*This is a sponsored post. All opinions are 100% mine.
Characters are the lifeblood of your writing. If you don't have good characters, audiences won't connect with any other work that you've done with your plots, themes or narrative arcs. Here are just a few tips for ensuring that your characters are strong enough to carry your story.
1. Give Everyone a Personal Motivation
What do your characters want? It can be as simple as "a new girlfriend" or as complicated as "improved diplomatic negotiations for the country they're ruling." Just give them some kind of reason to get out of bed in the morning. This includes all supporting characters, even the ones with motivations that don't actually make the page. They'll have stronger voices if you flesh them out.
2. Start With a Likeable Scene for Your MC
This is important even for anti-heroes and villain protagonists. If you want the audience to root for your main character (MC), the audience needs to be engaged by them early on, and that means giving them an introductory scene with something human or relatable. Show your mob boss petting his dog. Show your gruff cop making breakfast for his little girl. There are a million ways to tell the audience, "This is someone worth caring about."
3. Let Your Characters Dictate Their Own Actions
While it's understandable that you want your characters to follow along your preexisting plot, it's important not to twist their arms in a way that's unbelievable or contrary to how they would really act. If your plot demands that a neurotic, safety-obsessed lab technician accidentally mislabels something, that's bad writing. It would never happen! Find another way to explode the nuclear bomb.
4. Create Character Sheets
Character sheets are how you flesh out your creation and turn them into a real person. They include all of those little touches that no one cares about but you, like your character's coffee preferences and what kind of shoes that they like to wear. These details might not make it into your script, and they might not be important to your narrative arc or mythology, but they'll help you see the story through the eyes of a real human being and not just a plot device.
These are just a few tips for better book and screenplay writing. Whether you're penning an epic novel or just scribbling a short story that's been rattling around in your head, use these guidelines to bring your creations to life.
