Anonymous asked: how do you manage to write so well for characters? I mean, like, other fandom things as well as your OCs? I remember your Jervis Tetch and Neil Richards stuff and these new Layton and Wright things feel so spot on as well, like they're canon or something
well firstly that’s super kind of you (and hey wow you must have been following me for a while huh :’D ahaha), but I don’t know really, I just don’t try to make characters do anything they wouldn’t naturally- if it feels wrong I don’t do it.
I’ve found a good practice for creative writing is to put a character in a situation and just let them respond to it; it leads to the most plausible and often wildly interesting stories, because you aren’t playing puppet master, you’re just letting the circumstances form as they would do in real life and observing. It’s a good, fun exercise, and leads to the understanding that if you want a character to respond to a particular situation in a particular way, there has to be a logical reason for it. If it’s important for a character to behave in an atypical fashion at a certain part of the story you have to build the story backwards to find the cause of that behaviour at that point in time. You can’t just ‘make’ a character perform an action, the character will perform the action for a reason, as a writer it is your job (and responsibility) to find that reason.
Basically I think it just comes down to learning to respect the character and the fact that they are their own person, and not just a chess piece to be forcibly moved around a set series of events for your own convenience.