Formatting Dialogue

    All right motherfuckers, I wrote pretty much this entire entry once already but blogspot didn't fucking save it, and because I go through a mild depressive episode whenever I lose 1,000+ words of progress on a thing, the way I'm choosing to deal with it is by angrily rewriting what was lost and punching the fuck out of the save button every paragraph or so.

     [SAVES AGGRESSIVELY]

     So basically the impetus for this post was born of me reading fanfiction and, more specifically, me being unable to finish fanfiction because the fucking dialogue isn't fucking formatted fucking properly.

     [SAVES AGGRESIVELY AND TAKES A SECOND TO BREATHE]

     Okay, I'm gonna try to chill here.  Just.  Give me a second.

     Okay.  Okay okay okay alright alright alright alright alright.  Allkay.  Look:  I get it.  The public school system failed me, too.  I had to learn everything I know about creative writing from copying what I read in books and looking up articles like this one on the internet.  And the things they DID teach me about writing--things like, indent two finger spaces before each paragraph, and use the "hamburger method" of essay writing, and make every paragraph exactly five sentence long--was pretty much entirely bullshit that doesn't get you anywhere after the fifth grade.

     (Even your middle school teachers won't accept an essay written on loose-leaf, wtf are they thinking, really??  I can open any book in the world and the chances that the first paragraph I poke at consists of exactly five sentences is so slim I can't even)

     SO.  BASICALLY.  Let me help you, young writers, because let me tell you, improperly formatted dialogue is a great way to scare off your audience.  Let's start with:

1.  New Speakers

     Every time a new character speaks, slap that enter button before you tickle those quotation marks.  Why, you ask?  Many reasons.  Reasons like avoiding confusion as to who's speaking when, keeping your text away from block form, and creating lots of juicy delicious white space for your beautiful gorgeous readers (like you guys <3 <3 <3)

     (I took a nap and ate some pizza, and because I am like unto a tiny cranky child I feel much more at peace with the world, and with yOUR BEAUTIFUL FACE.  HA!)

     See, when you have a bunch of characters involved in a conversation, and you're smattering in action tags every here and there, it gets hard to follow the train of thought--who's talking when?  To whom?  When does this person stop and the next person start?  This way we can also dispense with some of the dialogue tags that clutter up the walkway, leaving everything more streamlined and aerodynamic.

     Audiodynamic?  Visiodynamic?  Logodynamic?  Bibliodynamic?  Hmmmm.....

     Anyway, gigantic blocks of text also tend to happen when we get multiple speakers in a paragraph, which can cause problems for dyslexic readers, give people headaches, and makes people lose their place far more easily.

     We get enough block text from long descriptive and active paragraphs; when it comes to dialogue, we like to have a break from that, and allow our eyes to cascade smoooothly down the page.

2.  Character Monologues

     When a character goes off on a monologue that lasts more than one paragraph, there are a couple things you can do--literally, a couple.  Two.  Two things.

     You can insert an action tag at the end of the first paragraph or the beginning of the second, or you can press enter, indent, and add another starting quotation mark.

     Now to be clear:  The entire point to reusing opening quotation marks is to indicate that the same character is speaking, so if you cap the first paragraph with ending quotation marks, everyone is going to assume that that character has had their say and that another character has started speaking.  So don't do that (cough cough GINA *glares at friend*).

     Anyway, this is a pretty common mistake that gets made all the time because no one fucking teaches it, so if you haven't figured it out don't get down on yourself.  I only figured it out because I was a voracious reader in my younger days and I learn mostly via visual osmosis.

3.  Dialogue tags

     Dialogue tags, along with action tags, bookend spoken fragments of conversation within your narrative and give attribution to the text.  Specifically, dialogue tags are the ones that say something along the lines of "they said," "they mumbled," "they whined," etc.  They let you know who's talking, and sometimes how they're saying it.

     The tag usually goes at the end of dialogue these days ("I hate the way this runs," he said), but can just as easily go before (he said, "I hate the way this runs.").  That just depends on how you want the line to flow, and is up to personal taste.  You can also chose between "they said" and "said they."  "She said" is traditional, but there's a certain ring to "Said she" that isn't to everyone's tastes, but can really pack a whallop in the right time and place.

     Generally speaking, "said" is the dialogue tag you want to use about ninety percent of the time--it's nothing special, but it gets the job done.  Like water.  Or salt.  Or silica.  But not poisonous like silica.  Anyway, the more you use said, the more meaningful non-said dialogue tags will be.

    Contrary to what public school may or may not have bothered to instill in you, you don't necessarily need to use a dialogue tag--once the flow of a conversation has been established, you can drop it until something happens--like the arrival of a new character or a change in tone--that requires clarification.  You can also use


4.  Action tags

     Action tags, like dialogue tags, let you know who's speaking, but they elect not to add in any of those communication verbs like "asked" or "whispered."

Example:

      Henry held a hand over his stomach.  "I think I'm gonna puke."

      Action tags are simple lines of action that follow, precede, or interrupt dialogue.  They help you avoid Talking Head Syndrome, and if you're following the rule about slapping enter for every new speaker, it allows you to tell or remind your readers who's speaking.

     Just try to make it clear which character is the main focus of the action tag if you make mention of more than one:  "Jenny leaned against Martha and shook her head," makes it pretty clear that we're focused on Jenny.  "Jenny and Martha leaned against each other," is extremely vague, and while it makes for a good line of action, it wouldn't be doing its job if it called itself an action tag.

      Unless maybe both characters were speaking in tandem.  Then it'd be fine, as long as that was previously established. 
   

Determining Your Character's Fighting Style

     Action scenes can get boring very quickly if done wrong, particularly when all is uniform.  One way to keep things spicy, and add some realism while you're at it, is to vary the fighting styles of your characters.

     The form that a character studied is part of this--someone who studied Tai Chi in college is going to be very different from a small-time Krav Maga master and a scrapper from the streets with ten years under their belt.  Tai Chi prizes fluid movements and the practice of avoiding violence and redirecting energy, while Krav Maga focuses on brutal efficiency, completely neutralizing the threat as quickly as possible.  Someone who learned to fight on the streets, on the other hand, is probably going to fight dirty, and while they'll try to end a fight as fast as they can, they probably won't be as quick or efficient in their attempts.

     Take a look at your characters--what kind of fighting experience do they have?  Were they formally trained, or self-taught?  How they were trained is going to be a huge influence on how they approach real-world fights.

     This goes beyond just the range of the actual techniques--what kind of relationship did they have with their teacher?  If they disliked her, they may ignore her advice out of spite, but if they loved him and treasured his opinion they'll be more likely to do as he would've liked them to.

     Was their trainer a pacifist that taught these techniques only to stem the flow of violence, or were they the kind of bloodthirsty warmonger that encouraged their students to get their swords bloody whenever they got the chance?  Do they prize mercy or revenge?  And what did mercy mean to them?  Letting an enemy live, or dispatching them as quickly as possible?

     If your character is self-taught, how did they teach themselves?  Did they read books and look up internet tutorials?  If so, which ones?  Who did they see as their "mentor?"  What did they take away from the advice?

     Or did they learn solely through experience, throwing themselves into fistfights and sword duels with reckless abandon and learning by trial and error?  What fights taught them the most, and why?  Did they learn the most by winning or by losing?  (Hint: you usually learn more from losing and then figuring out where you went wrong)  How did these attempts, wins, and losses effect them?

     Also, consider your character's personality; are they aggressive or more passive?  Are they friendly or stand-offish?  Cowardly or brave?  Are they more likely to leap into battle head-first or slide into battle only when their back's against the wall and they have no other choice?

     A character that's head-strong and aggressive is more likely to strike first.  They'll always be on the offense and avoid defense whenever they can, trying to be the first to draw blood.  This can be advantageous, since history teaches us that the offensive side is almost always the triumphant one, but can also leave the offensive party open to counter-attacks they may not be expecting,

     On the other hand, a character that's more timid and less sure of their skill may depend almost completely on defensive tactics.  These characters are focused more on surviving than on winning, and it's a dangerous game they're playing, since without striking out there's almost no way to disarm or eliminate the enemy, though by luring the opponent into a state of false safety and confidence, Mr. Defensive may be able to land a killer gut-punch at a key moment that Mr. Offense doesn't expect.

     Most of the time, your characters are going to be a mish-mash of offensive and defensive, but based on training level and personality, decide which way your characters lean; very few are going to be exactly in the middle of the spectrum.

     Characters may even find creative juxtapositions of training and personality; in my current work-in-progress, Sará, a half-demon half-angel princess, was trained in swordplay mostly as a defensive measure, since it was never expected that she would really have to fight anyone.  But Sará is a haughty, aggressive eighteen-year-old, demanding authority and fear even when she looks like a dirty little ten-year-old human girl.  Her training is defense but her personality is offense, so she uses defensive tactics in an offensive manner, which leads to more diverse fight scenes.

     You can also ask yourself what your character's range of environmental awareness is--someone with tunnel-vision will be less easily distracted and more concentrated in their fury, but can be easily attacked from the rear.  Someone that's constantly on the lookout for what's going on around them, however, is more easily distracted, which can lead to more injuries and even death, but is also less likely to be fooled by an attack from their flanks and will be able to use the environment to their advantage, perhaps by luring the enemy off of cliffs or snaring them in bramble patches.


     Take out a few of your main characters and look them over.  Ask yourself some of the questions from above.  Now assign each a different style of fighting, and think--how often to they thrust or slash?  Do they punch more or kick more?  How does their height or weight affect the way they attack or defend?  Are they a statue when they fight, staying in one place, or are they constantly on the move?  Forward or backward or side-to-side, or do they dodge and weave like the famed and acclaimed Basil Staghare?

     Do they all have a different fighting style now?  It's okay if traits overlap, but chances are good that no two characters will ever fight exactly alike.

     Okay.  Now using those styles as a guideline, go back and edit your fight scene to reflect your character's style.  Doesn't that inject so much more life and variety?  Does it open up new passageways and opportunities?  Great!  Now do that with all your fight scenes--remembering of course that as your story progresses, your character's fighting style may change to reflect the trials they've weathered.



     If you have any of your own tips on how to assign a character's fighting style, or want to share how your characters fight, drop a comment in the section below!  I'd love to hear from you!

4 Common Problems With An Everyman

1.  No personality

     One of the top issues with an everyman is that they have no real personality; their entire personality is "I'm an average Joe just like everyone else," but that's not enough.  There has to be something to them, flesh to add to bone.

     Having a character that's average is fine.  In fact, in literature, that's practically an act of rebellion against the status quo.  But you can't allow that character to become boring.  Average doesn't have to be boring--some very interesting people are perfectly average, just in ways you wouldn't expect.

     Maybe they have an eclectic interest, they're just not very good at it, or they know a little bit about a lot of things, or a lot about a very few things; maybe they have skills which were never top notch, but they still love to practice.  Whatever it is, just don't make them a boring bland personalityless nobody.

     Make them into someone we'd want to travel with (or someone we'd hate to travel with), not just someone we tolerate.

2.  Mouthpiece

     An everyman, being that they're our touchstone to reality in this journey through the cosmos or elven lands or what have you, can sometimes serve as an author stand-in, revealing to us all their thoughts about the new places, people, events, and the old people, places, events that we're used to.

     This is all well and good, but be careful you don't go running away with it and turn the character into just another mouthpiece trying to spread an agenda; commentary is great!  We love commentary!  But commentary is sometimes just a hair's breadth away from preaching, and once you get to preaching it's a steep descent down into moralizing bluffs, and no one likes being moralized.

     TL;DR:  Speak, don't preach.  Comment, don't vomit.  We're not here for a sermon, we're here to have fun.

3.  No purpose in the plot

     Other than providing us with information about our new environment and giving us a running commentary on how the nature of whatever's going on relates to the nature of whatever's going on in real life, does your character have a purpose in the plot?

     And I mean a real purpose; look at what's happening in your story.  If you took your everyman out of it, would any of the action change?  If not, you either need to scrap that character, or give them a reason to be on the scene.  Give them something to do, something important, don't just let them laze around observing things; that's how they get flat and boring, and boring is the enemy here!  Boring is the reason people hate everymen!

     Don't subject your everyman to everyman hell; let him have agency.

4.  Stock Personality

     Often, when an everyman does have a personality, it's one of the stock personalities that three hundred other everymen are loaded with.  They're flat cardboard characters with no real backstory that just show up to drive home the author's point or reveal information to us.

     Don't fall into that trap; make your everyman a well-rounded person, with interests, talents, flaws!  If I wanted a stock character, I'd read comedia del'arte.

9 Suggestions For Remodeling The ReaderX Fic

     A while back I posted an essay in defense of reader insert fanfiction in which I stated at least twice that many, if not most, reader inserts are not well-written (but that everyone needed to calm their tits anyway).
   
     Other than reader insert writers practicing more, reading up on writing techniques, and improving their skills bit by bit (or more experienced writers jumping into the tidepool), there's not much that can solve the most prevalent issue with self inserts, which is, as I stated, lackluster technical skills in writing and story-telling.  With practice and with time, those things will come, but for now I do have a few suggestions that could improve the quality of ReaderX fics by restructuring some of the conventions of the genre.

     So now, for your consideration, I suggest to you:

1.  Do away with (y/n), (f/c), etc.

     Y/N, Your Name, F/C, Favorite Color, E/C, Eye Color, H/C, Hair color, F/F, Favorite Food, the list goes on; this vague parenthetical command is meant to draw the reader deeper into the narrative by allowing them to insert their own name, appearance, and various favorite things.

     The goal is noble, but the result is more distancing; having to read the clinical projection cues time after time only serves to remind us that we're reading a story, not experiencing it first-hand.  That's why Pokemon has you input your name before the game and then inserts it into the coding, rather than leaving a blank space or a (y/n) in the game text.

     In place of the parentheticals, a short description works better.  Because these stories are written in the second person, we're already experiencing the story as ourselves; it's okay to say, "You give them your name," or something like that.

     Doesn't, "You told them your name and they repeated it joyfully, thrusting their glasses in the air" flow better than, "'My name is (y/n).'  '(y/n)!' they shouted joyfully, thrusting their glasses in the air"?

     If something is going on that your character's name is said so often that it's necessary for it to be included in quotations rather than just in narration, an easy out is to have one of the other characters give "you" a nickname--either something cutesy/related to the fanwork, or something that has to do with the plot of your AU.  I'd be hard-pressed to find a place where a (y/n) is ever strictly necessary.

     There are a lot of places where the details are entirely superfluous anyway--because the author is already projecting their own tastes when they do things like design costumes, it seems silly to bring the audience out of the spell for the sake of a color.  Still, "She handed you a dress in your favorite color, much to your delight" is more seamless than "She handed you a (f/c) dress, much to your delight," and as I've discussed before, making sure your audience stays trapped in the reality of your story is The Most Important Thing, ESPECIALLY for a reader insert story.

2.  Fewer protagonists in default white

     As a white girl, I see myself reflected much more prevalently than any other race in pretty much every form of media.  The tides are turning of course, and many of us creative types are doing our damnedest to see more representation find its way into the public eye, but it's been hard work trying to break the back of this institution.

     But ReaderX fics are all about making sure that the audience is as absorbed as possible in the reality before them, right?  That's why we have the (y/n) (f/c) convention in the first place.  So it's extremely jarring to me when the author, who will be hard-pressed to describe concretely something as relatively inconsequential as an eye color or favorite type of burger, describes the POV character's skin color--invariably something along the lines of, "your peaches-and-cream complexion" or "the contrast between your white hand and his gray one."

     The white default is a setting that a lot of people haven't yet unlearned; we're taught from a young age that white skin is "normal," and the rest of the spectrum is "other," so when we go to read fiction a lot of people just assume that their characters are, of course, white!  And writers will do the same thing, which leads to entire series of books where the only characters who get a description of skin color are the ones that aren't white, because they are Not The Default.

     This is harmful for a lot of reasons, not least of all because it alienates people who aren't white and reinforces the idea that they are Not Normal.  In a reader insert story, it also reads as a statement from the author to any non-white person reading it that it wasn't meant for them to enjoy.  I know most people don't mean for it to come across that way, you just did what so many people do and went along with what you think of as the default skin tone, the same way we think of 5'4 as a default height for a woman or pizza as a default meal for Americans, but it can still hurt.

     If you had blue eyes and every ReaderX story you read had brown-eyed protagonists, you might feel excluded, right?  Like you were being ignored or worse, singled out--like you didn't belong in that fic, that "space."

     The best thing to do with a ReaderX fic in regards to skin color is just--don't mention it.  Unless race is super important (or you're some kind of alien creature with a canon skin color), leave it completely out of the equation.  Don't default to white; default to blank slate, the same way you did with the eye and hair colors.

3.  Give the character a stronger background/personality

     A lot of characters are these mostly blank slates with a tiny bit of personality and a smidgen of backstory.  Blank slate is great and all, especially with reader inserts, but part of the fun of imaging that you're in a different world is imagining yourself as having lived a different life.  In a lot of stories this is already a prerequisite--most of us don't live in the city that the story takes place in (if any of us do), and sometimes we're placed on entirely different planets, or in universes in which magic is real, etc.

     Don't be afraid to let the character have a bit of history.  Any detail you include in a story is going to make it so someone isn't going to be able to project themselves fully into that character without some cognitive dissonance, so you might as well make them interesting and less cardboard while you're at it.

     Giving a character a strong personality is also a risky business in this situation; you don't want it so strong that it's overpowering, because then people are going to be constantly saying, "I would never do that!"  Then again, the reason you read a ReaderX is because you'd never do what you're reading about doing.

     So go ahead and give us a strong, interesting personality.  Just make sure the character the audience is playing isn't too obnoxious; this is one of those times that a protagonist pretty much has to be likeable.  Otherwise the audience will feel like they're being insulted and will piss off.

4.  Less blushing please

     One thing that really gets my goat is how much blushing goes on in these stories; you'd think everyone had rosacea!  One blush for every three chapters should be the max, I'd say.  Some people may blush a lot in real life, but reading about it gets old. Especially when it's in almost every ReaderX.  

     Blushing is boring.  Blushing is the status quo.  It's time we break free of that.  And this is more than just about the blushing.  This is about a specific type of personality that we've seen a thousand million times, and maybe it's just person taste, but as a reader insert reader I am sick to death of blushing and stumbling over myself every other sentence.  I've been that person IRL; I don't need to read about being that way.

     Let your characters be confident, charmed and charming in return; let them be flustered when flustered is appropriate, sure, but don't make the protagonist go all stupid every time they accidentally touch the main love interest.  Most of us in real life hold our lives together pretty well, no matter how punchdrunk we are around our special someone, and don't let ourselves fall to pieces just because they know our name.

     We're not the stereotype that Disney created, and I think it's time that reader inserts explored a fuller range of emotion.

5.  More realistic flaws

      ReaderXes suffer from a lot of the same problems as OC fanfiction, because every reader insert is an OC on top of being a more-or-less blank slate.  One of those problems is the Mary Sue issue; no flaws.  Or, if there are flaws, only those which don't impact the plot.
 
     Problems are never their fault, they may stumble around cutely, but they're not going to do something like embarrass their date because they have no table manners, or become possessive or something of the like.  Try to give your characters flaws that will influence and even drive the plot; we're not perfect.  The protagonist doesn't have to be perfect, either.

     Alternatively, we see characters that are just walking Flaw-Bombs waiting to go off.  They're obnoxious, they make unnecessary drama, and no one should like them, yet for some reason everyone does.  Make sure your other characters are responding accordingly to the stimuli provided them, no matter how pretty your protagonist is.

6.  Fewer miscommunication plots

     Rule of thumb; if your plot can be resolved in under two minutes if your characters just sat and talked, it's not enough of a plot to warrant a serious story.  Miscommunication is great for comedy, but in serious plots it gets frustrating.

     The whole "This isn't what it looks like!" storyline, for example:  if a character can say, "Tom, he's my cousin," and the whole thing is resolved?  Not worth more than five hundred words as conflicts go.  If a character says "Tom, he's my cousin," but she's lying, on the other hand, or it's not the whole story, then that warrants a fuller investigation.

     Also, if your character is so jealous they can't even wait around for someone to explain themselves after being caught in a compromising position, they clearly don't trust their partner, which is a red flag as far as the health of the relationship goes.  In fact, if they're walking out on them without an explanation, they clearly don't respect their partner, and to me that's a "break the camel's back" kind of straw.

     Be careful with your melodrama.

7.  More male POV characters

     Or better yet; more characters with no specified gender.

     There may not be as many men/boys who read reader inserts as there are girls, but that may also just be a confirmation bias; how do you know they wouldn't like it if they aren't given a chance?  Plus, there are many girls who wouldn't mind adopting a male persona over the course of your story, and a lot of people who don't fit into the gender binary who would like to see themselves reflected in the story.

     More stories written with a broader audience focus would be beneficial; anyone can write a story from a male perspective now and again, and you can easily write a story in the second person without using gendered pronouns for the POV character.

     Give it a shot; let's make the protagonists a little more diversely applicable.

8.  More female love interests

     Male love interests are the default in ReaderX land, but there are a lot of people interested in the female characters of a given work, whether boys who like girls, girls who like girls, nonbinary folks who like girls, etc.

    Even outside the context of romance there's a dearth of female characters.  I'd like to see more involvement of the female characters in these types of works, not just as love interests but as friends, colleagues, even siblings.  Don't turn them into strawman bitches "getting in the way" of your self ship or ignore them altogether; give them a chance to get in the mix, too.

     I guess the title of number eight should really be More strong female characters, not just as love interests.

     And as a side note, friends in general are always good!  Too many ReaderX protagonists are lone wolves who have no one to talk to except the person they love; people need friends outside of a romantic relationship.  Whether it's a character or characters in the cast or an OC, let the insert have some companionship.

9.  More choose-your-own-adventure type stories

     These needn't be the complex type you see on the shelves of your local library, but I'm a sucker for a  ReaderX that sets me up with a storyline, then veers off into different paths that I can choose from.  Do I want to pursue this character, or this character?  (I'll probably choose one, then go back and read the other bc I'm a fiction ho, shhh ;) )

      This semblance of interaction makes the audience feel like a part of the story, and wraps them up further in the protagonist's skin; it gives us agency, and we all love to feel like our choices matter.  After all, if our choices matter it serves to reason that we matter, right?

   

     So there you have it folks; my take on how to improve the ReaderX genre as it stands.  Do you have any opinions on the ReaderX genre?  Do you have any suggestions I might be missing?  Or am I the only self-indulgent asshole with a writing blog?  Leave a comment below, so that I might one day embark a journey to become self-aware.  ;)

5 Things I Learned Writing/Editing/Re-Reading My First-Ever "Novel"

1. A notebook of words does not a novel make

My first-ever “novel” was a 42 page book about a Mary Sue superhero getting powers and defeating a dragon.  In between all that, though, lots of bullshit happens that doesn’t have anything to do with the plot, and is mostly just 9-year-old wish fulfillment.  It was, more or less, a notebook full of vaguely connected words and ideas.

But that’s not what a novel is.  First of all, this 42-page story, at around 10,000 words, wouldn’t even qualify as a novella.  It would be more like a novelette at best; a novella is 18,000-40,000 words, and a novel is 40,000 words or more (though most publishing companies prefer that your wordcount be at least 60,000, and often nearer to 80,000, to consider publishing it as a novel).  

Not only is a wordcount required, but a novel has to have a cohesive plot, compelling characters that are more than self-indulgent caricatures of real-life people or cardboard cut-outs, and villains with realistic motives.  You could have a novel that was more anthological, too, as long as all the pieces were woven together to form an overarching narrative, but it still has to say something.  

A bunch of pieces smashed together isn’t a novel just because you want it to be.  Kaleidoscopes are pretty, but there’s a reason we don’t call them paintings.  

2. Tangents Must Go

As I mentioned above, my first “novel” had a TON of tangents.  There was a cringe-worthy sequence where my trio of main characters went off and discovered a new species of weasel that were rainbow colored just … because???  They could???

 

As I said, it was very self-indulgent.  

And it was painfully evident, re-reading it, that it did. not. work.  It didn’t matter, it was a dumb stand-in for conflict, it wasn’t interesting, and it contributed nothing to the plot, such as it was.  

Bottom line; tangents--by which I mean, tangents that contribute no value or actively detract from the audience’s understanding or enjoyment of a piece--have no place in your novel.  In your first draft, sure, stick in as many tangents as you want, they may turn out to have little pockets of information or entertainment you could later rework into something saleable, but when you go back to edit, cut that shit down.  Hack the jungle down to a garden and breathe deep the fruits of your labors.

Then choke, because you can’t breathe fruit.  Why were you trying to breathe fruit?  Who do you think you are, Fruit-Breathing Man?

3. Daydreaming isn’t the best way to write a book

Again; I was basically day-dreaming when nine-year-old-me wrote this.  And I should probably state, if it wasn’t clear already, that while I’m posting this for the education of all, this post is primarily a letter to kid me about what she could have done better.  

Namely, written a fucking BOOK instead of an IMAGINATIVE DIARY.

Little me had a lot of passion, but she was thin on the execution.  (Don’t worry, she’ll learn ;) )

4. Demonizing childhood bullies isn’t a recipe for a compelling villain

Honey, this is a lesson we all have to learn someday, and you’re learning it *checks watch* ten years ago.  You may have some unresolved issues with the kids that are bullying you right now, and demonizing them in writing can be cathartic, but if you want this book to be great, you need a better villain than a strawman.

Your villains have to be every bit as three dimensional as your protagonists; they need to have realistic reasons for having the goals they do; they need motivation, and even if their goal is to use a dragon to kill someone because they just don’t like her, they need to have a reason not to like her in the first place.  It doesn’t have to be the character’s fault (though it’s often more interesting a story if it is), but the villain needs to be able to see it that way.  

Every character is the protagonist of their own story; find the ways that your villains are the protagonists of theirs.

5. Paragraph usage

This is one thing that school never taught me, which I thank my eldest brother for.  One day, as I was typing away, he stopped behind me, reading over my shoulder, and gave me a piece of advice that forever changed the way I write.

“Include a new paragraph every time a new character speaks.”

And then he disappeared in a puff of dragon smoke and blood-orange incense, never to be seen again until dinner.  

It’s a very simple thing, so obvious a rule that schools don’t even bother telling you to do it (because they teach technical writing, so they don’t bother thinking about what the conventions of creative writing are until you’re already expected to know them all), so I see a lot of young writers making the same mistake.

So.  Every time a new character speaks; new paragraph.  It makes it so much easier to keep track of who’s saying what.  Trust me, you’ll love it.  And so will your readers. :)

Chapter Titles: Part 2, Naming

     On Friday I posted a blog about chapter numbering, with the promise that I would later bring you chapter naming.  Well never fear, my SpiderReaders, I am here to deliver on said promise!  Today's post is all about what kinds of chapter naming conventions you might use to your advantage.

1.  Before the Name

    Before you even name the chapter itself, ask yourself--is it even a chapter?  Or is it, perhaps, a Stave?  

     For those of you who don't recognize the reference right off the bat, one of the most famous classical English writers was a man by the name of Charles Dickens, and one of his most famous stories is a little number by the name of A Christmas Carol.  

     A Christmas Carol is divided into Staves instead of chapters, because a Stave is the song equivalent of a stanza (which is the poem equivalent of a paragraph) and Charles Dickens was a clever little shit back in the day.

     I ONE HUNDRED PERCENT approve of any efforts you may have to improve upon this model; do you want to have staves?  Verses?  A chorus?  Is your story modeled after a Greek Tragedy?  Why not have a fucking Stasima, Strophe and Anti-Strophe and all!  Does poetry feature heavily in your work?  Divide it into stanzas!  Does theatre feature heavily in your novel?  Divide it into Acts and Scenes!

     Or, if that seems too gimicky or just doesn't fit with your story?  Stick with chapters.  No one will fault you; chapters are the default for a reason.

2.  POV/Place Shifts

     One simple way to name chapters is as a way to announce POV shifts.  Neal Shusterman does this in his series Unwind by naming each chapter after whichever character's head we're in.  It's simple, it doesn't require much energy, and it automatically lets you know whose hands are on the wheel, so you're not fumbling around in the dark or left with POV whiplash.  As a writer, it can also help keep you from sliding into omniscient third person if you're trying to write in limited third.

     If you tend more toward omniscient third and dealing with a large cast, you can do this with groups, too--in my WIP Captive Stars, I use the name of the packs that the characters belong to, which narrows the focus of the chapter and keeps POV switch whiplash to a minimum.

     Or, if your POV is more stable (or less), you could name each chapter using the area in which it takes place (useful for travel stories) or the time/date.  Or you can combine the methods.

     Again; short, simple, straight-forward.

3.  Suit The Mood

     In a light-hearted book, or for light-hearted chapters, sometimes a play on words is in order; in one of my WIPs, I introduced the protagonist, Ben Desdon, in a chapter called "Ben There, Desdon That," because I'm a fucking loser and Ben is the kind of loveable dork-ass that would not only make that pun, but giggle uncontrollably all the while.

     Because I'm an unforgivable swarm of linguistic humor, I take advantage of every opportunity I can to make the chapter titles into jokes; I have lots of fun with it.

     But I'm just as eager to turn a poetic phrase when the chapter is more serious; "Of Mortal Concerns," for instance, is a great title name for a chapter concerning death, or if your books is about immortals, the literal concerns of mortals as compared to those of the Gods.  This technique is great for foreshadowing events to come without being heavy-handed, too.

     Basically, using witty one-liners or quick poetic quips as your chapter heading can help set the mood and get the audience into the mindset you want them in.

4.  Hyper-Descriptive

     And sometimes, much like a textbook chapter heading, you just want a chapter title that'll tell it how it is; Mark Twain was fond of this one, and used it in Tom Sawyer.  It lets the audience know what we're in for, and has the secondary use of letting kids who didn't read the assignment save the tiniest bit of face because at least they can check the chapter heading for a clue!

     This type of chapter heading has pretty much completely gone out of style, but it's an option if you wanted to revive it.  I think it could be of particular use in a first-person narrative, where the protagonist can be assumed to be the one writing the chapter names, or if the narrator is established to be heavily descriptive or overly technical in their writing.

     What's your favorite method for naming chapters?  Are you particularly attached to any one method, or does it depend on the project?  Are there any other methods you like the use?

Playing Favorites: Parents, Part 3

     On Monday I started a series on Parental Favoritism, and followed up on it on Wednesday--now, late on a Friday night, I'm finishing up the series, at least for the foreseeable future.  Here are the last four words that I currently have on the subject of how to spice up your parental favoritism (sub)plots.

7.  Put the protagonist somewhere in the middle

    People, especially young people but old people, too (and sometimes to far more harmful degrees), have this tendency to polarize the world--there is up and down, there is left and right, there is black and white, there is cold and hot, and there is nothing in between.  This comes from a lot of different places--childhood naiveté, absorbing too many stories with this same black vs. white mentality, a lack of empathy, strict teachings (usually theological) that stress the duology of an Cosmic Good and a Universal Evil in a universe that acts with an inherent morality, etc.
     Now universes with an inherent morality can be very interesting, but only if the universe's morality is the universe's, and not the character's--again, unless your character is some kind of God with special universe-bending powers, they probably shouldn't be the one calling the shots one hundred percent, and their viewpoint shouldn't be the only Absolutely Correct one.
     All that being said, sometimes there exists more than just Favorite and Least Favorite; a lot of kids have more than just one sibling.  If your character exists in a home where favoritism is going on, or is thought to be going on, instead of putting your character on due north or south, maybe place them somewhere more toward center stage--from this vantage, they can comment on the rivalry (if one exists) as they see it, on how the favoritism (if it exists) plays out, and how it affects the rest of the family--while at much less risk than a family Black Sheep, children who are neither favorite nor least favorite are every bit as affected by things like this, and, if they have a good voice and interesting things to say, could provide a fresh perspective on things.

8.  Don't let your kid get hung up on this shit for FOREVER

     If your character had to wash more dishes than their sibling as a kid, they shouldn't still be talking about it when they're thirty.  Unless you want them to come off as whiny, lazy, boring, and entitled, at least.
     Favoritism in a home can cause problems, it's true; some of those problems might last for the rest of the kid's life, or at least have lasting impacts.  But unless the wounds really are so deeply scarred, your little kids are likely to put it behind them sometime after college, if not during--you can't exactly pull the "I'm Mom's Favorite" card when your landlord asks you for rent, so privileged kids leading non-privileged lifestyles will learn pretty quick how bad a job Mommy and Daddy did setting them up in the world, while their baby brother, who always had to wash the dishes and clean the toilets and a million other things, will first of all be overjoyed to no longer be under his parents' thumb, but will second of all have a lot of skills that will serve him later on.
     Even if the wounds are deep, your character may revisit them from time to time, especially during rocky periods in their life, but they're not going to still be obsessing over it by the time they have a family of their own, because there will be more important matters to deal with than the way Mom used to look at you when you brought home C's on your report cards.
     Basically, while it can still be a part of them, don't let it define them.

9.  Let your character realize that their parents aren't actually playing favorites

     Sometimes it's all in your character's head.  Let that be the case sometimes.  Let them figure it out.  Let them deal with the fallout.  Maybe after all those years of thinking they were the least favorite they find out their sister thought she was the least favorite too, and they reconcile--maybe after believing they were the least favorite it turns out they were the favorite, and expected to stand on their own; maybe they thought they were the favorite, but they're only treated so well so they'll shut up and stop bothering their parents.
     Maybe their parents just love them the same amount as all their siblings, but in different ways, and your character is forced to face the fact that the universe actually does not revolve around them, and they can't be the center of it at every waking moment.


     This has been TheSpiderWriter's take on parental favoritism in fiction.  I hope the details provided here have been helpful, and that they serve you going forward.  If you have any thoughts to add or something you'd like to discuss, feel free to drop me a line!

Playing Favorites: Parents, Part 2

     On Monday, I posted an article about parental favoritism, said a bunch of words, and left off with more thoughts about how to spice up your parental favoritism plots stirring in my head.  These are those thoughts.  Please enjoy them.


4.  Have the favorite feel bad about it

     Most of the time in fiction, when a character finds out that they're the favorite they're super smug about it--they lord it over the other characters and do their best to make them as miserable as humanly possible.  OR, the favorite is totally oblivious to the favoritism, and feels neither one way nor the other about it once they do find out--maybe they aren't a dick about it, but they kind of just accept it as the status quo.
     And yeah, that's ONE way to think about it, but there's also another, perhaps more realistic alternative--delicious, delicious guilt.
     Whether it's because they love their siblings and don't want them to feel left out, or because their siblings treat them poorly because of their heightened station in the home, let the character feel bad about their position of privelege, whether they're the protagonist or not.  If they are the protagonist, this is a perfect way to shoehorn in your childhood angst without falling back on the age-old (and so oft poorly done) abuse tropes that clutter every genre in the history of man, and it makes them out to be a more sympathetic character than the Raging Doucheholic many favorites turn out to be.
     If they aren't the protagonist, it can help subvert the sibling rivalry trope and adds a further depth to their relationship and the general dynamic of the home; it makes for a more complex narrative and gives the protagonist more than just straw men to wail against--maybe they still hate them, but even so, at least we're seeing a character in a universe that is not protagonist-centered.
     Which is just another reason why you should

5.  Make the other siblings sympathetic characters

     They don't have to be heroes, and they can even be antagonists, but your protagonist's siblings are people, too; they have hopes and dreams and aspirations, wants and needs and motivations, ones that include your protagonist and ones that don't.  Their world does not revolve around bullying your protagonist for being better/smarter/worse/dumber than them.  I actually have a lot to say about sibling relationships that I won't put here (that's a post for another day), but as far as this article goes, it boils down to; it's (probably) not any of the siblings' faults that they're favored or disfavored.  Maybe your characters don't see it like that, and that's fine, but show that and then show why.
     No matter how antagonistic, let each sibling have something in them that's redeeming--a soft spot for cute things, a special affinity for helpless people, a shocking capacity for generosity, or even just a particularly witty scathing tongue.  Throw the audience a bone and give us a reason to like the favorite or least favorite--better yet, give the protagonist a reason to like or even love their sibling(s)!  Relationships are complicated, and it can be a love-hate thing if you want, but chances are good, after spending so many years together, there are at least some things the little brother likes about his older sister, and vice versa.

6.  Make the impact of the treatment realistic

     A lot of the time in fiction you see kids being treated unequally by their parents, and they either turn out right as roses when they should be dealing with some shit, or they get totally fucked up for years over the smallest of transgressions.
     If your character is their parents' favorite child, they're going to either grow up feeling entitled, because they get whatever they want and never have to work for it, and won't last long in the real world, or they will grow up walking on eggshells in a desperate bid for perfectionism, ever afraid that they could, at any moment, fall from grace.  They could be egotistical and think they're all that, or they could be neurotic about doing things The Right Way so as not to disappoint their dear dear parents.
     If your character grows up as their parents' least favorite child, they're likely to wind up with a lot of self-esteem issues and either pent-up aggression or open resentment, depending on the situation; they're more likely to suffer from depression and less likely to do well in school.  These may be the kids who end up throwing themselves into relationships with much older people later on in life, looking for the parental approval they could never get.
     Of course, these are only a few ways that parental favoritism could affect your characters, and I recommend doing research into how favorites and least favorites turn out, and figuring out how your character would blossom in the station they currently maintain and under whatever form of pleasure/displeasure their parentals dish out.

     Again, this isn't all I have to say, but I'll finish up this series on Friday.  If you have any thoughts on writing parental favoritism, feel free to drop some dialogue in the comment section!

Playing Favorites: Parents, Part 1

     In fiction, it's all too common to see parents play favorites.  This is, to some degree, a reflection of real life--as impartial as we try to be, we all have biases, and sometimes those biases sprinkle down to color what we think of our children.  Whether they try to or not, parents think of all their children in different ways, which doesn't mean that they don't love them equally--it's often equal, just different, much like the children themselves.
     A lot of the time when we see this trope, it's our protagonist who is most affected.  Either they're the favorite (like Thor from Thor) and deserve to be because their siblings are all such prats, or (far more common) they're the least favorite, like Loki, or pretty much any character that has siblings, in which case they either deserve it (usually retroactively) or they don't, which is where most protagonists  seem to end up.
     Nine times out of ten, this is done poorly; everything is painted in stark lines of black and white, the sibling(s) are shitheads, there's no reason why the protagonist should be treated the way they are, and when playing the part of the punching bag, it's either as the abused True Heir (ala Cinderella) or as the kid who has to do chores because God forbid they help out around the house a little.
     An easy solution is to just not bother with the favoritism dynamic, but it can be done well, and completely leaving out the reality of favoritism is like leaving out the reality of all the -isms in life; nice to see, but ultimately dishonest.  You can only run from the truth for so long.
     Anywho. here are 3 ways you can make your favoritism dynamic more interesting.

1.  Let there be subtlety

     In real life, favoritism is most often displayed in the small things.  It's not typically the grand, showy, "My sister got a car for her birthday and I got six months hard labor" that it's often made out to be.  Parents don't try to let their children know if they do have a favorite--they try very hard to hide it, but when it leaks out it's usually in the form of extra praise or admonishment for one party or the other, or they give slightly more lavish gifts to one than to the other--or, yes, maybe they sympathize more with character A's need to get homework done than they do with character B's, so they make character B do character A's chores for a night, or something like that.
     Your character's parents are people, and most people don't try to be mean or unfair "just because."  Which reminds me--

2.  There has to be a reason for the favoritism

     One of the best portrayals of "Least Favorite Child Syndrome" I've seen to date was in a book I read quite some time ago, but whose title I have, unfortunately, forgotten.  The basic plot was that this little girl was an outcast--her siblings were mean, her mother favored them above her, and she was bad at English and art but good at math.  She adopts a puppy at one point but doesn't want her family to know about it, her art teacher tries to help her get extra credit by taking her to the zoo, the dog almost gets eaten by a lion at some point....  The details are kind of hazy.  Like I said, it's been a while.  (If anyone knows the title of this book, let me know so I can cite it, it's a great book and I greatly recommend it)
     But like all children who think themselves unfairly treated, this little girl believes herself to be adopted, and daydreams about her "real family" finding her and stealing her away from her kidnappers in order to give her a better life.  This is, of course, bullshit, and the sister even points out as much while they're looking at old pictures of their mother, because little miss protagonist looks just like Mommy used to, which becomes extremely relevant towards the end of the book, when Miss Protag confronts Mommy Dearest and straight up asks why her sister is the favorite.
     Instead of denying it or telling Miss Protag to go to her room or burn in hell, Mommy Dearest starts to cry.  She admits that she's been playing favorites, and apologizes, and tells Miss Protag exactly why--because Miss Protag is exactly the same as Mommy Dearest was as a child, and Mom has a lot of pent up self-loathing that she's concentrated into the toxic chemical storm she rains down on her youngest child.
     This isn't right by any means, but it was an amazing moment that has (obviously) stuck with me ever since--you never see parents admitting to playing favorites, and you certainly never get to hear the story from their perspective, which means a lot of the time the favoritism is just this thing that happens for no discernible reason rather than something real that is the cause of an effect.
     Maybe your character's parents hate him because he's like them, or love him for the same reason--maybe he's favored or disfavored because he's the more able, or the less, or because he has interests that mesh with/conflict with his parents', or they dislike him because he's an asshole.
     Maybe, if he's the favorite, it's because he works the hardest, and doesn't ask for gifts, and does what he's told, and behaves himself, etc. etc.  Maybe he's earned every facet of that favoritism to such a degree that he doesn't feel he's the favorite even if he is; remember that your character's perceptions of reality will not always be in tune with the actuality of reality.

3.  Explore it from the parents' POV

     As I mentioned above, this, as with most things, is a nuanced issue.  Parents are just people, and all people are flawed; there are different sides to every story, and we have a tendency to focus inordinately on the part of the story that's written by the child--and if we're being honest, children have a pretty bad track record for understanding the way the world works.
     Let the parents tell their side of the story.  Maybe it's a horrible side to the story and they really are assholes, but at least give them the chance to try to make us understand--it could be that their intentions really are noble!  Or that they have no idea what they're doing and it's all just the subconscious effects of reproductive narcissism.  Maybe they don't really have favorites at all, but the sickly child needs more attention than the child who's perfectly healthy, or the problem child gets more attention because the parents feel the need to straighten her out.  A lot of the time, the more capable and trusted a child, the more likely they are to end up on the back burner while parents are distracted--they can have an infinite capacity for love, but they will always have a limited amount of time and energy.
     Maybe the parent is just reacting to the vibes they're getting from their kids--when I was growing up, my mother and my baby brother were upset with each other a good half of the time because my mother and I would go and have "Girls' Nights Out" while he stayed in the trailer park.  My brother might have thought it was a result of favoritism, but every time my mother would spring an unexpected event on us, I would be eager to go and John would insist that he would rather stay home and hang out with his friends.  My mother would argue, John would argue back, my mother would relent and then complain about it in the car (because she wanted to spend time with both of us, and he did this quite often), and then later, when we came home and told him about the movie we'd seen or the park we'd gone to, John would be upset that he "didn't get to go" when I "always did."
     It wasn't a matter of love or affection or favorites; it was just that he chose to use his time differently (and, to be perfectly honest, he had more friends than I did with whom to while his time), and then, being a kid, upon regretting the use of his time, blamed it on the person who had wanted him to use it differently in the first place.
     That rambling anecdote is to say, parenting is hard, and parents deserve the chance to have their stories told, too.
     Whether you explore it from their actual POV or in an honest (or semi-honest or just honest-as-they-see-it) confrontation with a child (or children), or if you write an entire book about it from the parents' perspective, make sure that the parent either sees it as a reasonable way to act, or that they struggle with the guilt of their actions--the Evil Stepmother trope is all well and good in fairytales, but we've stepped well past the battles of Static Good versus Static Evil in the modern age; all things are agathokakological.

     I have more to say, but this post is fairly long, so I think I'll end it here and pick up with number four on Wednesday.  In the meantime, what are your thoughts?  What do you look for in your favoritism subplots?  Are there any particularly good/bad portrayals you've come across recently?  Let us know!

The Coates Curriculum for Creating Characters (And Five Other Ways To Do It Too)

     Recently I had a conversation with one of my friends about our shelved drafts and past WIPs, and she admitted that she has a really hard time writing anything but fanfiction.  She seems to have a good handle on world-building and plot, but she has difficulty creating her own characters, and I know for a fact that she's not the only one.
     Now everyone creates characters differently; everyone has their own process, their own methods for getting under those characters' skins, and character building can be difficult, especially if you're new to writing, or if you've been in the fanfiction trenches for a long time.
     Bu never fear!  TheSpiderWriter is here to help!
     Ultimately, only you can do you, but here are a few methods that I use to get my characters breathing.


1.  Borrow Someone Else's

A)  The Technique

     Notice I said borrow.  Borrow, not steal.  What's the difference?
     The difference is, stealing someone's character is stealing someone's character--you take a vivacious figure, like, Megamind from Megamind, as a random, nonspecific example, and you plop them in your story, change a few details--maybe he's a human instead of an alien!  But he's still got a big head, and mispronounces lots of words, and his parents died saving his life, and he has a crush on that reporter girl, and....yeah.  That's stealing.  You stole Megamind and gave him a different name and some cosmetic surgery; he's still not yours.
     Borrowing is more like taking someone else's character and tracing the outline, then filling it in with different stuff.  You're not trying to put Megamind in your story, just pieces of him--his childish naiveté, perhaps, with a smidgen of angst and a dollop of arrogance.  Then you take these broad strokes and refine them, using the characters around them and the history you make for them to make them new and different and completely your own--Megamind, evil mastermind alien supervillain-turned-hero becomes, I don't know, *vague hand gesture indicating the application of the Fuck It Adjustment* Don Cheezley, a sensitive high schooler hiding the pain of being orphaned beneath a front of arrogance, who, until his parents' death, was homeschooled, and kept largely away from the rest of the world because of his parents' religious beliefs.
     Now that he's in a foster home, and public school, his inner world is dark, labyrinthine, and tumultuous, but the outer world is bright and new and strange.  As he explores the outside world for the first time, he makes friends, enemies, tries his best to survive high school, and makes a few new friends who are out of place in the grand scheme of things, but have a handle on this whole "irl" thing.  With their help he starts learning how to blend in, but also slowly comes to the realization that his parents were cultists, and while they loved him very much, the damage from the things they taught him--and the things they didn't--will be difficult to reverse.
     (That character you can steal.  I have no use for him.  ... yet.)

B)  The Work

     To keep yourself from plagiarizing, and to make sure that this character is breathing (it can be hard to tell with borrowed souls), you have to work hard.  Developing the backstory and making this character stand out on their own is crucial--and it's important that the characters they'll be interacting with aren't all from the same cast this one was taken from, or else you'll just end up with a bland echo chamber of someone else's work.  If this is how you create all your characters, you first of all have a lot of work to do, and second of all, should be taking them from variegated sources.
     You may have to do a lot of writing before you really start writing--when I started the first draft of what would come to be called Captive Stars, I borrowed a couple characters that I had trouble writing as anything but the same characters in an AU--I had to write five or six drafts of the story's start before the character's started to really live their own lives, no longer beholden to the source material from which they'd sprung.  It was only once the sweet baby was snarking at the protagonist and the practical sidekick was romantisizing the world around him that I could call them real, and it was at that point that they really took on a life of their own.
     Ultimately I ended up scrapping those characters completely because the story took a very different turn and they were no longer necessary (such things happen, unfortunately--you may have to do a lot of scrapping along the way to your final draft, my fine friends), but I keep them in my back pocket for a prospective future project--you never know when something you scrap could become useful in the future, after all.
     My point (however much work it's taken to get to it) is that, while this is arguably the easiest route to take, there's still a lot of work you'll need to do, because these characters still need to be yours--no one else's.
   

2.  Frankenstein It

     Another method is to take pieces from multiple characters--whether they are yours or someone else's--and MacGyver them into something useful.  This one is a little bit more difficult to figure out, but so long as you don't let any one character donate too many limbs, it's easier to make this creature your own--when done well, it becomes one of those perfect blends where no one reading the novel can tell where any one trait came from.
     Sticking with the Don Cheezeley example, maybe you want Don's love interest/good friend to be wacky but in touch with reality, and also snarky, so you take the giggly madman do-as-you-like parts of Spongebob Squarepants, the logician parts of Spock, and the sardonic wit of Severus Snape, super glue 'em together, and grin at your monstrosity before it starts speaking in tongues and tries to devour you.
     When you do this, there's a lot of sanding down that needs to happen--you can't have Snape's wit AND his moody demeanor if you're trying to make him do the Spongebob laugh, and the Spongebob's Cloudcuckoolander activities will be greatly reeled in by Spock's logical approach to life--you pick the parts you want, then the rest you discard.  The holes between, or the parts where conflicting traits would ordinarily overlap?  Those you have to fill in for yourself--and again, your backstory and the world around your character will play a vital role in this; no human being develops in a vacuum, and as such characters cannot be completely disconnected from the world they live in.

3.  Base It Off Someone From Real Life

     Basing a character off of someone you know IRL can be tricky--if you make them too similar, you risk offending the person they're built after, and a possible suit for defamation of character or whatever the kids get sued for these days.  When basing a character off of someone from real life, unless the figure in question is a public one, you'll want to be subtle about it being an actual person.  Keep it loose--take what you need and make up the rest, and try not to let the character resemble the person too much--and whatever you do, never, absolutely not once ever, use their real name, or anything close to it.  You don't want to get into that.
     Combining more than one person can help, or you could combine the person with one or more fictional characters--you could Frankenstein from a little bit of everything, if you wanted!
     Again, remember your backstory and supporting cast; they. are. vital.

     The first three all come down to; borrow all you like (borrowing is, ultimately, what we're doing every time we're inspired by something--there's no shame in it) but never take any too much from any one source.
     Now we come to the more difficult parts--the parts where you try to conjure something out of nothing.
     *Cue dramatic music*

4.  From Scratch--Planned

     There are a lot of ways to set about making your own completely "original" character, but it comes down to this:  This is where she is, what she's doing there, where she's been, and what she looks like.  These are the things she likes to do, this is what she wants, why she wants it, and these are the things in her way.
     That's pretty much it.  You can fill out character questionnaires to get a better idea of who your character is, or use random generators to pin it down (I recommend Springhole.net), or just jot stuff down on paper until you feel that your character is fleshed out.  As long as you have the basic questions written out, you have a character,  Making them breathe is a matter of finding their voice, their habits, their manner of speaking--keep a character bible, write down everything you can, search out lists online, watch people as you go about your day.  Think about your character's quirks and habits, the way they walk, talk, dress--write it all down, maybe draw your character, and hope for the best.
     In the end, hoping for the best is all we can do.  Sometimes, a character you create will fall flat.  That's okay, though!  That's why we edit, after all.

5.  From Scratch--Spur Of The Moment

     Sometimes you just need to wing it.  Start out with a name, a general purpose, a smidgen of an idea, and just go.  It's the Improv Method for character creation, basically--you just need to let the information flow, and allow this character to reveal itself over time.
     It seems like a nothing method, but honestly?  It works.  These can sometimes be your best characters; they have the most potential to surprise you, and just like with Improv (can you tell that I just got back from my Improv class?), some of the best things come from surprising yourself.  Hell, a lot of my favorite characters are ones I got to know by going in blind--basically the whole cast of (my shelved WIP) Silhouette were sparse sketches that came alive when I turned them out on their journey, and when I wrote The Snake With Amber Eyes, a little girl named Shelby snuck in from the sidelines and basically stole the story.
      These little guys can be a handful, and the con to this method is that it can leave you stymied in the middle of a scene because you don't have all the information you need for them, or the character can come out inconsistent or not-fully-formed, which is a valid issue.  They can also take the story completely off the rails and leave you reeling, but, as always, it can--and should--be fixed in post.

6.  How I Make My Characters

     >Stares at screen
     >Makes guttural noise
     >Throws up arms
     >Makes pterodactyl noise
 
      The truth is, my methodology for creating characters is wildly inconsistent.  I mix and match from the list above--for some projects, I base characters off of books and movies I've seen, for some I plan them all out beforehand and fill out a million questionnaires, sometimes I sit for hours using random generators to develop a human being, for some I slam real people onto the pages and change their names and give them super powers, and for some, I just straight up wing it.
     Consistencies exist, though--I almost always draw my characters, at least the important ones, so I can get a feel for what they look like, and use their facial features and posing, etc. to reveal aspects of their personalities.  I do a lot of characterizing in my head on the fly--I listen to music that reminds me of the character, connecting it to their life and choices, I fill in the blank spaces of their backstories and envision scenes with them as I go for walks or try to sleep at night.
     Sometimes I tie characters into the zodiac to better pin down their personalities--this character is really emotional and all-or-nothing, so maybe he's a Scorpio, which would also indicate blah blah blah, etc. etc.
     But a lot of the time, I'm making it up as I write, or else sitting up in bed at three in the morning to scribble down notes before I fall asleep and forget them.

     The Coates Curriculum for Creating Characters essentially comes down to this:

1.  Make them breathe.
2.  Keep thinking about them.

     It doesn't matter, ultimately, how it's done, as long as it works for you and produces a character that seems like more than just a puppet on a string or a thinly veiled clone of someone else.  Just keep working at them, pushing them, trying to figure out their insides, and once you think you have it down pat, let them surprise you--even if you've planned everything out perfectly beforehand, if they ask you to deviate from the path, let them do so--you can always scrap it later.
     But you might be pleasantly surprised at how well the character knows themselves--which is to say, probably better than you do.