Writing Characters Who Feel Like Real People

I truly love when actors/actresses take a page from The Archives of BFF and reenact a particular scene. Many have told me the members of Switch feel natural and easy to get into character. I even had multiple people including major online distributors ask me, “Is this story non-fiction” or “Is Switch a real group?”

Well in a maladaptive daydream, disassociate world… maybe. However in this world, no Switch is a figment of my imagination. Yes all the Switch members are based off someone I knew in real life but only to some degree. 

Hence why writing character dynamics is so important. You have to know your character relations to other characters. For example you are never going to catch LeeSung chatting with Theo because they literally have nothing in common. While LeeSung could go on for days with Kendrick or Jean. JV Girls usually don’t chat with Varsity Girls because the two units barely get along. 

Once you know the science between character relations, life becomes so much easier. 

Now dialogue is so important. I write in the style of "chatting to chat”. I don’t know about you but when I talk to someone, our conversations float around. I am not usually responding to a theoretical question with a deep profound answer right off the bat, EVERY SINGLE TIME. Nor do dialogue flow with proper grammar. Most people talk in slang so I write in slang. I use “uh” and “...” or “that tuff” because that's how humans talk sometimes.

I may not be an avid reader but I am an avid subtitle reader. Watch old TV shows (90s - 2010) that feature a large cast of people, a personal favorite is 90210 (without all the fast forward scenes). I like to pay attention to how each character interacts with the world it lives in and the people around them.

Cut the formality and write what comes naturally. 

So don’t write, Rebecca said “Please turn off the music. I am trying to sleep.”’

Instead write, Rebecca demanded, “Geez, now I ain’t gonna say it again. Cut the music off for crying out loud. I am tryna get some sleep. Ugh!”’

Spice it up and add some color to your words. The better the dialogue is, the less background explaining you have to do for your characters. Don’t just say your character is upset and irritated, show it through acting. Then run your story through a text to speech software and see if it sounds great. (For Mac users its (Option + Esc) or ‘search spoken’ content in the Mac settings).

If your characters come off feeling corporate, then they are going to be boring, or even worst, sound like artificial intelligence. 

So use that God given brain of yours and make it shake. Check out The Archives of BFF series to see how I made my characters come to life.