ATTENTION WRITERS OF TUMBLR

It is not wrong to love your own characters, or to have your favorite fictional character to be one of your own. They are your creations, and are influenced by traits you life the most. You are always writing a character that is written by you, so you are the person who is going to relate to them the most. It is ok to make characters based on aspects of yourself, because you yourself are a unique person. It is always better to love your own characters than it is to see them as nothing but a bunch of words.

If you don’t care about your characters, how can you ever expect your readers to care about them. When people say “Write what you know.” Don’t take that literally. The best way to think is what about what you enjoy, that joy will always be clearly visible to anyone reading it. Passion is what makes a good book, and there will always be a group of people that will like what you are passionate about. Even if you only write as a hobby, hobbies are meant to be fun! Of course it’s good to listen to feedback, but remember that it’s your story, not theirs.

(Spoilers for my book, skip to last paragraph if you plan on reading it when it’s finished)

Even my favorite fictional character is one of my own. In the Fantasy novel I am currently writing, there is a character named James W. H. Honorborn. He is a ‘Hee-Hoo’ kind of wizard with a long white head of hair and beard, wears black robes with gold detailing, and has a voice similar to J.K. Simmons. On the surface he seems mostly harmless, barely casting any magic and loving to just exposit random information with his many stories, but in reality he is of a race created by gods. (In my world each galaxy has it’s own set of gods, most life is from evolution, but sometimes the gods create their own species to protect their favorite lifeforms) James looks mostly human, but is actually an Eldritch mage, immortal people who are highly proficient is magic and memorizing stuff. Their purpose is to involve themselves in cultures and learn everything about them. For most of the book, James is practically harmless, being a pacifist and very caring friend, but in the final battle, when the antagonists barely noticed his existence, but then he proceeds to cast a spell so badass, it can be seen from anywhere on the planet.This is not even the main character of my book, even though he’s my favorite. He is a perfect foil to my protagonist and his goofy nature and humor makes him one of the most human characters I’ve seen in a book.

Remember that every character you write, every passerby and every big bad is one of your OC’s, so treat them like one. Try to make every single person in your story enjoyable to write! I’ve met many people who tried to get into writing, but are stuck on a bunch of unfinished wip’s. When I read them, 6 times out of 10, it stops at a scene where there is at least 1 characters your not ever supposed to care about. Care about your characters, and people will care about them. To the average person, reading is not a job, a good book should be fun, and a great place to start is to have fun writing it.

ATTENTION WRITERS OF TUMBLR

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