Writer's Fallout Shelter

I'm going to be blunt. Remember, when talking about writing, things like critiques are just opinions; it is the writer's job to decide which opinions to value and which to ignore.

My characters come from my imagination totally.

In the Characters & Characterization thread, I made the claim that unless someone is living in complete and total isolation, their characters cannot come completely from their imagination. Whether the writer realizes it or not, they will be influenced by their own interactions with others.

This is not to say that I think you should base your characters on your friends and family, but you should be aware that your expectations of how people will behave in a situation come from your own interactions with others. This is not a bad thing. You just need to make certain you're interacting with as wide variety of people as possible.


Hmm, my characters are normally outcasts and different from others in some way. Normally it's their eyes and hair. Plus, they have really different names, but that's just because using common names tends to influence my character too much.

To me, this sounds like you need to get to know your characters better. From this, they're sounding two-dimensional. While they are fictional creations, they're people, too. Three-dimensional.

What makes them tick? Why do they do the things they do? What has influenced them? What are their hopes, their dreams, their fears, their likes, and dislikes? You need to spend some time with them and really get to know and understand them.

Try this exercise: Go to a public place. Observe the people there for awhile. Listen to their conversations and observe their body language and interaction with one another. Try to find a small group of people who on first glance seem to have everything in common. After observing them for awhile, ask yourself what makes them individuals and different from one another.

Also, think about your friends and the people you know. What makes them unique? What do you think of their personalities? What makes them that way?


My storylines aren't really similar, but I think that's because I've only finished one story, so most of my others don't have storylines just yet. Many of my stories are just characters right now and I haven't worked on them lately.

As the stories develop themselves, the rest will come. As you do develop the stories, you may notice that their are similarities in them. For instance, one of my writing partners told me that most of my stories, if not all, deal with people trying to find their place and how they fit in to the greater scheme of things. This isn't a bad thing. It's just the theme that I'm personally exploring in my life right now and it's reflected in my writing, but the storylines, as I explored the worlds in which they are set and the characters' struggles and interactions with one another and what they want to achieve, are still unique.


It just seems that all my characters are the same & I can never think of different characters.

Is there something about what makes these characters unique that you're dealing with in your personal life or that you're trying to understand better?

We really don't create in a vacuum. It does come from our own understanding or lack of understanding of the world around us.


And when I say "new areas" I mean, like... yeah, different genres, I guess, or just storylines that you'd have to research.

Ideas are all around us. We just have to train ourselves to look at the world different in order to find them. Observe and question. Ask yourself "What if?" and "Why?" as often as you can. The different storylines will come as you explore the world around you and think about things.

As for genres, don't worry about those. Not when you're writing the first draft. I'd have to ask, but I think Liam thought he was writing horror. His book is being marketed as a thriller. I consider it a dark urban fantasy.

Just write the stories that move you.