Writing Styles and Useful Habits

[James]

Recently I've been finding myself at a loss come time to bring about posts that can contribute more than just a way to further a story with the same character, this also coming from noticing not that much advancement from previous works compared to my more recent pieces.

Either way I thought it'd be an idea to have a thread collecting all the perks, habits, beliefs and useful hints others might have for writing that could help someone else who might be lagging a bit or uninspired. Personally I hope to take some advice myself as my problem stems from being unable to put my ideas for a character into fruition and, if I do, its representation is a bit sloppy.

So yeah... Character building and personality shaping, how to build plot lines, producing worth-while pieces, working creatively with your fellow writers, delving into histories, the works! Not to mention this could be swept together to create quite the guide and reference for those who might need it on a fly.

[Cain]

I try to use NPC point of views in my story lines, but have yet to write a successful one, probably due to weak main characters. Fleshing out a main character is probably the most important thing you can do.

[Alexander Trafford]

Generally when developing a character, i did this especially with Minoshia, i used to keep telling myself that no realistic person ever reacts or acts in a simple manner - i think with online characters that we tend to create single-minded characters or pigeon hole them, like making a "good" or "evil" character, or trying to fit them into a video game 9 - section alignment (the lawful, true, chaotic, evil, neutral, good thing). You create characters that repeatedly react very single-mindedly, and that makes a boring character. I ran into that problem early on with Minoshia, but managed to change that when i started looking at how i would react to situations in my life and i realized that nothing is as simple as it seems.

For instance there might be one major event that provokes action to a character, say Trafford's car got rear-ended. Now, because i'm just writing this and its hard to make it as realistic as life i might have him react either understandingly (if he's good) or freak out (if he's nuts) or maybe, if he was Minoshia, kill the guy. But, in reality, its a much more complex situation - it depends on the kind of day your having, perhaps what your going to do and what you've done in future and previous posts, where you are, what you're driving, how the guy who hits you acts, the audience around you, etc.

I think that trying to base a character's physical, emotional and psychological actions, reactions and dialogues on real life perspectives, which are more complex than complicated. I think through sitting back and reflecting on how your character would react in a real-life situation such as this one also helps you develop those little, specific quirks and idiosyncrasies (sp?) that make characters unique and help flesh them out.

That's just what i tend to do, but don't take it too seriously since i haven't had much success writing anything of value lately or fleshing out my new character very well... at all.

[Super Buu]

Something I'm writing as half a reminder to myself is to actually fully visualise the scene as though you were there yourself. This kind of links in with what Trafford was saying. If you can actually put yourself in a semi-meditative state and believe you're the character, you can much better explain all the tiny details of the situation, how those affect things, and make the picture much clearer in your reader's mind. You can do before you start writing a scene, or afterwards in revision so as not to disrupt the flow, or you can do it during.

[Cain]

I'll try to work on that.