#7 — Not Developing Characters
I’m sure we’ve all come across a character in a book who we didn’t feel anything toward much. We weren’t worried about the character’s well-being.
Which doesn’t help us want to continue reading.
It can take many drafts to get into a character’s head and develop them on the page. Some characters are harder to write than others.
I’ve struggled with this before. I would have a character, and everything’s there, but it’s bland. There’s no emotion to pull the readers in.
However, I’ve found that getting inside your character’s head helps the most with this.
Sit down and interview them. What are their quirks? Their sense of humor? What kind of sandwich do they like? What colors do they like to wear? Are they a social person? Do they like grapes? What’s peculiar about them? What stands out?
Insert at least a couple of those details whenever your character is in a scene. If the character is a jokester, make them say a sarcastic comment every once in a while. If they’re peculiar about food, have them nitpick what’s on the table.
Add some flavor of what people usually do too. Pause at random. Restart sentences. Have jokes that fail. Take back what they said seconds afterward. Those little moments can help bring out your character and make them more relatable.
It’s important to develop your characters on the page if they feel weak. Cause if you’re not super excited about your characters, who will be?
I hope this helps!
Robin LeeAnn 
Well done. I love this series of yours
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Thank you so much, friend! I’m glad you like it!
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Good one, but I rarely write my stories revolving around characters, people are part of my stories.
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People have their own different styles.
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It helped. Especially the funny one… Sometimes I come across books and you introduced a character as a funny person but the character never made any joke or show funny traits
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Glad it helped!
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