Character Planning

Some tips that have helped me after deactivating a former character due to losing all inspiration with her and hoping to avoid that with Simon:

1) have some sort of family or overarching plot that doesn’t involve h.io members. It doesn’t have to be huge and certainly shouldn’t be the writer’s only focus - but as other writers and characters on h.io deactivate, leave, or become inactive, you’ll still have that plot no matter what happens.

For me, that’s been Simon discovering his father and then his journey through attempting to build a relationship with him.

2) Make a rough draft of goals that you want to achieve for each year. For me, this relates to both the above and ties in the changes that Simon goes through as he gets older being a dhampir. No matter what happens each year - good or bad - I try to hit those specific goals.

3) I made a moodboard for each year to visualize the above yearly goals. I revisit them often.

That being said, character development is my absolute favorite part of writing. If you or anyone else needs someone to talk over their character to try and get some help with details or just figure things out, owl me or send me a message on discord: lemondrop#3396

I love talking about characters!

So as someone who loves to think about the characters I will be having after André graduates, I like to firstly fill out the form for how to make a character. (can probably be implied to other things non HiO related if you take out the First instance of magic), With the personality, history and appearance. Then I think of what this character's goals would be, there ambitions. To make them more real. I look over things think of some plots that would be super fun to play out, and find abilites that would fit with there development. (imo also an important part)

Sorry if this is confusing lol

I get sick of Maggie pretty frequently, and have BRIEFLY thought about deactivation, but something that always helps me to remember why I'm writing as her instead of someone else is to focus heavily on her flaws. There are so many things that I absolutely hate about her, and I think it makes her more fun to write.

Piggybacking off of what Simon said, having an overarching plot for your character that doesn't involve other HiO members (lest they deactivate or something of the sort) is super important. Furthermore, having goals and ideas for what you'd like them to accomplish is also important. Working towards that goal can help you find character motivation and why they act the way they act.