maya hart + using lucas’s real name

• pick traits that don’t necessarily go together. For example, someone who is controlling, aggressive and vain can also be generous, sensitive and soft-spoken. Characters need to have at least one flaw that really impacts how they interact with others. Positive traits can work as flaws, too. It is advised that you pick at least ten traits
• people are complex, full of contradictions, and please forgive me if this makes anyone uncomfortable, but even bullies can be “nice” people. Anyone can be a “bad” person, even someone who is polite, kind, helpful or timid can also be narcissistic, annoying, inconsiderate and a liar. People are not just “evil” or “good”

• ideas or thoughts that your character has or thinks about the world, society, others or themselves, even without proof or evidence, or which may or may not be true. Beliefs can contradict their values, motives, self-image, etc. For example, the belief that they are an awesome and responsible person when their traits are lazy, irresponsible and shallow. Their self-image and any beliefs they have about themselves may or may not be similar/the same. They might have a poor self-image, but still believe they’re better than everybody else

• what your character thinks is important. Usually influenced by beliefs, their self-image, their history, etc. Some values may contradict their beliefs, wants, traits, or even other values. For example, your character may value being respect, but one of their traits is disrespectful. It is advised you list at least two values, and know which one they value more. For example, your character values justice and family. Their sister tells them she just stole $200 from her teacher’s wallet. Do they tell on her, or do they let her keep the money: justice, or family? Either way, your character probably has some negative feelings, guilt, anger, etc., over betraying their other value

• what your character wants. It can be abstract or something tangible. For example, wanting to be adored or wanting that job to pay for their father’s medication. Motives can contradict their beliefs, traits, values, behavior, or even other motives. For example, your character may want to be a good person, but their traits are selfish, manipulative, and narcissistic. Motives can be long term or short term. Everyone has wants, whether they realize it or not. You can write “they don’t know what they want,” but you should know. It is advised that you list at least one abstract want

• feelings that they have throughout most of their life. If you put them down as a trait, it is likely they are also recurring feelings. For example, depressed, lonely, happy, etc.

• what the character thinks of themselves: their self-esteem. Some character are proud of themselves, others are ashamed of themselves, etc. They may think they are not good enough, or think they are the smartest person in the world. Their self-image can contradict their beliefs, traits, values, behavior, motives, etc. For example, if their self-image is poor, they can still be a cheerful or optimistic person. If they have a positive self-image, they can still be a depressed or negative person. How they picture themselves may or may not be true: maybe they think they’re a horrible person, when they are, in fact, very considerate, helpful, kind, generous, patient, etc. They still have flaws, but flaws don’t necessarily make you a terrible person

• how the character’s traits, values, beliefs, self-image, etc., are outwardly displayed: how they act. For example, two characters may have the trait “angry” but they all probably express it differently. One character may be quiet and want to be left alone when they are angry, the other could become verbally aggressive. If your character is a liar, do they pause before lying, or do they suddenly speak very carefully when they normally don’t? Someone who is inconsiderate may have issues with boundaries or eat the last piece of pizza in the fridge when they knew it wasn’t theirs. Behavior is extremely important and it is advised you think long and hard about your character’s actions and what exactly it shows about them

• their general mood and disposition. Maybe they’re usually quiet, cheerful, moody, or irritable, etc.

• a secondary part of your character’s personality: not as important as everything else. It is advised you fill this out after. Posture is how the character carries themselves. For example, perhaps they swing their arms and keep their shoulders back while they walk, which seems to be the posture of a confident person, so when they sit, their legs are probably open. Another character may slump and have their arms folded when they’re sitting, and when they’re walking, perhaps they drag their feet and look at the ground

• a secondary part of your character’s personality: not as important as everything else. It is advised you fill this out after. Speech patterns can be words that your character uses frequently, if they speak clearly, what sort of grammar they use, if they have a wide vocabulary, a small vocabulary, if it’s sophisticated, crude, stammering, repeating themselves, etc. I personally don’t have a very wide vocabulary, if you could tell

• a secondary part of your character’s personality: not as important as everything else. It is advised you fill this out after. Hobbies can include things like drawing, writing, playing an instrument, collecting rocks, collecting tea cups, etc.

• a secondary part of your character’s personality, not as important as everything else. It is advised you fill this out after. Quirks are behaviors that are unique to your character. For example, I personally always put my socks on inside out and check the ceiling for spiders a few times a day

• a secondary part of your character’s personality, not as important as everything else. It is advised you fill this out after. Likes and dislikes are usually connected to the rest of their personality, but not necessarily. For example, if your character likes to do other people’s homework, maybe it’s because they want to be appreciated

• a secondary part of your character’s personality, not as important as everything else. It is advised you fill this out after. Likes and dislikes can also contradict the rest of their personality. For example, maybe one of your character’s traits is dishonest, but they dislike liars

• your character’s past that has key events that influence and shape their beliefs, values, behavior, wants, self-image, etc. Events written down should imply or explain why they are the way they are. For example, if your character is distrustful, maybe they were lied to a lot by their parents when they were a child. Maybe they were in a relationship for twenty years and found out their partner was cheating on them the whole time. If their motive/want is to have positive attention, maybe their parents just didn’t praise them enough and focused too much on the negative

• if your character experienced a trauma, it needs to have an affect on your character. Maybe they became more angry or impatient or critical of others. Maybe their beliefs on people changed to become “even bullies can be ‘nice’ people: anyone can be a ‘bad’ person”
• people are not their illness or disability: it should not be their defining trait. I have health anxiety, but I’m still idealistic, lazy, considerate, impatient and occasionally spiteful; I still want to become an author; I still believe that people are generally good; I still value doing what make me feel comfortable; I still have a positive self-image; I’m still a person. You should fill out your character’s personality at least half-way before you even touch on the possibility of your character having a disability or illness

• i don’t care if you only get a few sentences down, try to write something every day. i find using a prompt generator or list like (x) (x) or (x) can really help – it forces you to be flexible, creative, and usually it’s pretty fun trying to work with the topics. writing is like any sport: you need to practice and keep it up and push yourself.
• i think poetry is a very good way to write something in the spur of the moment, if you can’t think of something to write. lots of times you can connect it to your emotions or surroundings, and since it’s very free and unlimited, there’s less stress to make it conform to something. if you’ve never written poetry before, and you’re not sure you’d like it, i suggest looking up spoken word. if you look up “button poetry” on youtube you can watch performances or you can just google spoken word to read some (i can’t remember if poetry out loud requires an account to read their poems, but it’s free and there are some pretty fun stuff). this is usually what gets people really interested in poetry, from what i’ve found, and there’s something for everyone
• if you have an idea, jot it down. chances are you won’t remember it, and even if you do you might lose the drive to keep it going. try to flesh it out so you have something to go on. i can still remember some old plot ideas from years and years ago, and i’d probably revise them at this point. that’s fine too. but the more ideas you have the easier it will be to write something on a given day, because if you don’t want to work on one thing, then you’ll have something else.
• make a storyboard, make something to organize your plot, characters, ideas, etc. just as long as it makes sense to you, i promise it will be helpful in the end. you may not need to do this for every story but it’s definitely a good habit to get in to. if you like writing fantasy, i can guarantee you’re going to need something to reference, because even if you think you remember something, it’s better to have something to look at to make sure you didn’t mix up small details. if you’re writing a drabble, this obviously isn’t as essential. ultimately, you’re the judge of what you need to know. i started making an outline for essays and it’s helped me out so much, though, so really consider doing this for anything (i only used to make outlines for stories, because i planned my essays mentally, but it’s nice to cross out things or organize your thoughts because sometimes what you end up writing doesn’t seem as good as how your outline had it).
• if you proofread or edit, don’t do it right after you’ve written. this is usually a tip for essays, but it’s true for all forms of writing. either you’ll be overly critical and change something that’s good, or you’ll be too tired to do a thorough job. if you have the time, wait a day. really strop procrastinating, especially if it’s an essay. i can’t count the number of times i got a better grade on a paper because i gave myself enough time to plan, write, relax, edit, and still have some more time before it was due. i know you won’t always have time to space it out, but if you refer back to the first step and write every day i can almost guarantee you’ll be able to write more, rather than sit around for hours trying to think of something. maybe try to keep two different documents (if you’re typing) of your work, so that way you can see an unrevised version and compare it to something you edited.
• don’t think vocabulary, spelling, grammar, and high school classes are the only things that matter. you can be a great writer and not know your grammar. i have a friend who’s dyslexic and she used to think she was a bad writer because she can’t spell things well, but she realized once the vocab tests ended that she was really good. i know it’s very difficult, especially when lots of people are snobs about spelling and grammar, but you need to remind yourself. i get really impatient with people who keep sniffling about their writing when it’s actually fantastic.
• sometimes write something bad. get weird ideas out of the way, or else they’re going to clutter your head. you can write a paragraph that’s terrible and erase it, and it helps because it actually shows you what not to write. it can just get you to write something, too, if you have writer’s block. it’s okay if you start writing and your characters are unoriginal or you make mistakes. that’s natural, and most of us have all gone through that. we have to be bad before we can be good.
• you don’t need to win competitions or awards or even be good at writing essays for school to enjoy writing. i got pretty bad marks in a 7th grade english class, and my teacher hated me, but i tried not to let that hinder my interest in writing stories and poetry. the next year i won a writing contest but i still didn’t necessarily get A’s on every paper in class. you can be great at creative stuff and bad at analyzing, or vice versa. it’s okay. if you love writing then you just gotta keep writing. you gotta write for yourself. you may be an amazing author but never want to share your stories, and that’s cool too. writing can be as personal or as public as you want it to be
• don’t listen to people who say writing will get you nowhere or that it’s pointless or a waste of time. even though i’m not an english major or pursuing a career with my writing, it’s gotten me through some pretty tough times. i know it sucks to hear people discredit what you do, but the personal gain should be enough to remind you that writing is worth something
• adding on to that, you don’t have to be an english major to be good at writing
• you are incredibly smart and talented for being able to write. if you can create a world, a plot, characters, anything, you’re smart. think about it – it’s tough. really tough. why else do we sit in front of a screen (or stare blankly at our notebooks) and bang our heads and rip our hair out trying to think of what to write? how proud do we feel when people actually like what we write? and even if you can’t come up with something – that doesn’t make you dumb. writing is hard as hell. you’re gonna get there, it just takes a ton of practice – a ton of discarded ideas and frustration
• bad reviews don’t mean you can never be a good writer. it’s going to make you better. everyone needs critique to improve. don’t be discouraged. just like the characters we write, we too need to develop and grow and improve. it’s apart of the process