While you are worrying about whether beta readers will steal your ideas, there is a more genuine threat on the horizon.
When offered a publishing contract, please do all your research before you sign. There are a number of fakes and scammers out there, as well as good-intentioned amateurs that don’t know how to get your work to a wide audience. I won’t tell the heartbreaking stories here – there are too many.
Being published badly is worse than being never published.
It can destroy your career and your dreams.
The quick check is to google the publishing house name + scam or warning.
But, to be sure, check with these places first. They aren’t infallible (nothing is) but they can help you protect yourself. They are written and maintained by expereinced writers, editors, publishers and legal folks.
This is really important, so if you are a writer or have writer friends, or you are a writing blog, please reblog it.
Just to let you know, PublishAmerica changed their name to America Star Books.
HEAD’S UP, WRITER TYPES: THIS IS AN IMPORTANT PSA!
Also applies to many so-called freelance sites that are just content mills, and may not pay unless your work is used, even if the contract seems designed otherwise.
Listen, reading these is like legit reading horror stories. When it comes to publishing your writing, always, always, ALWAYS do your research. Not only will it help you avoid scams, but it will also be likely to help you land a much better fit for an agent/publisher/whatever. Knowing more is never going to hurt.
Omg!!! Thanks for the warning! Writers— reblog!
I’ve heard stories like this that are scarier than horror stories. This is an all time worst nightmare for a writer. Everyone reblog and make sure you keep your work safe!
Reblogging again for the links. Also check pred-ed.com and the Absolute Write forum. Then google Publisher’s name + scam and see what comes up. Do NOT use the BBB ratings, they are wholly unsuitable for rating publishers and regularly give A ratings to well-known publishing scams. You can also read my own post on publishing scams, have a link on the left of my blog ( can’t link here, I’m on mobile, sorry).
Equally important to know is that you can SELF-PUBLISH through a number of platforms these days. @ean-amhran and I used Amazon’s CreateSpace and Kindle Direct Publishing to publish both of our books. No editors, no contracts, no finagling with publishers who want to change your materials. Just direct-to-market material.
(Granted, it means you’ve got to do a LOT more work yourself with editing and formatting and cover art, but it’s worth it to miss the headache of trying to bargain with publishing houses or avoid scams.)
Be vigilant, fellow writers!
If you choose to self publish then HAVE A PLAN and think things through.
And hire an editor. Please, for the love of all that is holy, hire an editor. It’s expensive, but you will get a better book out, a better reputation…
If you’re going to publish electronically, make sure you also get someone who can LAY AN EBOOK OUT PROPERLY.
I have spent money on Kindle books, many of them reprints of older works, whose formatting is so messed up as to render them unreadable.
I actually recommend using the Smashwords Style Guide even if you don’t use Smashwords.
It lays out how to neatly format an e-book in a wonderful step by step format, and you can get it free from Smashwords. Just leave off the couple of things that are (very obviously) Smashwords specific.
If you can’t stand dealing with the meticulous detail, then by all means hire somebody, but most people can learn to format an ebook correctly and once you’ve done it a couple of times it takes about an hour tops.
Because the redirects aren’t working for me, I’m going to assume others might have trouble with these links, so for those who need it the URL for the website to Writer Beware is:
These are not publishers’ guilds, notice; you sometimes see scammers trying to defend themselves against Writer Beware exposes by claiming that they’re “small press” or “indie” and Big Publishing is somehow out to get them – but all of those guilds are run by and for writers, to help support them and represent them in the field. It is the closest writers have to having unions, and there’s no direct competition between them (you could literally be an in any of those guilds are the same time as each other, in addition to others, and I believe a number of authors are).
Writer Beware is a wonderful resource, and I highly recommend it. It’s both a good general guide to the scams people run/red flags to watch out for (such as giving up your copyright entirely as opposed to specific rights, or being charged to publish something or have it edited, when they’re trying to act like they’re a “normal” publisher), and a frequently-updated list of the latest specific known scammers, both in “fake agents” and fake/scammy publishers categories. (The company formerly known as Publish America is one of the most famous and egregious cases, but by far not the only one)
Additionally, for SF and fantasy writers, the SFWA’s own list of qualifying markets that one can be published in as a prerequisite to be able to get into their guild (remember, it IS a profession-based guild), is a great guide to normal markets for those genres that have standard contracts that aren’t abusive or scammy, and their guidelines include some of the industry-standard minimums for “per word” etc rates, so even if some new magazine market isn’t on their list, you can tell if it’s suspiciously far outside the usual per-word or whatnot standards. (It’s likely the guidelines for Mystery Writers of America etc also would be useful in that vein)
Even if you’re unpublished or don’t want to join their guild, they’re a wonderful group and resource, and I highly recommend their site and Writer Beware in particular!
The other sites mentioned above, such as “Preditors and Editors” should be still valid if you Google them, and are often rec’d by Writer Beware, but Writer Beware is the one I’m most familiar with. 🙂
1. Give them goals and desires (that don’t involve men.)
As a society, we still have an unfortunate proclivity towards the belief that female interests should and must centralize around others, particularly heterosexual men.
Female interests are viewed as frivolous and childish; past a certain age, they’re viewed as pathetic. Unless, of course, they centralize around pleasing and supporting their husband and family.
Now, I’m a fiercely ambitious person, and you can rip my special interests from my cold dead hands. As such, I make a calculated effort to refute this assumption with my writing, and give female characters something to live for outside of a husband and family.
Here are some interests, activities, and goals you can give your female characters that are independent of men:
Education (such as a college degree, and MFA, a PHD, medical school, et cetera.)
Career – and not just the stereotypical, pantsuit clad career-gal variety, either. Give women dreams and ambitions in any field. Show me women who are aching to succeed in medicine, ballet, fiction writing, teaching, the Arts, et cetera.
Hobbies. Show your women gardening, painting, playing piano, learning Mandarin, horseback riding, and more. Showing the rich inner life of women can go a long way towards showing the reader that they’re autonomous people.
Fandoms. Let your women be passionate fans of things: TV shows, movies, books, video games, singers, comics, and so on. Moreover, show women characters of all ages with passionate interests that they aren’t ashamed of. I couldn’t live without my fandoms and interests, and it’s unfair that women are expected to “grow out” of them.
Relaxation. Let your women loaf in their spare time, and not just in the pretty, sexy way. Let them lay around in PJs watching reality television and procrastinating on the internet.
2. On that note, let women have sexual and romantic desires.
I’ve heard it put, quite succinctly, that women are expected to be sexy, not sexual.
Women masturbating, watching porn, making the first move towards men, or desiring other women is often considered weird or uncomfortable, because it implies that we have our own sexual autonomy outside of being objects for male pursuit.
Let your female character have desires. Let her express sexual attraction and romantic passion. Let her fantasize. Let her masturbate. Let her enjoy sex. It’s been proven that women enjoy all of these things just as much as men do, so let it show.
(A.N: I may make a post for male authors on how to do this, because I know a dude who thought women masturbate by rubbing their tits.)
Similarly, it’s equally as important to present these things as normal, and that you show the female characters as sexual, but not necessarily sexualized.
Eliza from The Shape of Water was a great example of this: within the first five minutes, she’s shown masturbating in her bathtub. This could have been a fetishistic moment, but instead it’s depicted as a normal and natural part of her daily routine, right on par with her boiling eggs for lunch.
It was something I had never seen before, and a pleasant surprise in an already splendid and emotional film about a woman falling in love with a sexy fish.
3. Let them form intimate friendships (with both women and men.)
Intimate female friendships are one of God’s greatest gifts to humanity.
Show your female characters sharing a bed, watching films together, painting each other’s nails, having late night conversations. Show them getting dressed up to do typical date night activities, like seeing movies and going out to dinner.
If you have the sudden impulse to make it gay (which I, for one, frequently do) you already have a baseline of friendship and intimacy to work with. Talk about a twofer!
On the other side of the coin, let your women have casual, platonic intimacy with men without jealousy on the part of their spouses or romantic implications. This also kills two birds with one stone, as it both crushes toxic masculinity and the stereotype that women are “mysterious creatures” who can’t relate to men.
4. Vanquish your fear of Mary Sue.
Mary Sue only exists in one place, and that is a Star Trek fan magazine she originated in.
Today, she’s predominantly thrown around by two kinds of people: dudebros who don’t like it when media reflects that women are people with the same capacity for autonomy and competency as men, and writers who are concerned about accidentally creating a Mary Sue themselves.
Mary Sue was originally intended to mean a character who is blatant wish-fulfillment and projection on the part of the author, which is a valid concern – however, creators of all genders have fallen victim to this. The only difference is that men get paid more to do it.
(Case in point, this dude.)
So vanquish your concerns about Mary Sue. Give your female character a wide range of skills. Give her intelligence. Make her assertive. Let her kick ass without being one-upped by a cocky newcomer. Let her be kind and empathetic.
In other words, don’t be afraid of making her awesome – just make her a well-rounded character on top of it.
However:
5. Know the difference between strong female characters and Strong Female Characters™.
The symptoms for a Strong Female Character™ are as follows:
She punches and kicks things a lot.
Or, alternatively, is referred to as being able to punch or kick things, but never gets the opportunity to do it.
Emotional callousness/lack of sympathetic attributes.
Hates children.
Looks down on traditionally feminine women.
Has approximately three personality traits.
This is not, contrary to popular belief, a strong female character. A strong female character is a well rounded, fully fleshed-out human being with positive and negative attributes, a capacity for mistakes and vulnerability, and the ability to learn and grow.
Strong female characters can be traditionally feminine or butch tomboys. They can be loving and maternal or rough around the edges. They can be effervescent explosions of joy or stony as marble statues.
Strong female characters don’t even necessarily have to good – a complex villain has the same components and motivations that make a complex hero (I talk about that here.)
Keep this in mind when writing female characters. And if you want an example of what to avoid and what to emulate, you can always look at Joss Whedon’s version of the Wonder Woman script versus the final product.
I agree with everything except the marysue. Marysues are SO annoying. A writer can, and should, give their female leads a ton of skills and be a well-rounded individual, however that is not what a marysue is. A marysue is a girl or guy (everyone I know calls OP guys marysues as well, so I don’t know if there is another term or not) who is a master at everything they do, despite having no training. Women leads should have some skills already set it, but they should also strive to gain more or better the ones they know through diligent training, they shouldn’t just start out as a master.
I agree! The only trouble is, Mary Sues are vastly overdiagnosed. For example, I once had a beta reader remark that the name Luna “strikes me as a Mary Sue name.” It was in the first damn paragraph.
Real Mary Sues (and their lesser known counterparts, Gary Stus) are indeed bad writing in adult literature. However, I think the witch hunt-esque hypervigilance regarding Mary Sues is counterproductive, and often serves as a substitute for thoughtful literary criticism.
So you want to make an OC?: A Masterpost of Ways to Create, Develop, and Make Good OCs!
i made this masterpost in hopes that it helps you in making your own OCs ah;; it can also apply to developing RP characters i suppose! if you’d like to add more resources then go for it sugar pea (´ヮ`)!
I read a lot of writing in my line of work and while that’s amazing, I see the same flaws again and again. Below is a list of 7 common writing mistakes in fiction and how you can fix them. This list is by no means complete. In fact there’s a great list over at The Editor’s Blog that covers even more mistakes.
1. Bad dialogue
Sometimes writers can forget that they’re writing a conversation and thus not write a conversation. The dialogue can be boring, stilted and unnatural, and I’d rather listen to the territorial call of an Australian Raven than read one more word of it.
There are many things that contribute to bad dialogue, but here are the three that really get on my nerves:
Not using contractions–I’ve seen work that is modern and still doesn’t use contractions. Consider this: “You are going to be late.” Unless the speaker is trying to sound like an irritated mother and is leaving an emphatic silence between each word to sound threatening, use contractions. It sounds really drawn out and like the speaker is pointing their nose in the air. We generally don’t speak like this in real life, so neither should your characters.
Using complete sentences–Not only is it natural for your characters to chop their sentences, this can also contribute to their voice. Does your character say “I don’t know.” or “Dunno.” Would he/she say “I missed the train and had to find a lift home.” or “Missed the train. Had to find a ride.” In casual speech, we often only use the words necessary to convey our message, even if it doesn’t form a complete sentence. You shouldn’t apply this to every line of dialogue, but consider it if your dialogue sounds stale.
Using characters as a conduit for research and plot information–Sometimes writers like to show off their research (looking at you Jurassic Park), backstory, world building and plot by having their characters talk way too much. If your character says “Once this valley was home to an ancient race of elves, who looked after the land and treated it with respect. One day, the secret magic spring dried up and then the goblins came. Without their magic spring, the elves couldn’t fight back, and they were killed by the goblins. The goblins didn’t respect the land and now it’s uninhabitable.” he should probably shut up. It sounds less like a person talking than it does an audio tour. The information he’s shared could be given in a much more interesting way.
How you can fix it:
Listen to and watch the way real people talk to each other. Do they speak in full sentences with full words? Do they speak with grammatical correctness? Do they speak differently in different situations? How do hand gestures, body language and facial expressions help them communicate?
Read your dialogue out loud as if you’re practising lines for a movie. Does it sound natural? Does it flow?
Test every piece of information your characters give out. Does it all need to be said? Would your character say all of it at once? Do they need to say it all in so many words?
2. Passages of uninterrupted speech or thought
Sometimes you might want to avoid telling the reader about something and have a character tell another character instead. Sometimes you might want to avoid telling the reader how a character feels about something by having them think about it excessively instead. If this goes on for longer than a couple of paragraphs (or less), you risk allowing your reader to drift out of the scene.
The only thing anchoring your reader in the scene is your characters and what they’re doing. If the characters are talking or thinking for a long time without interacting with anyone or anything else, they might as well be floating in space, which can make the reader feel like they’re floating in space. That’s not to say that they’ve forgotten where the scene is taking place or who else is involved, just that it can feel that way if this is how the character acts.
How you can fix it:
If your characters have a lot to say, try to include the other characters as well. Have them ask questions or make comments so it feels like a scene and not a soliloquy.
If your character is around others when he/she is deep in thought, try to include the other characters in some way. If the POV character is thinking about something that the other characters can see, why not give voice to one of the other characters in between thought paragraphs?
If the character is alone when he/she is deep in thought, is there a way they can interact with their environment? Unless they’re standing in front of a wall, they should be able to see, smell, feel or hear something.
If your character is absolutely, completely lost in thought, is there a way you can bring some sort of image into it? For example, on page 216 of The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, Katniss is thinking about how to treat a burn she receives. Almost the entire page is a paragraph describing a memory; however, there is still action in this memory and, therefore, there is something for the reader to imagine.
3. Not knowing when to/not to use said
Some people will tell you to use descriptive speech tags and others will tell you there’s nothing wrong with said. Both are true, but when do you follow the former and when do you follow the latter? And when do you use no speech tags at all?
Using anything but said and using nothing but said both get exhausting and boring very fast.
How you can fix it:
Below is a rough guide to what kind of speech tag to use. Please bear in mind that it is only a guide and will not and should not apply to every situation.
Said is unobtrusive–a way of letting the reader know who’s talking without making a song and dance about it. Specific verbs (e.g. whispered, shouted, mumbled) give the reader information about how the words are being said. Adverbial tags can also give extra information about how something is being said, but more often than not they can be replaced with a stronger verb (e.g. she said loudly can be replaced with she shouted). Writers can also fall into the trap of telling where it’s better to show when using adverbial tags, which can make the writing bland. Sometimes telling is better, but with speech tags, it’s usually better to absorb the reader in the conversation. If you’ve used an adverbial tag, go back and have a look at it. Is there a better way you could get the message across?
What you need to pay attention to when determining what speech tags to use is the context of the speech. If the reader is already aware of the manner in which a character is talking, it won’t be necessary to remind them every time the character speaks. If there are only two characters in the conversation, it won’t be necessary to finish each quote with he said/she said. Going back to #2, you can also do away with speech tags entirely and use action to demonstrate how a character is feeling, while also grounding the reader in the scene.
The key to avoiding repetition and blandness is to find a balance between using the unobtrusive said, using something more specific, and mixing it up with a bit of action, which means you might not even need a tag at all.
4. Too much description/overwriting
Sometimes it’s better to tell and not show. Some details just aren’t important enough to warrant a lengthy description. If you want your reader to know that it’s raining, you can write something better than “It was raining”, but there’s no need to go overboard and write a poem about how the puddles on the asphalt looked like a great abyss.
Think of description like camera focus. The more you describe something, the more focus you put on it. If you put enough focus on something, you eliminate everything else. What’s this? A close-up. What does a close-up in a movie tell you? That object of the close-up is significant.
Be wary: when you write thirty words describing the way the moonlight is reflecting off the inky black lake, you might not be just setting the scene. You might also be giving the lake undue emphasis, and it’s probably going to irritate your reader when they realise there’s nothing significant about the lake at all, you were just showing off your imagery skills.
How you can fix it:
Keep it real. What would the character notice, what would they think about it and is it worth the attention? And try not to focus on sight. Your characters have more than one way to perceive their environment, and incorporating their other senses can help build a 3D setting for your reader rather than just painting them a picture. Give the reader enough to imagine the scene, and no more.
5. Not knowing when to/not to use adverbs
There’s a lot of writing advice out there that will tell you to cut all adverbs. The result is that many writers now think adverbs exist only to eat their children and wouldn’t dare to ever use one.
There is truth to the advice, but to say “The road to hell is paved with adverbs”? Really, Stephen King? And his dandelion analogy assumes there’s no editing process.
Adverbs aren’t evil, but there is such a thing as using them ineffectively. Which of the below are more descriptive?
She ran quickly or She sprinted
“It’s a long way down,” he said nervously or “It’s a long way down,” he said
He was shamefully prone to anxiety or He was prone to anxiety
She sprinted not only gets to the point faster, it also creates a more powerful image for the reader. “It’s a long way down,” he said gives no indication of how the speaker is speaking or feeling; however, “It’s a long way down,” he said nervously is telling, not showing. Rather than using an adverb here, the writer could describe the speaker’s body language. He was shamefully prone to anxiety tells you how the character feels about being prone to anxiety and there is no stronger word to replace “shamefully prone”.
How you can fix it:
Ask yourself:
How would the meaning of the sentence change if the adverb was removed?
Can the adverb and verb be replaced by a single verb?
Does the action really need clarification?
Does the adverb add something to the sentence that can’t be described in another way?
6. No conflict in the beginning
The first few chapters of a lot of stories I’ve read involve the main character plodding along in their daily life. This is a good thing as the reader needs to get a feel for your character before the big plot things happen, but that doesn’t mean the first few chapters should be without conflict. I don’t want to read about a character waking up, looking at themselves in the mirror, getting dressed, getting coffee, going to work, getting home, going on a date etc. for three chapters. It’s boring and I don’t care about any of it.
The confusion might be caused by common story structure theories that say the main conflict enters the story at the first plot point, or 25% into the story. But this doesn’t mean there should be zero conflict at the beginning! At the beginning of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone Harry was told ‘no funny business’ or he’d be grounded. Not long after that, there was some vanishing glass and an escaped boa constrictor. After this happened there was a mysterious letter addressed to Harry, and he spent an entire chapter trying to get hold of it as the weirdness escalated. There’s conflict and a goal right off the bat, and the story hasn’t even really started yet. In The Hunger Games Katniss faces the Reaping. In The Hobbit Bilbo finds himself hosting a dinner party for dwarfs and being asked to go and fight a dragon.
How you can fix it:
Take a look at all the books you’ve read. Most of them (if not all) start with some sort of problem or goal. Study up on this to help you realise what makes a good beginning.
Don’t fill your first few chapters with characterisation and nothing else. Build your character in the context of a problem or goal.
Keep in mind that you find your characters more interesting than your reader does. What you like about your character might not be enough to keep the reader’s interest.
What’s going on in your character’s life? How is this going to influence what happens when the conflict or story goal takes the stage?
What would happen if you cut your beginning out of the story? Would the plot still make sense? Maybe it’s better to start the story at a later point.
7. Lack of story structure
When you write a first draft, whether you’ve planned it or not, there are going to be structural flaws. Maybe halfway through you thought of a way to solidify a character’s motivation. Maybe at the climax you thought of a way to strengthen your conflict. Maybe somewhere in the middle you had no idea where you were going with this and slugged your way through some boring scenes. It’s all good; this is how stories come together.
What should happen next is that you revise your draft with story structure in mind. There’ll be a lot of “I should add a scene here about this” and “what was I thinking when I wrote that?” and after a few goes, you’ll have a story.
Writers don’t always do this though (which, by the way, makes my job take longer and cost more). They’ll go through and fix all of the obvious problems, but what remains is a manuscript that still lacks a solid structure. It’s messy to read, it’s confusing, it’s clearly not thought out, and it feels like the writer is giving me the finger. I’ll regret paying for the book, stop reading it and leave a negative review on Goodreads. Is that worth not giving your book a good edit?
How you can fix it:
Read a lot. Make sure you have a decent grasp on different story structures. Make sure you understand the way stories progress, the way they’re paced and what keeps the reader engaged.
Re-outline. Or if you pantsed your way through the first draft, make an outline. Write a checklist for what each scene should accomplish and what each chapter should accomplish. Make a timeline of how the events progress and how the tension increases. Don’t base this on what you’ve written, base it on what you’ve figured out about your plot.
Edit ruthlessly. If a scene doesn’t measure up to your new plan, cut it. If it’s in the wrong place, move it.
Despite the fact that I am not deaf, mute, or blind myself, one of the most common questions I receive is how to portray characters with these disabilities in fiction.
As such, I’ve compiled the resources I’ve accumulated (from real life deaf, mute, or blind people) into a handy masterlist.
Are you creating a fictional language? Do you need help coming up with words that sound like they fit with what you’ve come up with so far?
Just put your fictional language in the model text, type some words in the translation text, and click “translate”. It’ll “translate” whatever words you put in using patterns from your sample text.
This can create a random calendar for you or you can input the year, the number of months, the name of the months, the number of moons, the number of days in a week, the names of each day, and more.
You can even save the data for your calendar so that when you go back to the generator, all you have to do to get to your calendar is paste the data.
This is a new resource that’s still in beta, so it’ll probably be updated in the coming months.
This map maker is easy to use and free. You can add different climates, mountains, trees, towns, cities, text, and notes. For an example of these maps, look at the quick map I made for this post’s header.
The question I get the most is how I write characters that feel like real people.
Generally when I’m designing a human being, I deconstruct them into 7 major categories:
1. Primary Drive 2. Fear: Major and Secondary 3. Physical Desires 4. Style of self expression 5. How they express affection 6. What controls them (what they are weak for) 7. What part of them will change.
1. Primary Drive: This is generally related to the plot. What are their plot related goals? How are they pulling the plot forward? how do they make decisions? What do they think they’re doing and how do they justify doing it.
2. Fear: First, what is their deep fear? Abandonment? being consumed by power? etc. Second: tiny fears. Spiders. someone licking their neck. Small things that bother them. At least 4.
3. Physical desires. How they feel about touch. What is their perceived sexual/romantic orientation. Do their physical desires match up with their psychological desires.
4. Style of self expression: How they talk. Are they shy? Do they like to joke around and if so, how? Are they anxious or confident internally and how do they express that externally. What do words mean to them? More or less than actions? Does their socioeconomic background affect the way they present themselves socially?
5.
How they express affection: Do they express affection through actions or words. Is expressing affection easy for them or not. How quickly do they open up to someone they like. Does their affection match up with their physical desires. how does the way they show their friends that they love them differ from how they show a potential love interest that they love them. is affection something they struggle with?
6. What controls them (what they are weak for): what are they almost entirely helpless against. What is something that influences them regardless of their own moral code. What– if driven to the end of the wire— would they reject sacrificing. What/who would they cut off their own finger for. What would they kill for, if pushed. What makes them want to curl up and never go outside again from pain. What makes them sink to their knees from weakness or relief. What would make them weep tears of joy regardless where they were and who they were in front of.
7. WHAT PART OF THEM WILL CHANGE: people develop over time. At least two of the above six categories will be altered by the storyline–either to an extreme or whittled down to nothing. When a person experiences trauma, their primary fear may change, or how they express affection may change, etc. By the time your book is over, they should have developed. And its important to decide which parts of them will be the ones that slowly get altered so you can work on monitoring it as you write. making it congruent with the plot instead of just a reaction to the plot.
That’s it.
But most of all, you have to treat this like you’re developing a human being. Not a “character” a living breathing person. When you talk, you use their voice. If you want them to say something and it doesn’t seem like (based on the seven characteristics above) that they would say it, what would they say instead?
If they must do something that’s forced by the plot, that they wouldn’t do based on their seven options, they can still do the thing, but how would they feel internally about doing it?
How do their seven characteristics meet/ meld with someone else’s seven and how will they change each other?
Once you can come up with all the answers to all of these questions, you begin to know your character like you’d know one of your friends. When you can place them in any AU and know how they would react.
They start to breathe.
Something else that makes a character pop, for me, is attaching an emotion to them when we first meet them. Are they angry? Tired? Scared?
They become less forgettable, because then we feel what the character is feeling. Especially important for side characters, I think.
CaptainBubblebath 