: Re: Tips for adding more personality to characters? Often I read a new book only to find that the characters are flat, boring, and lacking in personality. Sometimes I even find that in my own

Everyone's mentioned the key points, but there's also a few exercises I like to use for digging deeper into those quirks and flaws of my characters.

One thing I use for exploring characters is to take them completely out of their element and see what happens from there. For example, take your medieval fantasy character and put them in the middle of a Black Friday sale. What happens next? How do they react? You'd be surprised what you discover about a character when they're placed in a totally different environment, and also, what happens will be completely character-driven instead of world or plot driven.

Going 'What if...' is also useful. What if they had a week off and all the money in the world? What if they had to choose between losing an arm or a leg? What if they knew the world was going to end tomorrow? What if they had to kill and skin a cute fluffy creature? What if the sports team they followed lost a key match? It can be as trite or as philosophical as you want (though I admit I enjoy the trite!).

My final (and somewhat random) suggestion is to think about their sense of humour. What makes them crack a smile? Laugh uproariously (do they even do that?)? Do they have a public and private sense of humour? Again, you'd be surprised what this can reveal about your character, and it tends to give them more dimension.

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: Re: Tips for adding more personality to characters? Often I read a new book only to find that the characters are flat, boring, and lacking in personality. Sometimes I even find that in my own

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: What are some ways to get to know your characters? For example, I have recently taken to analyzing all my characters within the scope of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. I already had my

: How to make travel scenes interesting without adding needless plot diversions? I have always had a problem with travel in my stories. Since I'm writing an epic fantasy novel, travel is a big

: Writing a Lullaby I need to write a short folk lullaby as part of my story, but am having trouble getting the feel of it in my lyrics. What are the general conventions of writing a lullaby?

: How do you use "stardust" in a sentence? Is there a better word to describe what I am trying to convey? I am looking for an expression or a word that will describe my attitude towards a

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