I have had problems with some of my character building. The characters seem real enough but they also seem to lack a realism. It's almost obvious that they're built rather than exist. I'm not sure what I'm lacking... Anyone want to help?
Perhaps post a specific example and we'll talk you through it? I can't really answer broad questions like this other than to suggest going to amazon.com and searching "how to write good characters".
In your "new member" post, you mentioned you had a lot of little characters that didn't really participate in the story. How many characters do you have? One thing I've done with too many characters is combine ones that are similar. For example, I had two comedic characters that were a little different, but then I combined them into one comedic character. I kept all the lines from both of them and gave them to the combined character. Also note that there are "Static" characters and "dynamic" characters. Dynamic characters change and grow throughout the story. We see them most of the time, and they are the ones really experiencing the story that's going on. Static characters don't change much if at all throughout the story, and are only really there because they are important to the story (that the dynamic characters are experiencing). Most stories can only handle about 3 dynamic characters. Any more than that, and the story gets too crowded and each dynamic character does not get enough story time to really develop and seem real. Often times, those three characters are 1) The protagonist, 2) The antagonist, and 3) The relationship character. A relationship character is a person that generally sides with the protagonist (although they will probably have a huge fall through toward the end of the story). It could be a girlfriend, a best friend, a brother, or even an annoying sidekick.
As far as an example, I can't really give one right now, as I am not in print of my laptop. But what I have read is already a great help. All of this gives me avenues to venture down. I'll have to wait till I have enough time, posts and critique(s) to qualify for the example writing. I'll try to get an example to post later this evening!
I may not be interpreting your question very well, but as I see it, the strongest writing evolves out of what you know. I think characterization should be based on real people, or more realistically, composites of real people. Remember also that aspects of your own self can (should?) be an integral part of the characterization of some or even all of the people in your story. Evans
"Anything that's real to your character must also be made real to us. Otherwise, this person lacks a major dimension. He seems less than fully there." Dynamic Characters by Nancy Kress This thought has helped me make my characters stronger.
Perhaps it would be good for you to read some books on creating good characters, like "Characters and Viewpoint" Check it out, it helped me quite a bit
