Character Creation Chaos

    Creating character's can sometimes be a chore, but there are ways you can make it fun. :D

    If you have Pinterest, that's a really great tool to use. Once you've gotten down the basics of what you want your character to look like, you can find pictures or drawings of people on Pinterest who look like your character, and that'll giver you even more information.

    But, because I don't have my own Pinterest board, I use character sheets. I make lot's of these, and keep many empty ones around. Once I fill these out, I have information like: their birthday, age, hair/eye color, family, residence, job, hobbies, likes, dislikes, quirks, and I put down the person I'm kind of modeling my character after.

    Once this is done, I'm able to get to know my characters better, and know them deeper, which is extremely helpful when I need to know how my character would react in a certain situation, and also for decisions they would make, and how they would make them.

 
     If you really want your character to come alive for your reader, you also want to watch how they talk. I struggle with this also. Sometimes I make my characters to perfect, so then I have to go back and fix that one scene that they're too perfect. And by perfect, I mean:

• Always speaking like, "I do not want to go to the park. Rather, I would like to stay home and be by myself." Or, "Yes, I had my shopping done just this morning. Thankfully, I got everything done very quickly."

   This kind of speech can be okay when you're in different time periods, but unless you're character is a rather fine person in the modern world, I don't normally hear people talk like that. 

    Also, another way to make a character too perfect, is to not give them mistakes. 

    As humans, we aren't perfect, we are still sinners, even if we are saved by God's grace. We mess up at times. And because of our mistakes, it causes life to go up and down. You need ups and downs in your writing, or else everything will just be super flat. 

    When you make a character mess up, or put them in a pit, it gives them a reason to climb again, and to continue the story. Making characters to perfect will lead to flat, nothingness, with no climbs to fix their problems, and no adventures along the way. 

    Granted, I still do this a lot. I have lot's of work to do in my writing still, to fix my too perfect characters, but I just wanted to tell you all what I'm learning as I go through my writing journey. 

   Keep writing! :D