Btw your always do lol
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I agree about all of that and the heat. My point, which is a bit of a tangent from my original question, is that to get to the hot stuff, I have to write and think about a lot of stuff that isn’t hot in and of itself. If I only wrote the hot parts, I’d never write.
… which come to think of it, mostly explains why I haven’t written much for years now outside of unconnected scenes and excerpts for my phone’s notes app lol
When writing multi-part works, the heat isn’t always on high. There are build ups and tension to heighten. Your characters have to sustain their identity and motivation the whole way.
I agree. You have to have some type of plot. A general “sex acts with mere descriptive language of it” isn’t very erotic. It’s more like you are posting stuff on bathroom walls. I think, as I said before, it’s just a question of keeping in mind what the true focus of your story. You know if you’re doing right in building up things by the lap test.
Maybe, try visualizing a scene. See the characters in their surroundings. What are they saying? What are they thinking?What are they doing?
If you find that doing all that has gotten you aroused, then just simply write out that entire scenario by describing what is going on around them, what they’re saying, what they’re thinking, and lastly what they’re doing.
I’m also rubber ducking with this response, I think, but giving him a few basic details (maybe the character is a nerdy physicist, like you said), just enough for you to have a vague idea of who he is, and then sticking him in various situations to see how he responds can help you find his voice.
Or, hey, if you have written work outside of this site, you can always just take ideas from characters you’ve already written that could fit in this situation. I’ll happily crib from roleplay characters I’ve already created if I need to get a character voice right, for instance.
I like making my character realistic, robust, credible.
Then, if the reader finds them interesting so be it.
I suppose that’s a neither here-nor-there answer, what I mean is. I don’t try to make a character any more or less interesting then a real person, and when it comes to real people, different people find different people interesting-or-not-interesting.
If I ‘try to make my characters interesting’ that might break the illusion for the reader. They might say “why is he (this author) trying to stuff his characters full of interest ova here? this is incredulous and it has broken my immersion.”
I see it as my job first to give a character ‘character’; a brain, a thought process.
If I do my job well, then it’s up to the reader to decided who, of the believable cast I’ve written, they find interesting or not.
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Partially this question is me trying to figure out what makes characters interesting and compelling to me. When the author is interested in a character, it tends to make them more interesting to me as a reader.
And it is very broad and general, but also very specific to me. So not very useful.
I was trying to figure out why I find certain characters compelling. I usually find I want more of the sassy gay friend in anything. But I also find Walter White really interesting in Breaking Bad. It’s the challenges he faces, sure, and how he gets out of the situations he’s in, but at the very end, it felt worth watching because of the transformation he went through and the truths he admitted to. But what about Saul Goodman? Why did I find him interesting enough to watch another entire series? It’s partially because of how he reacted to the situations he was put in interacting with Walter White. But also his personality I was drawn to (he’s pretty gray. Not a good guy but doesn’t see himself as a bad guy and doesn’t seem to be lying to himself the same way way Walter White does).
Mostly I was trying to dig into why I like characters. I could give other examples of romantic comedies (most things starring Rebel Wilson come to mind) or action movies (the recent Netflix movie with Anthony Mackie). Across all of those, what makes them interesting?
Also, the answer seems to be: put them in some situations and figure that out lol
This has been a very interesting topic to read through! I’m inclined to agree with Spiders on this. The same things that make real people interesting will make characters interesting. That’s a very broad space of traits, views, past history etc. to draw from (or write up). As readers we will naturally find certain characters more interesting, just as in real life we find some people more interesting than others; but it’ll be different for each individual.
Life is stranger than fiction so it’s maybe quite difficult to make a character too interesting to be believable.
At the same time, like Cracker and others, I would agree the purpose of the writing ought to influence the approach. If you are writing a quick and dirty stroke story you can get to the action faster if you spend less time fleshing out the characters. The reader will still form an impression of your characters from the action that happens in the story (assuming you give them enough to work with in those action scenes).
The stories I go back to are usually the ones with a unique and original central concept that is executed well. Great characterisation tends to help with that sense of ‘executed well’. However if the story’s primary focus isn’t on the characters, I may still really enjoy the story for other reasons.
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This rings true! And what Cracker said immediately above too, recalling his conversation with Cicero.
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