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Some time ago I stumbled across a story on fanfiction.net, and one can argue I was asking for it, looking on thatsite. But, this one story I saw had ALL the faults and fell in ALL pitfalls I could think of. And so I sat down andtought of what advise I would give to fellow writers if I could.

1) Dont introduce too many characters at one time. It gets confusing, and the last thing you want is for thereader to go back in your story, to try to figure out who some person are. You are not writing the Icelandic Sagas,you dont need a family tree. Introduce your characters slowly, and tie them to something that will help peopleremember them. So spend some time with each your characters as you introduce them. If you introduce a bunch of

people, like a group of friends, a platoon or family, that needs introduction at the same time, I recommend that youstill use the spend time mantra, and while you might mention them all, then pull one character out at a time andtie them to something.

2) Make your characters unique. the art of writing is similar to the art of drama on a stage. When you act on astage you have to overdo everything, or the audience down in the back wont see. And its everything from yourspeech pattern that has to be loud and clear, and your makeup that is way overdone. All to help everyone see whatyou want them to see. I think writing is the same! You dont have the aid of images or movie, and therefore youhave to spell everything out. Always remember that people are not inside your head, and everything is importantwhen you build a character, from eye color to favourite cigarette brand. Everything tells the reader something aboutthe character. So if you feel like you characterize your characters a little much, to the point of caricature, its okay.You need to get your mental image across.

3) Dont be an idiot, research the stuff you dont know. I cant begin to tell you how much I hate people whosay You write what you know, nothing is further from the truth! It is true that you of course pull stuff from a poolof knowledge inside yourself, but you cant live that many different lives. Just as an example, I have never livedthrough a Zombie Apocalypse, and I have never been a soldier. This doesnt keep me from writing it, butit does mean that I have to use my google-fu, or ask people around me, because I can only assume what would bea logical reaction to some specific situation. Dont fool yourself to think that Stephen King knows what hes talkingabout all the time, I am sure he does research too. And you can never research too much. And dont be a wuss. Ifyou write a story about child abuse, and you really dont know what the hell youre talking about, in respect for thepeople who might be able to relate, you owe it to them to get it right, and so you for instance google it, and youdont google sad children, you gotta google the right stuff, and in the process you get info that you just dont want,and you could have lived out your life happily never knowing. But then you should maybe write about somethingelse. And for the sake of everything holy, if you never had sex, please, please dont be a prude if you want to writeabout it, go google it kids!

4) Dont hold back, you are never too much. Dont think there are subjectsthat you cant write about. As longas you warn the readers in your summary, all is good. You should write what your muse tells you to, it makes youa happier person.

5) Sometimes insinuation is your best tool. Itsreallyhard to be subtle on text. And I dont mean youhave towrite everything out, because sometimes insinuation is the most powerful tool you have. Like for instance one of myfavourite authors H.P. Lovecraft, he rarely actually wrote anything scary, he just set the scene and let the readerdraw their own conclusion. But you need to make sure the scene is set, you dont want your reader not tounderstand what you are hinting at. Lets for the sake of this say that you are writing about spousal abuse, then youcan for instance write the verbal fight, and have character 1, drag character 2 into the bedroom and slam the door.No one would be in doubt that the abuse would continue behind that door, but if you didnt make sure that we asreaders understood that its abuse we are talking about, then we would just be confused. Its always more scary totry to guess what is under the bed, than it is to actually see it. And sometimes less is more, remember that!

6) Stay true to your characters. Nothing will justify a sudden turn of a characters reasoning to do something, notunless you put something in the story that will explain it. Something like a near-death experience, newfoundreligion or something like that. Characters are imaginary people, but they are no different from you and me in thataspect. You wouldnt just wake up some day and think, omg I think I should stop killing people, or whatever. Foryou to make a major change in your life, something often happens that makes you question your existence. And itsthe same with fictional characters! There are of course exceptions, if you make a character that doesnt give a shitabout anything, you can basically do whatever with that character, but always remember to justify it somehow, ifits trough dialogue with another character, a letter, or internal dialogue. Otherwise i promise you, you will unhingeyour readers.

7) Listen to your readers. Well unless they are complete twats, but dont be an ignorant bastard yourself. It isreally hard to give constructive criticism, and its equally hard to receive it. But if someone tells you that Bill isconfusing them, or that Karl Urban isnt German. You should listen! Feedback is a great tool to get better at whatyou do, be it good or bad. We all like being told we are fantastic, and that what we wrote is awesome, but truth is,that it just isnt all that stellar all the time. You can of course just ignore it, or tell them off, but I would advice youto listen when people have something sane to say. I promise you that when you go back and read that story in 10years time, you will cringe, and admit that what people told you was probably right.

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8) Make a plan before you start. I think most authors on the internet had one of those long ass stories that justgoes on for ever. Mostly this happen because itsa popular story, and you and/or your readers dont really want itto end. But honey, all stories have to end some time. Personally I have more than once forgotten what I wanted towrite, and where I wanted to go with some specific story. That is why I am telling you that making a plotsheet isessential, and no one is telling you to stick to it word for word, you can move stuff around like you want, includestuff in chapters that suddenly fit in when you write it, but you didnt think would fit when you mad e the roughsketch. I have had stories be 5 chapters longer than I expected, and also 5 chapters shorter, it doesnt give you any

safety like that. It just means that you know where you are roughly going with the story, and believe me, the storydoes benefit from it.

9) Writing is an illusion. And your job is to make the reader buy your universe. It really doesnt matter if its astory about Horatio Caine as a little blue fox in the fairy princess castle. You have to drag the reader into it. I oftenhave this mental image of pulling a bedsheet over the reader, untill they only see and hear, what I tell them too. Intheory you should be able to make a child rapist understood if you so choose. Think of you as a guide into yourfantasy world, and you take the reader by the hand and bring them there. I promise you that if you can make theuniverse believable and interesting, no one will notice that a character suddenly stopped being in the story (pullinga Tolkien), or your bad grammar, (unless its truly atrocious). You have to fool the reader to believe a lie.

10) Chill with the metaphors. Please, please, please, dont get caught in the metaphor jungle. I believe inminimalist writing, as in, you dont explain more than you have to, but you use words th at cannot bemisunderstood. Please call a penis for a word that everyone understands, dont call it flesh-rod or manhood. It justmakes your reader break out in giggles (Unless you are writing a bad fic, and you aim for laughter) Also a pet peeveof mine is orbs Ihate that word in anycontext! But it is especially bad when people are describing eyes, it justmakes me think of dead doll eyes. Get your shit together, you know when a word is lame or unsexy, I suggest you

usehttp://thesaurus.com/if you cant come up with a decent word. That site is also great for avoiding repetition ofa word, you can basically say despair 20 times, but if you use 4 different words no one is gonna notice. If youdont know how to explain something you can always save it with writing something like the picture frame lookingthing because then the reader has a reference of a thing they know what is. And i will say this again, no one wantstheir readers to go WTF?

11) Dont fall into the Mary-Sue trap. You are not your character unless you write an autobiography. True thatall good authors leave a little of themselves in every character, and every story. You research something and addyour own logic, that is what makes it yours. For the sake of the argument, a character like say Gandalf the Grey,wouldnt break down crying if he cut his finger, or someone told him he was wrong. Maybe you would, but hewouldnt. Always remember, never forget! To write is to drag your illusion over reality, not to thrust yourself into afantasy.

12) To write is to explore humanity. There is no better way to see light, than when its surrounded by darkness.I once wrote a story about a neo nazi who fell in love with an Asian woman, many people felt it was a bit much, butfor me it was a great way to tell a story about love sees no color, social status or gender. But I did sit down and

read up on everything I could find on said subjects, but in that process I found myself on some very questionableforums and homepages, but I took what I could get, and filed that away for the characters. It was a hard thing towrite, even for me, the process of this neo nazi from hateful to accepting, and some of the opinions he had mademe count to 10 before I could write it, but if I didnt it just wouldnt work. My point was that I didnt judge mycharacter, because i knew exactly why he was the way he was, and my job was to make the reader see that too, Ineeded them to see the boy under the swastikas, and later root for him to kiss the girl. And THAT is what youwant, you want your readers to cheer and cry with your characters, no matter how full of flaws they are. And this iswhere fantasy is better than the real world, because redemption is a key stroke away. And honestly where would webe if no one dared to explore subjects that makes both them and others uncomfortable?

Lastly I have a small plea for myself. If you cant write a decent summary, take the first two paragraphs from thestory! Also dont write fb makes mewrite faster because that is just unappealing and pathetic. To write is a worldof patience, you have to keep on writing, posting your stuff around and with time someone will notice. But dontthink you can just write a semi inspired fan story and everyone will fawn over you. Also dont worry that you will be

judged as a person on what you write, if people cant see the difference between you as a person and the storiesyou tell, they are idiots.

Creating an Original CharacterBy Maisha Foster-O'Neal

You've heard the old maxim before... 'a character can make or break your story.' Okay, okay, so youwant to write an interesting character. You've got some plot ideas, you know a little bit about yourworld, but now you need your characters. And not just any old characters - no, these have got to bethe most original, most interesting characters your reader will ever come across.

Ah yes, such is the desire of all writers. And yet, how is it that in classic fantasy we see the sameheroes and villains generated over and over again? We've got the rugged wanderer who keeps to

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himself, the kid who's suffered amnesia and just happens to be royalty, the elf who despises the dwarf(and it's mutual), the reluctant hero who's handsome, brave, and self-sacrificing, the girl who's verybeautiful but never gets along with the hero until the end of the story, and the evil overlord type ofvillain who cackles maniacally whenever things are going his way.Enough already! We want to see something newfor a change!Before we dive into Creating Original Characters, I'd like to offer a disclaimer.

Disclaimer: I don't claim to know everything about writing. In fact, I don't claim to know very much

about writing at all. I'm just a teen like a lot of you, with my own silly little ideas and a large collectionof tips and tricks I've gleaned from just about everywhere. What I write should not be taken as gospelor absolute truth - it's just an organised way for me share with you what I think works. It's myopinions. I'm sure a few of my suggestions and drabbles will be shot down by readers, and that's fine.Take what you like, and ignore what you don't. I encourage you to add your own two-cents to thisarticle. That's what the comment box is there for, after all.Note: There is already an excellent tutorial about writing the Villain, so I won't make specificreferences to writing an antagonist. Besides, I'm not very good at writing believable villains yet! Ihighly recommend that you read the aforementioned tutorial, though.

The Basics of Characters1. The first thing about characters - They are just one facet of a good story. They are essential, but

if you don't have a world for them to traipse around in and a twisty plot so that they canactually do something, then they're gonna get bored, and - worse - your reader will, too.

2. Listen to them! If you manage to create a good character, she'll practically come to life. She willhave her own opinions and demands, and if she doesn't want to fall in love with the hero, don'tforce her into it. She'll be unhappy, you'll be unhappy, and your story will seem contrived. Shemight even hit you over the head with a strong dose of Writer's Block for it. Your charactersknow who they are. Try to keep an open mind to their suggestions. Humour them.

3. Exaggerate them. If he's egocentric, make him reallyegocentric. Real-life people are a mix of alot of things, and their quirks don't usually go to the far end of extreme. In a story, though, yourcharacter will feel more real if he's actually less real. Like real-life, he should be a complex mix ofmore than one thing, but try to have one or two of those things super-sized. As a reader, we liketo be able to label a character, and if they have one or two defining characteristics, it makes iteasier for us - we just say 'she's arrogant' or 'he's lazy.'

4. When I talk about characteristics and unique traits, I don't mean that she has a really weirdbirthmark or he has silver eyes. Other tutorial writers have said it, and I'll say it again: if you'retrying to breathe originality into your character, strange physical attributes are a cop-out. Nopurple-haired humans or glowing birthmarks unless you can come up with a really, reallygoodreason for them. If you're giving him blue hair just because it looks cool, you need to rethink

your character. Instead, give him a crooked smile, lots of freckles, or really big ears.5. Don't let your characters be perfect. Ever. The hero can't always be brave and selfless, especially

if you combine it with roguish good looks and a talent for swordplay. Characters need flaws. Icannot stress that enough. They need to be imperfect. They need to have quirks and fears andobsessions. They need a weakness.

6. Let your character be special for who she is and what she does, not who she's related to orbecause she's destined to save the world. Her defining points should not be based on a condition- she's pregnant, she's under a curse that allows her to only speak in rhymes, she's deaf. Sheshould be interesting for her personality and her quirks. If she's heading out on a quest to savethe world, she should be doing it because she has the internal motivation to do it. If some blindold Seer makes a prophecy that says she's the only one who can bring together the warringraces, she'll probably say, 'To hell with that, I'm gonna stay home and hope the whole thingblows over.'

7. A note on fantasy races: If your unicorns are silvery steeds who can cure injuries with a touch oftheir horns and your dragons are temperamental and have a fondness for hording treasure andbreathing fire, we've read it before. Why not make your unicorn have attitude issues because shehates being stereotyped as the gentle creature from children's storybooks? Why not have an elfwho abhors trees and tends to trip over himself a lot? Let your dragon be sweet-tempered orafraid of heights. Allow your dwarves to have squeaky voices and a love of chocolate. Yourwerewolf might be a charming family guy when he's not covered in fur, and your vampire mightlike to wear bright colours and shape-shift into a bumblebee instead of a bat. Shake things up!Refuse to submit to the old, the overused, and the clich.

Character Creation: Little Exercises1. Open up a phonebook and pick out a name, and write a description of that person based only on

their name. Similarly, open up your highschool yearbook (or, better yet, someone else's), choose

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a face you don't know anything about, and create a personality for them. (This works well fornon-fantasy writing, too).

2. Write down occupations (you know, like Firefighter and Musician and Doctor) on scraps of paper,and on another set of paper write down personality quirks (such as Kleptomaniac, No Sense ofHumour, or Superstitious). Pair the occupation with the quirk by drawing them out of a hat, andsee what sort of person you come up with!

3. Write up a profile for your character. There's a wonderful Character Creation Form in one of theother tutorials, or you can find other ready-to-use profile forms on the internet. If you like, writeyour own. Make sure to include the date you started the form. I like to print them out and fill inall the data at my leisure, and I keep separate folders with forms and notes for each story.

4. Interview your character. Sit down with him and ask him questions. Keep asking until he startsgiving you answers. Find out why he's afraid of spiders and what his deepest desire is. It's fun towrite up a questionnaire and fill it in. If you can, explain your character to a friend and then askher to answer the questions as she thinks your character would.

5. Draw her. Even if you are a terrible artist, drawing your character might inspire you to keepwriting her. This is particularly helpful if you feel like you're coming down with a case of Writer'sBlock. Sometimes drawing your character or a favourite scene can kick your brain back into gear,and suddenly you'll be hammering away at the keyboard again.

6. Take an online personality test (such as Meyers-Briggs or Enneagram) from the perspective ofyour character. I have a friend who loves Enneagram and always defines her characters withnumbers based on the Enneagram system. Months later she can return to a character and knowjust who he is by the numbers she's written down.

Types of personality flawsThese are just a few of my favourites to give you an idea of what you can add to a character. Thereare loads more out there, and everyone has their favourites. Use more than one. A charactercan'tjustbe a kleptomaniac... let her be clumsy and sarcastic, too. Sarcastic or cynical. Maybe it's just me, but I'm a sucker for guys who are constantly insulting

everyone in a very funny way. Try to decidewhythe character is sarcastic, though... What makeshim moody or bitter in his humour? What happened in his past to make him insult everyonenow? Is he afraid of relationships or wary of trust?

Egocentric. Let the character think she's better than everyone. If other people can dosomething, she can do it better. She's also much more intelligent than everyone, and, of course,the most beautiful. She's fun to write and fun to read, because you love to hate her.

Easily fascinated. I just love a character who will stare at balloons forever and delights at apassing butterfly. They're flaky, they're shallow, they're generally useless, but they're so funnyto watch. They spout off the randomest pieces of knowledge and don't know when to shut up.

Fierce or hot-tempered. This one is becoming a bit overdone, but I still enjoy a girl who's morelikely to knock you out than allow you to rescue her. If you go for the gender-role-reversal thing,a fierce girl is a lot more fun to write than the usual damsel-in-distress. Hot-tempered guys canbe great, too - he may be easily provoked or loses his temper at the mention of his father. Butdon't overdo it. How many people got really annoyed by Harry's constant angst in Harry Potterand the Order of the Phoenix?

Mysterious. You have to be careful with this one, but sometimes it's interesting to have acharacter who you can't predict and who's thoughts and actions you don't understand. It can getannoying, though, if the character knows more than the reader. So be careful.

Hyperactive or flamboyant. A character that never seems to run out of energy or questions canbe amusing. Maybe he has an obsession with trying to get the other characters to dance withhim. This is a fun one if you like gender-role-reversals. Guys who are easily excitable and like togive big sloppy kisses don't come along too often, and we love to laugh at their antics.

Melodramatic. The drama queen (or king). This is a character who exaggerates everything andmakes tiny events seem like huge catastrophes. She's fun to write and even more fun to read.

This is the character who jumps to conclusions and thinks everything is way funnier than it is. The bully. Personally, I like the guy that pushes everyone around. He thinks he's cool, but maybe

he's secretly really insecure. A good example would be Sirius Black and James Potter fromthe Harry Potterseries by J.K. Rowling.

The nerd. Okay, so it's fun to have a girl who rattles off physics equations in the middle of battleand tries to predict events based on scientific calculations... espcecially if she's wrong or no-oneever listens to her. Another variation of the nerd is the kid who's rather the swot and always likesto be right.

Accident prone. She screws things up because she trips over her own feet. She's clumsy. Shegets in the way, and she can't be stealthy no matter how hard she tries. She drops things.

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Forgetful or absent-minded. He's sort of dim, gets teased a lot, puts his shoes on the wrong feet.Perhaps he's brilliant but can't remember more than two things at once. He can't remember whyhe's in the kitchen or where he put his glasses.

Compulsively lies. She rarely tells the truth. Lies are so much more interesting - and it'snot reallylying, it's just a form of acting. She may give her companions wrong directions andafter awhile they may not trust her very much. Useful if you like the boy-who-cried-wolf type ofstory, where she doesn't tell the truth until it really matters, and then no-one believes her.

Awkward. He's nervous and a little paranoid and doesn't know what to do with himself when agirl is in the vicinity. He may trip over his own tongue or be fearful of revealing anything abouthimself.

A hypochondriac. She's convinced she's dying. A splinter becomes life-threatening, and shecannot travel if she has bruised her knee. Occasionally she crashes into hard surfaces 'onaccident' and sustains grievous injuries. She always thinks she's ill or coming down withsomething contagious.

A kleptomaniac. He compulsively steals things. His companions don't understand why theirshoestrings and coins seem to disappear. Most of the time, he doesn't, either.

A pyromaniac. It doesn't get much better than a fire-obsessed girl who likes to experiment.Whoever knew that the hero's boots burn such a strange shade of blue? Or that unicorn hairwon't burn unless you douse it in beer?

Anything that ends in -iac. Noticing a theme, aren't we?A note on RomanceIt's okay to not have any romance in your story, but if it's expected it can be sort of a letdown ifnothing ever happens between any of the characters. Don't feel like you have to pair off all of yourcharacters - it's okay for some (or even most of them) to remain single. Forbidden interracialrelationships are becoming a bit overdone lately. Your human doesn't always have to fall for theuntouchable elf, and the werewolf doesn't always have to chase the human. It can be just as sweetand unexpected (if not more so) to reveal that your two boy characters secretly love each other. But ifyou don't go for homosexual relationships, or your character doesn't, it's okay not to write it. Justrecognize that it's a possibility.

A note on Character Death'...and they lived happily ever after.' Happy endings don't always occur in real life, and they can getboring to read. Personally, my favourite endings are the bittersweet kind, where one of theprotagonists dies or the lovers must be separated between different worlds or times. (My favouriteexamples are the His Dark Materials series by Phillip Pullman and The Lord of the Rings trilogy by JRRTolkien). If you don't dig death, though, don't write it. If your character dies, the reader is gonna wantsome sort of compensation - the world had better be saved because she sacrificed herself, or theother characters are delivered from imminent doom. Unless, of course, you're writing tragedy, laWilliam Shakespeare, in which case everyone can die and the world can fall to ruins and everyonethinks it's wonderful.

Clichs: What NOT to do1. The classic hero (brave, handsome, and has a tendency to save kitties from trees. Bonus if he's

good with swords and used to be a farm boy.)2. The classic damsel-in-distress (beautiful and completely useless. Has no idea how to do anything

for herself. Submits woefully to her downtrodden position.)3. The princess (beautiful, docile or snobby, and likes elegant gowns. Bonus if she has blonde hair.)4. The prince (snobby, handsome, brave, or sweet - no matter what guise you put him in he's still a

prince)5. The loner (rugged, silent, and tortured by his past... we've read him a million times.)6. The amnesiac (especially if she's royalty, a powerful mage, or fulfils a prophecy)7.

The orphan (especially if he's royalty or the one to fulfil a prophesy)8. Royalty (We're just tired of royalty, okay?)

9. The Woe-is-me ('mummy just died and daddy wants me to be just like him but I just can'tbecause I'm afraid and what will I do and I think I'm gonna cry...')

10. The seductress ('you are rugged and handsome and even though you have a wife at home I willtempt you with my sex appeal because I am beautiful and like to wear leather thongs.')

11. The Fallen Angel ('I've been cast from Heaven, my wings are broken and I will despair.')12. No emotion ('Blink. Blink.' Volkyns and Elves are particularly good examples)13. Villain's sidekick (he falls for the hero and betrays the villain. Or he's an idiot who always screws

things up but is forgiven every time.)

Killing Clichs

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Some authors have made entire books that purposefully break all the rules - damsel in distress,handsome farm boy turned hero, a dragon to slay and a king whose rule is failing. What these authorshave done, though, is to make fun of the whole fantasy genre by writing absolute stereotypes intotheir stories. Other authors write pages and pages simply to kill the old clichs - the princess wants tohang out with the dragons because castle life is boring, the hero is an ogre, and the orphan isabsolutely, totally, completely useless.

Books and authors who tie up fantasy and tickle it:

Patricia C. Wrede- Dealing with Dragons series Terry Pratchett- Discworldseries Piers Anthony-Xanth series AJ Jacobs- Fractured Fairy Tales (from the Rockie and Bullwinkle show) William Goldman- Princess Bride Shrek- okay, so it's a movie, but it still kills clichs

Adding quirks and originality to your characters can be a challenge, but it is definitely worth the timeit takes. So, my readers, go forth and write! Spend sleepless nights tapping away at the keyboard,write notes to yourself on your arms in permanent pen, daydream in class. Do what writers do. Writeyour characters, listen to their suggestions, and allow them to murder as many clichs as they care to.It's okay to use some clichs (I must admit that I am quite attracted to a lot of them... there'ssomething enticing about a derelict old clich when you feel like it might be shiny if you can just ruboff all the dust), but the best ones are those you can turn on their heads and twist into unexpectedshapes. Be crazy, be beautiful, be you.

Cheers.