Lindsay
Lindsay asked Annabelle Batie:

Do you have any tips for character development? I mean I love my characters(they are my babies) but they feel like totally two dimensional.

Annabelle Batie I totally get that! My characters started out that way at first, too. Here are my top tips for writing strong character development:

1. Give them all distinct personalities. Don't make two characters the exact same. It can also be really helpful to use personality tests like the Enneagram or MBTI to help assign personalities to your characters. Also modeling some of your characters after real-life people can be cool too, and it makes them feel a lot more relatable to you readers.

2. Read the book "Creating Character Arcs" by K.M. Weiland. This book helped me a lot with my character development! Give your characters a lie that they believe about themselves or about the world, and then over the course of the story have them realize the truth. This is especially good for your main character, but it can also be good to have smaller character arcs for your side characters so that they can sharpen your main character.

3. Remember that it's okay for your characters to make mistakes. When I first started out writing, I often made my MCs perfect in almost every way, just because I thought that was way cooler. But actually, it's not! It only makes it so that readers have trouble relating to your characters and there's hardly any good plot or action, because the main character never messes up, so they never create any problems for themselves.

4. Check out my blog post on Writing Distinct Character Voices (https://annabelle.batie.com/how-to-wr...), or my blog post on Creating Relatable Characters (https://annabelle.batie.com/3-tips-on...) for some more tips!

I hope this was helpful!

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