How do you develop characters and plots?

I'm writing a fanfiction on Wattpad. Unfortunately, I'm struggling with the development of my female protagonist and plot. They both seem very two dimensional everytime I read over my work. Seeing such a lack of quality in my writing ruins my creative flow. Any tips on how I might be able to remedy this issue?

Thanks in advance!!

Try worrying about those things after you complete your first draft.

Really. It's a lot easier to see problems (and sometimes solutions) when you're looking at a whole rather than part of something larger.

You might also be too close to your writing, so that all you can see are problems (which might not even be problems). Finishing the first draft and letting the story sit for a bit can help with that, as well.

That aside, if you've already got a first draft done, it would help if you could be more specific in what sort of issues you're running into that make you feel like your character and plot are so flat.

Kyllorac wrote:Try worrying about those things after you complete your first draft.

Really. It's a lot easier to see problems (and sometimes solutions) when you're looking at a whole rather than part of something larger.

You might also be too close to your writing, so that all you can see are problems (which might not even be problems). Finishing the first draft and letting the story sit for a bit can help with that, as well.

That aside, if you've already got a first draft done, it would help if you could be more specific in what sort of issues you're running into that make you feel like your character and plot are so flat.

Thank you so much for the advice! In regards to specifics, it seems that I struggle with being satisfied with my writing. Your advice has helped me realize that my perfectionism was my main issue. Letting my writing flow more naturally is really helping me! Thanks again!!

You're welcome!

Well, I would say, 'Throw in interesting events! Make conflicts!' because that's the easy way to develop characters, since they would be making hard decisions and change over time. Also, instead of making improving their maturity (one way to develop their character) you can add more variety into their personalities that haven't been shown, like maybe this shy girl secretly hacks into computers as her hobby, etc.

The plots are a set of events that portray a certain theme, so I guess direct your characters to accomplishing their missions and make the story even more interesting by having some unexpected plot twists, and some sub-plots that would help to make your characters more well-rounded and relatable and more real.

I agree with "finish the first draft." Even if you're right and there's gaping holes left and right, it'll be soooo much easier to fix when you know where you're going. You can look at the whole arc of the book/character and adjust the early stuff to point toward the late stuff, as well as get a better grasp of what's shown where vs what didn't get enough attention the first time through.

It's hard to give specific advice without context, but I suppose that's what critique is for! Put things up for review and let us help you patch up the problem spots.

But at the end of the day, the way to get better at writing is to write more. So instead of re-reading what you've written and fretting about it, I suggest just plow though. "Allow yourself to write a terrible first draft," as they say.