: Re: How to care about the characters more than the world? I have a very well-built up world with politics, religions etc, that I've built up over the course of my writing. But I have recently

@Sarah872

Here are three possible answers, from the biggest intervention to the smallest, depending on what the underlying issue is:


Maybe you aren't interested in people. That isn't an accusation. But we all write best the things we love best. Sometimes, in order to address our weaknesses as writers, we first have to address our weaknesses as observers. I used to be very bad at writing visual detail, because I'm not very detail oriented. I had to learn to pay attention to that aspect of the world in order to write it. Similarly, maybe you need to study people more, and take more interest in their lives.
Maybe this character just isn't interesting. This is your world. There are theoretically millions of people in it. Why stick with a dud? Come up with a different character, one you are interested in --maybe one that is perfectly suited to illuminate parts of your world. Master of the 5 Magics (to use a favorite example) does this very well. The writer did some great world building, both in terms of locations, but also in terms of the magic system he created. How to make that interesting? Create a character who has pressing internal and external reasons to travel across the world, and master each of the separate systems.
Maybe this character has no goals. Maybe the character isn't a dud, and maybe you're not bored by people. Maybe this particular character doesn't want anything. Characters are only interesting when they want things and pursue them. And when they experience internal and external conflict around those goals, it makes them compelling.

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