"Homework" for writing people

Hi there! 

Today I thought I’d talk about a few tricks I use (or should use) to help me out in my writing when it comes to creating believable characters.

If you want to write believable characters then you need to understand people, or at least how they talk and behave, so I’d suggest spending time with and around people. 

Obviously, spending time with people can help you build relationships, and help you to understand the people “up close and personal”, but spending time around people, not necessarily interacting with them, but rather watching them, such as in a park, can help train you to understand how people behave when they are on the move, and you’ll even start to pick up little things about them if you do this regularly. 

Spending time alone is equally helpful, as you can go into your own head or the head of your characters without interruptions. Reading autobiographies can also help, as well as just watching TV/reading. Your characters will feel very real to you, but they are still characters, so watching how others make their characters “feel” real can help you as well.

Another note that I’d have would be to interact with the type of people you are writing, so you can write them convincingly. IE, if you are writing children then spend some time with children- childlike speech is often written incorrectly by people who have problems remembering the difference between 6 and 4. And if you are writing a character who has different life experiences to you, such as someone of a different race, or someone who isn’t able-bodied, try to find someone who has lived that sort of life, so you don’t make any major mistakes. 

So there you go, a short list of how to keep your characters as real as possible, assembled from things I’ve seen online, as well as my own tricks. Honestly, I find that writing dialogue isn’t that hard, just remember that you are speaking for your characters and don’t feel like you need to make everyone so different in speech that they are all talking like they are from different planets unless there is a very good reason to do so. 

Thanks for the read!