I am working on a story and one of my main characters is a fifteen year old named Karuna who has burn scars on her hands from abuse as well as scars from a car crash that killed her parents. She hate's her scars and thinks of herself as ugly, even if this isn't true. I really want to show a lot of character development as the story progresses, but I am unsure how to do that. Since I started writing this story and it's prequel to highlight lead characters overcoming depression, anxiety, and other issues I don't want to stray too far from that but I also don't want to mirror what happened to the main character in the prequel but I want the two to be able to relate to each other in one way or another, Right now she wears gloves to cover the places on her hands and long pants to cover the scars on her legs, she also has nightmares about the fiery car crash plus her abusive foster families and barely sleeps. She lives at a group home with five other girls her age as well as the instructor(who is the girl from the prequel), the instructor's wife and their four small children.
If you're worried about writing the same story twice, basically, then ask yourself: do you need the prequel? If you're just trying to give more development to the instructor so Karuna can relate to her, then you can do that in one story. An earnest heart-to-heart between two characters is sometimes all it takes to achieve that. I know sometimes it hurts to cut and edit stuff, but sometimes that's the best choice. I had seven characters that I spent months fleshing out, and was eager to write about all of them in the story I was going to make. But the more I tried to tackle it, the more I realized, I needed to start smaller. I condensed down to two characters who would be introduced in early chapters, and decided that if and when other characters became mainstays in the cast, they would wait a long time before being introduced. A lot of the time, condensing does a world of good for your writing.
^ I agree. To add on, in terms of developing a character without outright explaining what's happening, try and make it show through actions. Maybe someone rips off her gloves on accident and doesn't react how she thinks they will, or a friend coaxs her to wear shorts for the first time. Maybe she starts describing herself less harshly without even noticing it. Sooner or later, there may be a huge turning point, whether she confronts someone else or her inner demons.
A noble goal; all stories should show at least some and good ones show a lot. However, going about this weighs on the intended plot and what kind of character development you want. It doesn't have to be going from weak to stronger/better; it could be from how she is into actively bitter and angry to the point of hurting herself or others. If you intend for her to slowly get over being shy about her scars, maybe have somebody get bullied for self-harm scars but continue to show them? It could make your main character realize that hiding her own scars, involuntary as they were, is causing the self-harm person to feel even more alone and this does not sit well with her. The desire to help out would conflict with her desire to hide the parts of herself that she can't bear to show, and she would of course act out this stress in some way that makes the plot go. Hopefully my little suggestions can help some, and please update this thread with any more info so we can talk about it.
Thanks, all of your advice has given me an idea. Now I need to just figure out each characters gender/sexual identities. So far I just know that Karuna has a crush on an older male character. The other three I have no idea about.
Sit them down on a couch in your head, chill out with them in imagination land, and strike up a conversation with them. If you can get in the zone and do this, it tends to lead to good and creative, oftentimes surprising results.
To copy and paste something, which deals with character development/building, and branches off of what Jellal is suggesting:
Nice idea for a non-canonical short story for the characters in my original fic :lol:. However I cannot guarantee the safety of the clown.
Eh, most priests I can imagine are pretty reserved. With a clown being obnoxious around my female protagonist who's confrontational and feisty, the priest will end up being a referee and/or giving the clown his last rites. But she and the goth kid might get along famously.
On average I'd say my cast reacts worst to the 14 year-old goth, and best to the priest. Clown is the one with the most variance, depending on how stupidly immature the characters can be.
