Why Are Main Characters So Boring?! 

I'd like this topic to be explored too. I have a huge plot twist and I dont know when or how to reveal it

I have found that when that secret will actually hurt another character, that secret has a greater impact. And, to clarify, by "hurt" I mean that it stands in the way of their goal, or changes their goal entirely. A good example of this is in RWBY, when two characters, Weiss and Blake, are arguing about an organization known as the White Fang. Weiss, whose family has been fighting the White Fang for years, believes their ways are wrong, whilst Blake believes that they've been pushed to their extremist ways by her family and others like them. When Blake reveals that she grew up as a part of the White Fang, it changes how Weiss sees her family, and eventually comes to realize that every side has a story. It's significant because of how many ripples it sends through other characters. To quote the Little Prince, "it's the time you have wasted on your rose that makes your rose so important." When more time is dedicated to establishing some goal or opinion, and it is wrecked by a character's secret, it becomes heavier with a more significant meaning.

Im not very experienced, but I would say: 1. Have foreshadowing: the plot twist or secret must have hints for the reader to speculate befote it's revealed. A twist out of nowhere feels out of place. 2. Consequence: the twist must have an impact on the story and characters, or else it feels useless.

Look up Plot Twists by the closer look Edit- *Nevermind it was overly sarcastic productions plot twist* still check out that video though it is on the movie knives out

im also trying to figure that out

That's because you don't take any real risks.

i feel like you're just calling out sao by now

Eliska Nghiemova I would try to inspire myself by watching shows and movies about relationships

idk make em eat a fuk fuk fruit and bring it outta no where lol (do not i repeat do not do this)

I think good chemistry is when a character adds to something to the other that he is lacking, and that doesn't need to be obvious. For example, let's see, Tangled. Eugene lacked love and respect from others as a civil. He's lonely, and tries to get respect as a thief, cause as a regular person no one really cared for him, and there was this cool story of a thief, so he does that. What Rapunzel gives him is respect. She's the first one to learn his real name and she says she likes that person better. As for Rapunzel, she lacked freedom. Her mother was abusive and manipulative. Eugene, though, is transparent, unlike the mother. He is clear that all he cares is for the crown, but he still doesn't make her hostage. He unwillingly takes her there, and at a time, he starts to respect her dream of seeing the lanterns and becomes supportive, something her mother never was. Each of them fill a hole in the other. For me, that's good chemistry.

they both need to be active in some way or another, every time when there is only one active character who tries to show his/her love and other one is just "ok" or "no, I don't like him/her" or "no, I don't deserve him/her" or something else, it's becomes boring really fast NO stupid characters who can't read atmosphere and signs! NO! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! also wholesome physical contact is always nice

That’s really creative

Niiiiiiiice, very Niiiiiiiice

I might try that.

Make it meaningful and have true impact otherwise don’t kill them with out any effect to the story

Treat it like real life. It will stick with the characters through out the story and different people will react differently to it

@@SkeTchYHarley yes Absolutely! It has to be meaningful or impacts the story in a big way. The horrible way to do this (see The Last of Us Part 2)

You probably want a character to blame themself.

There's no exact way you should write characters dealing with a death, but it's important to individualize their grief. Like don't have them all respond the same way; think hard about how each character would genuinely feel and how that might come out. Avoid things like "it's all my fault" being the *only* thing a character feels about someone dying; you need something secondary and meaningful to the character. People do weird and powerful things when they're grieving, and nobody should miss out on such an interesting opportunity to add emotion and realism to their characters & story. EDIT: oh lord I commented on a 3 year old comment without even realizing, I'm leaving it tho

For channels that give a lot of free information like you both, all you need to do is essentially take the information from your videos and turn it into a book format (essentially transcribing), and then people usually add bonus content and voila you have a sellable product. If you ever decide of course.

omg I would totally buy that

While this may not be the genre you are interested in, Violet Evergarden is a perfect example on how to convey and do this. She basically starts as a "doll" and must learn to experience and understand human emotions. She used to be a military weapon too! Along the way, she learns to make connections with others. It's rather beautiful. So, your idea is definitely doable! Sounds like a great start. :)

@@rylanieviro3617 oh my gosh I love Violet Evergarden! Deep down that's probably where part of my inspiration came from. I just love Violets character development and the little hints we get about every character through out the episodes that you sometimes miss unless you rewatch it

@@wizardofarts1276 where can we find your story? im very interested!!

@@pandapan5797 so, you know that thing artists do where they have an idea but move onto another concept before it's finished? That's what happened. But whenever I revisit this, it'll become a short comic on webtoons. I can let you know when that happens if you want?

you just PERFECTLY described my character. every little bit of it. nothing left out.

tommy turtle ask yourself questions. So the characters are in this world, were they originally from the same world? Is this other world someplace others may want to get their hands on? Is this world in danger? Who exactly are these characters? With questions like this you can start to come up with answers that will eventually be the wood you carve into your story. Hopefully this made scene lol.

tommy turtle outline your plot

@@dahgurr4833 some people aren't outliners

Just hit them with a truck.

@@shameerabdullah9368 HAHAHAHAHA

That is really interesting. I really like this idea, writing with the same cast of characters with different genres and plots really makes for well defined and understood characters. I often find myself always making a new cast of characters when some plot bunny hits or just a random thought and it does get confusing and sometimes the characters feel too impersonal. I think I’ll try this idea out, it sounds really interesting to me and I’d love to see my favorite characters in multiple stories showing off multiple parts of their personality that may not shine through in the original. Thank you so much for the idea!

The thing that makes characters interesting isn’t their personality, powers or weaknesses, but if they are challenged by the plot and their actions and decisions are important to the plot. They need to be put in a situation where their decisions have weight. IMO there is no such thing as Mary Sues/Gary Sues, only bad plots that don’t challenge the character. You can have character who has no funny traits or charisma, but if you put them in a position where they are challenged, where their actions have consequences, people will be interested in seeing what they do. Like Mob from Mob Psycho 100 has a very unexciting personality and Mary Sue levels of power, but is very interesting to readers because the plot is about his maintaining his unexciting status or his powers destroy everyone. The writer generates conflict around the clash between these two aspects. What you need is not to make Hana have better traits, but to have a passive character turn into an active character. You already have the formula there in the first line. Hana wants to learn the power of flowers to save her mother from an evil organization. This is probably the most interesting of the character motivations you listed. Hana’s goal is to become strong and defeat evil. That’s a winning formula shared by a ton of popular characters, like Goku, Naruto, almost all of shonen comics, Aang and Korra from Avatar: TLA and TLOK. Hana has an ambition to be strong enough to defeat strong enemies, so she should be looking for ways to get strong, looking for clues to find her mother, looking for members of the evil organization to defeat, trying to recruit strong people to help her fight them. She’s going on a rescue mission. There’s a lot of active things she can be doing. Is she trying to change herself to become a person who can defeat the organization? How does this affect her? Does she need to become less kind? Does she fight to preserve her nature? Will the power of flowers be enough to rescue her mother? If there is a time limit on the rescue, what if she’s too late to save her mother? This all depends on what kind of story you want to tell, but they are interesting questions you can make readers curious about. It also might be a good idea to get rid of characters if their role overlaps too much with the role that Hana is supposed to play. You might be unintentionally splitting one role between two characters and making them both weaker as a result. For instance if you have a character that isn’t the Hana making most of the plot-relevant decisions, try giving those decisions to Hana or maybe just make that character the main character instead. Another problem might be if the characters are running on autopilot and easily solving Hana’s problems for her, that makes it less interesting for readers to pay attention to Hana, because she never has to confront her weaknesses. This is one of the reasons that mentor figures are constantly dying or being written out of scenes because they are, more often than not, basically the main character but already strong. It’s hard to challenge the main character when they are around, unless they have a trait which makes it difficult for them to help, (like being old or injured or disgraced or losing their powers or never had powers in the first place). Again, most importantly, Hana has to make plot-driving decisions.

Make sure the main character has the most screen time. An easy way to do what you're talking about is to have the protagonist be the new person, of the group. This way the other characters are carrying the load, but the protagonist isn't out of place.

I think he means obtaining references from observing other characters in books,movies,real life e.t.c that has attributes of the character or oc you are trying to create.Hope this helps.

I usually just use MBTI personality types and tweak the personalities a little bit. I also sometimes use the Enneagram.

And this is why authors don't need to try.

Sounds interesting! But the desing dosn't make their personality more or less interesting. It's great if it has a good design and a good personality

**cough cough* *Kazuto Kiriguya* *cough cough**