Hi there! I was just wondering if you guys could help me a little with character interaction. Not to say that I haven’t seen the light of day for a while or met another human soul while cybernetically attached to my Macbook, it’s just because these are the most fleshed out characters I’ve ever written. Ever. And I just want their conversations and interaction to be really accurate.

Marcie: She has been seeing ghosts ever since she was seven years old, and hates herself because of it. She is quite small for her age, very thin (imagine a mouse on a diet), has a pale face with huge brown eyes and long untidy brown hair. She has very very low confidence in herself and prefers not to speak. Hangs out by herself at school and gets bullied by others every day. Her father passed away when she was seven and this is when she began to see ghosts. Nobody believes her, not even the psychiatrists that she visits on a monthly basis. Basically, she thinks she is slowly going crazy and that there is nobody out there that will understand and empathise with her situation. Which I feel is pretty accurate since I am only having one character in my story who can see ghosts and it’s Marcie. Oh wait no my other protagonist sees one as well. COMMON GROUND!

Harry: I have been wondering about the negative implications of choosing the name Harry ever since I chose to name my protagonist Harry. Oh well, tough beans, I will think of another name later if necessary. Anyway, Harry is a typical schoolboy who enjoyed relatively high popularity at school, but had a penchant for detentions and late homework. He is a bright kid but gets distracted very easily. He is very very shy around strangers but makes friends pretty quickly. One day, he gets trapped in school because of a fire that breaks out mysteriously (MYSTERIOUSLYFORESHADOWING) and hallucinates (?) about a creepy ghost. Said ghost follows him to the hospital room, where Harry sees him after surgery. Later, Harry moves to South Point (where Marcie lives). He gets pretty traumatised after this visit by the ghost and ensures a tiny bit of common ground with Marcie. He becomes more paranoid throughout the book as he realises that it was not a hallucination.

And this is where I am kind of stuck. Two people, both teenagers that have suffered from a traumatic experience, who both believe that they are going crazy, become friends. I would really appreciate some new eyes looking at this and a little help with characterisation would be very very much appreciated indeedly. Thank you!

Once you get to know the characters in your head, writing them together goes like clockwork. The dialogue just appears. Unfortunately, getting to know your own characters at that level might not happen until you've written them a lot ... and then you'll sometimes realize that they're not the people you originally wanted, and now there's no going back. Do as alaynefro187 said, and write a scene with both of them in it. Sage advice, to be sure.

Thank you everybody! :D

Like pretty much everyone else has said, write them in scenes. I like to write my characters doing mundane sort of things so I can get a feel for them. And as a heads up, the psychiatrist would probably diagnose her with schizophrenia (since she is seeing “hallucinations” – the ghosts) though that doesn’t matter I just sort of wanted to throw that out there. I have to get around to reading your story too, I’m sure it won’t disappoint.

You must have been doing a good deal of practice because your grasp of the language approaches that of an experienced native speaker (from the work of yours that I’ve read). I would also like to read more because I’m caught up with everything that you’ve posted :)

I agree with what everyone else has said about characterization, and also…

since I learned how to speak English

Wow. From your posts, I think I just assumed you were a native speaker. I’m very impressed with people who are fluent in multiple languages.

I have a feeling jacktimo might be a spammer.

You may indeed be correct. Apologies; the e-mail account looked legit when I approved the account.