Telling the reader what you're going to tell them, as this whole chapter does, is frequently a turn-off and certainly a waste of the reader's time. Why didn't you cut directly after Enjoy! to the real essay?

Well. This is another one I need to keep handy if ever I need to develop characters.

WEE! Sidekicks! Gotta love 'em.

Yes, sidekicks are awesome. Nice to see them clash once in a while. Also nice to see the protagonist kicked out of the spotlight and having a sidekick there once in a while.

Nice to see a little deserting, too.

:P

Haha, when I first saw the title of this chapter I'm all, 'I knew this was coming...' (I'm not that much of a fan of romance, by the way. Oh well.)

I got a few giggles out of this. 'Popping out babies every other day', 'Legs up to her face', 'Abs you can grate cheese on'. (Who the hell would knowthat anyway?)

Heehee...

But yes, everything's true in here I guess. (Not being a romance-y type.) Guess 'love at first sight' makes me want to slap the author with a fish.

Agree with the clichéd antagonists. They come up so often... But if they want to take over the wold in an awesome way, do other stuff on top of that, and face a bunch of troubles... /then/ it's awesome.

And yes. They appear to look ridiculously ugly so often. Or insanely beautiful. It's nice to have some average people as antagonists.

(I thought Hitler wanted revenge because he lost the first World War. Oh well. That book hurt my brain anyway...)

And with the titles, yes some are insanely long. But some are a simple word, but while you know it's just an everyday word, you know people associated in the organisation can kill you without a second though. Also awesome to have them working in somewhat equal status. :)

Thanks for the article!

Hey, I agree with most things written here. ('Most things' because it's unbelievably fun to have a character with little to no common sense, and having said common sense turn up a separate character... like a voice in the protagonist's head or something.)

With the Mary Sues/Gary Stus... yeah. Just gets boring, with no serious conflicts and getting them over and done with easily if they turn up in the first place.

I find it a little hard to create a past not overly tragic, though. Working on it.

And the name- Personally, I have a habit of skipping over insanely long names and ones with an insane amount of unnecessary apostrophes. Much nicer to pick a simple, but not-too-common name. (But not a stupid one either... Pray I don't come across one like Hate one day.)

Great essay. :)

Hey,

I found this through random searching, and I really hope this will be able to improve characters in things I write. I skimmed through a few reviews, and it DOES look like I'll be able to pick up some tips.

PS. The title got me too. Love it. ;)

Oh! I like! This is very useful, I've been looking for something like this for awhile.

This should be very helpful to many people, including me. I enjoyed reading it, and it made me think about some of the things I've done in my own story.

If you would take a look at my story, "Shadow the Sun", and let me know what you think, I would be very grateful.

This is a very good guide. I'm enjoying it.

Roz

Really helpful guide to creating well balanced characters. I'm definitely going to take some of the advice from this and think about it while creating characters. The only criticism I have is that you seem very almost overly focused on avoiding cliches. Sometimes (in my opinion) this can make stories somewhat boring. I've always said that a story without cliches is either a boring pile of mush or a work of utter genius, and 99% of the time it's a pile of mush. But like i said before, Great Job!

This essay is incredibly helpful. I have agreed with almost all your points. Great job.

One of my favourite series is tales of otori. I didn't know anyone else liked it. You have great taste:P

I just checked out the Silver Scrolls website you mentioned. Unfortunately, I can give excellent empathy for how busy you must be.

You said that you would eventually cover magic systems. I have a new pet project titled "A Beginner's Guide to Magic" that will, I hope, give good advice on this topic. Can you take a look and tell me what you think? I really do need someone's feedback.

I think I agree with most of your comments about the mentor. He really is a stock character, although Brom was reasonably fleshed out and Obi-Wan was eventually fleshed out.

About that female mentor...

Anyone interested, check periodically. I am working on a set of stories titled the Flamewind Legends that do (will) feature such a character. Arrival date uncertain.

I like this piece, especially the part on sidekicks.

However, I have seen some characters be made reasonably believable and fleshed out but also state, specifically and blatantly, that they know themselves to be minor influences on the plot and very aware that the designated protagonist is far more important in the grand scheme of things. Comments on this?

On a different note, great humor! Especially the part about the bored noblewoman who steals jewelry just for the thrill and then sneaks back in to bed with her secret still safe even from her husband.