Do I have a strong and realistic character?

Well heres some nice stuff about her. The plot of my story is that she moves to Miami and to a new school. At the school there is an incredibly aggressive teacher. She has 4 adopted girls. The character investigates and finds out she is beating up, pretty much abusing her kids. She can't just go to the police and tell; the teacher has an eye on her ALL the time (this was just a basic outline)

Name- Penelope
Full Name- Penelope-Delanie Jennison
Age-12
Birthday- June 11, 1997
Birthplace- Junea, Alaska
Female
Lives in Miami, FL
Single child
Traits: Sarcastic, "Doesn't care", stubborn, is easily influenced at first on serious situations;but quickly the impression wears off, tries to change her look at school all the time
Lives with- Her mom and dad
Ethnicity- American (lived in Alaska for her life but not FROM there)

When Penelope moves to Miami (Dad's job) She's not used to hot weather, busy areas, and PACKEED sandy beaches. She also isn'rt used to school since she's been homeschooled in Alaska. She's not used to "different" kids, bullies, or boys. She knows all the basics from reading books which take place in middle school, plus advice from her mom. She has a tough time adjusting to her new environment, plus having to deal with the abusive teacher. She enjoys playing video games and playing with her dog, or just rides her bike and explores.

Original fears: Cats, the dark, needles
New Fears: Boys, school and new people (she's real shy)

Well thats what I have so far, what do you think?

Well, with the way your outline was, with the pronouns, it was a bit hard to understand. But it would seem that your MC finds out that her teacher's four kids are getting abused by their mom?

Anyways, information like this doesn't tell us much. Somebody could have a completely unrealistic character and another could have a character who lives right down the street with the same information. What matters is how you write it.

Here is a good article on creating realistic characters. While you're at it, poke around the Writing Tutorials section of the Knowledge Base for more articles. ^_^

Hope I helped,

~Rosey

Rosey Unicorn wrote:Well, with the way your outline was, with the pronouns, it was a bit hard to understand. But it would seem that your MC finds out that her teacher's four kids are getting abused by their mom?

Anyways, information like this doesn't tell us much. Somebody could have a completely unrealistic character and another could have a character who lives right down the street with the same information. What matters is how you write it.

Here is a good article on creating realistic characters. While you're at it, poke around the Writing Tutorials section of the Knowledge Base for more articles. ^_^

Hope I helped,

~Rosey

Yeah, I know, I have 5 other pages abut her, I was just giving some info. And the outline was like, real basic so you can get what she's dealing with

Hm, maybe you misunderstood what I meant.

I wasn't saying the information here isn't enough, nor was I saying that the plot is a bad one. What I was trying to get across was how it doesn't matter what sort of characteristics you give a character, it's how you execute them.

Like, say you had a character with only one fear (for the purpose of this, let's say she was afraid of the dark). If that fear was broad enough, and well described enough, (say she got a little scared even if it was mildly dark, and that fear was well-explained so we don't want to slap the character out of it), then that'd be a realistic character.

But, you could also have a character with nine fears. If none of those fears show up, or show up only in a minor fashion, that's an unrealistic character.

A few other things to consider for a realistic character:

Motive: The reason your character does something. You build everything else (intelligence, fears, personality) around it.

Dialogue: Does your character speak realistically?

Emotions: Does your character react emotionally in a logical and/or well-explained way? (the reason it's and/or is because you can have a character react illogically and, as long as you explain the reaction well, people will understand)

Does that help?

~Rosey