is a lie. If your book is about a perfect land where nothing ever goes wrong, then your characters can be perfect but in all other instances, all your characters to be imperfect. Allow them to have shortcomings, anxieties, insecurities, vulnerability and fears amongst other things. This will make your story feel more human and real.

As much as we would want to create a character who's perfect, the temptation should be avoided at all costs. Perfect people don't exist. It is the imperfections in people that make them likeable. That applies to fiction too. The flaws in a character can be the cause of the twists and turns in the story, hence flaws would be more desirable.

Dialogues are the most powerful medium to give reality to your characters. Here are a few tips: - A character has to speak like a real life version of them, not like a character in a stage play. - Make sure the character is not speaking like you, the author. - If you hate writing the dialogue for a negative character, you are probably doing it right. - The acid test is this: if the reader reads only the dialogue without knowing the speaker, they should be able to tell which character is speaking those words.

While working on interactions between different characters, pay attention to the tone and the word choice. A teenager would likely be talking in a different tone and different words with his parents than with their friends. The tone might change if a character for instance, feels uncomfortable in the company of another. Careful calibration of tone and of word choice can make all the difference in writing effective dialogue.

Any static character in fiction would be a caricature. Growth and change are the life breath of any character. However, there is a crude way of doing it and then there is a desirable way of doing it. The crude way is the way of melodrama. It involves dramatic changes that deal only in black and white. An apple cannot be transformed into an orange, but an orange might become sweeter somehow. The desirable way is to stay close to life. A person might evolve due to certain factors, but will still carry on traits of their earlier personality. The writer’s art lies in depicting how the same old traits project in the changed personality.

Take inspiration from the people around you. For example, if your character has anger issues, think of someone you know with a short temper and ask yourself how they would react to a particular event. Base your originality in real life. Remember that real people can sometimes feel unreal too - don't be too harsh on yourself if your characters don't feel fully fleshed out. Lastly, it's always best to get a second pair of eyes. Seek advice and opinions from someone who can understand your views and meaning while also offering constructive criticism - preferably someone who is an avid reader, if not a writer themselves.