: Lost my ‘magic’ concerning characters I love creating characters, and for me it’s been the joy of writing for however long I’ve been doing it. I have maybe three or four unfinished projects

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I quote Natalie Goldberg a lot because I love how, in Writing Down The Bones, she talks about ideas like compost. You throw in all the kitchen scraps and dead leaves and give them time to break down. Given enough time, they develop into beautiful compost that’s like gold for your garden.

Maybe you just need to give your story and characters a bit more time to ‘compost’ in your mind.

Character is driven by action. Who they are as people is defined by the choices they make and the actions they take. That is, you don’t tell a reader your character has a hard time making decisions, you put them in situations where their lack of decision making leaves them paralysed.

Perhaps, if you give your story time to grow, your characters will develop out of the situations you write them into. Try flipping things on their head and have them react in unexpected ways. As your story develops, your characters will too.

Sometimes, the harder a story is to write, the more complex and rich it becomes. But those stories take more time than others. The decisions and actions taken harder to make, and the characters deeper and more three-dimensional as a result.

So, I wouldn’t rush into writing it off as a bad idea. Perhaps work on finishing the others while you give this one the time it needs to ‘compost’. It could end up being the best thing you’ve ever written.

Good luck!

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I have that happening to me, too. But you should draw a line between 'unlikable' and 'flat'.

In my stories I have characters that are total assholes I would never ever want to meet in real life. But they are never flat! They have something that made them who they are now - even if it's just their character of being a totally selfish jackass with no empathy whatsoever.

What may be the challenge you're facing on the other hand might come from the fact that you are jumping between stories. It might be an aversion driven by your subconsciousness because you acuse your new characters of luring you away from all the others of which you still have and want to tell the full story. But that's just a guess tbh...

It is also possible that not 'liking' them is your gut telling you that there is something off with their personality, something that just doesn't add up or has no logical explanation. Not of the kind like somebody disliking pineapples for whatever reason, but more like someone shy stepping up as the hero in a deus ex machina way and not as logical development of his character.

Just my two cents...

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It has happened to me. But I went with it. I made the characters really unlikeable.
I think I was in an angry state of mind and I needed someone to vent on. It was interesting because eventually I humanized them and found small things that I could relate to.

I still didn't like them all that much, but they were not as flat.

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