There's always this moment when you have to write a new character in your story. This might be a struggle, but there are tricks that make it easier. I heard that imagining the story of a passing person helps. I don't know, I've never tried it. But I have a trick of my own. If you can call it a trick.
My parents have a company. They have it for around 12 years and I've heard a lot about it: about how their work is going, and, what's more interesting to me, about their employees. What is so interesting about those people? Their behaviour. Not every person is honest - some are lying simply to get more money. So when I listen to all the (not so fair) things some people do, I ask my parents one question: why?
I always try to understand why people act the way they do, how they think, how they function. I know that they think differently than me and I try to understand how. I'm always curious about it.
And as every other thing I do, hear or see in my life, I try to use all the information I gather in my stories. You can't write a real character when you don
't understand how he (or she) works. And to understand you need to know everything you can - their backstory, their desires, motives, and also ways of thinking. But if you try to write the character from your own experiences, not understanding how other people "work", the characters won't be so real. An honest person can't write a liar when they don't understand why they lie.
Now many people say that the best exercise to help you with writing a character is imagining the story of people around you, people you don't know. I'm not saying that it's not - I don't even know! I've never tried to do it. I remember myself trying (once) but I got bored by it quickly.
My exercise is simply observing. I observe people and try to understand them, I gather all the information I can. And then, writing a new character is a bit easier.
But I don't only observe other people - I observe myself as well. Sometimes I just stop in one place and think: why did I do that? I try to understand the mechanism of my mind and add all I can understand to the database in my head.
And how do you make writing new characters easier?
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