So, I want to write a fanfic but I have questions

[Okie]

How do you give characters more than a 1 dimensional personality and make them their own individual

What are any tips for someone who is just starting out in the whole writing thing

And lastly, what are pitfalls to avoid ;learned from any experience, whether you read or write

 

[TheMidnightRook]

General Writing Development/Self-Improvement.

What is this general for? It's as the title says. This is thread dedicated to providing writing resources, tools, motivation and as a side-dish, general self-improvement cause why not. Okay but why tho? Sometimes I see posts from people lamenting about their lack of style, confusion of...

forum.questionablequesting.com

https://forum.questionablequesting.com/threads/writers-write-about-writing-rants-and-discussions.27659/

 

[Mr Zoat]

How do you give characters more than a 1 dimensional personality and make them their own individual

What are any tips for someone who is just starting out in the whole writing thing

And lastly, what are pitfalls to avoid ;learned from any experience, whether you read or write

Click to shrink...

If you're doing it properly?

Make a summary of their history and objectives. That will inform how they act and ensure that you don't contradict yourself because you forgot something. Professional versions are called a Series Bible.

You're probably not going to be very good to start with and some of the things you wrote at the beginning will make you cringe when you go back and look at them later. That is quite normal.

Have an actual plan. An overarching design for the story as a whole. You don't need to plan out every little thing, but 'these things need to happen roughly here, her and here' is very helpful.

 

[Sinner_sb]

How do you give characters more than a 1 dimensional personality and make them their own individual

What are any tips for someone who is just starting out in the whole writing thing

And lastly, what are pitfalls to avoid ;learned from any experience, whether you read or write

Click to shrink...

Knowing the setting well and being familiar with the characters help keeping them more realistic and their habits, likes, dislikes, personalities and overall actions.

Putting simply you need to be familiar with the series, some would argue that you need almost encyclopedic knowledge, while others would claim that just watching the series or reading the manga is enough. I personally go in between, know at the very least the source material as in watching or reading the series and knowing the setting and characters, but if you can learn more using official sources even better.

Now for original characters I personally use personal knowledge and in some I take traits and actions from people that I know, mixing and matching as I see fit. However you need to keep track things so they are consistent and they don`t act out of character when not intended to.

This consistency thing is also important for non-original characters, you need to know them enough to ask yourself "How would this character act on this situation?" Then you try and write them doing said thing or whatever the closest you think that they can do in the circumstance as they can or you can reasonably make them do. This also work with SIs and OCs, you can certainly embellish things a bit or change things a bit, all authors do so, most of us never had to kill or seriously hurt someone in purpose or accident, or being in circumstances where you could die or having to do something extremely dangerous, so we can go and decide how we want our SIs or OCs are going to react or do, but it should still be reasonable. If your character is a normal person they wouldn't instantly go turbo murderhobo unless they were already prone to that and held back in fear of consequences or there is pressure and rewards to do so. On SIs being able to work your flaws or decide what to remove or maybe add is on your purview. Still try not make them too perfect and flawless, having flaws and trouble doing stuff makes for a more interesting character and story.

In the end the best is also practice, write your stories, read them yourself and gain experience. I said this in other threads that I created and to others asking advice, I write first for myself and my own entertainment, if I don't like what I am writing/reading how can I expect others to like it?

Try not take negative criticism to heart, specially flames and those who just say stuff on the lines of "this story sucks'', "this is horrible" and other similar stuff. Critics are okay, negative ones are also okay as long they are actually telling you why they feel like that or what they don't like about your story. You need to learn how to take the critics and improve on it. However you need also to learn to not cave into pressure or changing things that you actually meant to write or portray because the readers don't like it or want it in a different way. It is perfectly okay to take ideas that come up when talking to people in the thread, I did so in the past and likely will do so in the future, but you don't need to take every suggestion or idea that you are given, but do remember to mention when you do so and give props to whoever gave you the idea.