How can you make the character click? How can you write a character that isn't yours and make it in character as much as possible? My sister told me, "You have to be interested in a character to know how to write them." But is that really true? For example, let's say Buffy is my favorite character, I'm more interested in her than any other character, which can make me quite biased when I write her. I justify her mistakes and put the blame on the other characters, she does no wrong, she's always misunderstood and so on. That doesn't mean that I get her character, it means that my interest and love for her made me too biased when it comes to her bad traits.

Not to mention, I'll list three characters I'm not interested in: Faith, Tara and Andrew. I'm not interested in fics about Faith or writing about her, unless the fic really needed it, and still I can't capture her bad-girl talk and feel whatever line I write for her is corny, so I try my hardest not to feature her in my fics. Tara, on the other hand, is actually so easy for me to write. While I'm not interested in her character, she's unlike Faith, whose complex and has a talking-pattern. Tara is just… nice. That's it. She's not complicated and flawed like the rest of the characters, and that makes it easier to write her. With Andrew it's mainly that I can't for the life of me write geek-comic books jokes because I never read comic books before S8.

So interest may play a part in 'getting' a character, but it's not the main factor. I think from my experience to get a character, you must watch the show and read reliable character-study essays. And NEVER rely on fanfic, ever. Because someone's Spike isn't necessarily the right Spike, not to mention getting too influenced by character-bashing to the point that you believe that Riley is an unredeemable dick, which in fact is not true. It's just how fans feel because they hate the character.

Anyway, what are the characters you can write and the ones you can't and why?

Characters I write so well: Buffy, especially recently, I've grown to love her character so much after I stopped reading Buffy-bashing Slash fics and started watching the show trying my hardest to "enjoy" it without my stupid bias that makes the show less fun. I especially like to write Buffy in the later seasons when she got depressed, detached and closed off. Plus, I like her silly way of talking.

Spike, I love Spike so much. I do struggle a little with his accent because I'm much better at the American accent than the British one, especially the Spike British one. As for his character, I actually find him really interesting in S5 and S6 because of his struggle between the monster urges and his love for Buffy and need to become the man she wants. Post-soul Spike is actually easier to write.

Xander, he's always been a tricky one to write, because in fics he's either written as a dick or as a saint. The bias thing plays a big part in writing Xander. I don't have this problem. Xander is an interesting write because he's a mixture of good and bad. He's a very decent guy with human flaws, I used to struggle with his speech pattern because he uses so much cultural references, but now I think I got it down. :)

Dawn, she's the easiest to write for me. She's a little like Buffy in high school, they both use the silly cute talking.

Characters I can't write:

The AtS characters, including Angel, it's probably my lack of interest in them than anything else.

Like I said earlier, Faith and Andrew for the reasons I explained.

Willow, High-School Willow is kinda easy but it's confident, witch Willow that I struggle a lot with. I dislike using magic as a way out in my fics, simply because I don't know how to write about magic and what to use to make a spell, and it's not interesting at all. It's a big part of Willow's life and it makes her quite difficult to write.

I try hard not to make Anya's dialogue sound lame or robotic, but then I use a paragraph just to explain her tone or a little geture trying to get the right feeling across!

One person I CANNOT write: Cordelia Chase in early BtVS and AtS, before she got a little mature. Charisma Carpenter did so much with her voice and tone and the movement and shrugs. Just writing down the words she would use changes her completely, you somehow have to get the impatience and sweetness and how she isn't malicious when she says something totally hurtful and tactless or the cheerful bitchiness or... I can never make her fit what we saw on TV for early Cordy without making her totally flat, when we all know she has layers.

I struggle with Buffy pre-season four, and Drusilla is a character that takes patience...Everyone else is okay.

I write Spike the best--sometimes, it's like he lives in my brain or something...That didn't come out right :P

Andrew is also difficult--I am geeky about Buffy/Angel, but not geeky about all of the things that Andrew is geeky about.

ETA:  I don't hate Riley--he just bores me to tears.   I do hate Kennedy, however, though I have no idea why.  I don't think I'll ever write a fic with her in it.  Actually, I'm not sure I'd ever write a Buffy fic post s7...meh.

I think Drusilla is probably the hardest for me to write.  It's hard to get her craziness down.  I think I prefer using her in all human stories, then she doesn't have to be as crazy.  Anya is lots of fun to write, but some people go a bit too overboard with her orgasm talk, like that's all she ever had to say on the show.  I think for me Buffy and Spike have to be my favorite, of course.  That's why I spend most of my time only writing Spuffy fictions.

I find it helpful to watch an episode based on the timeframe I plan to write to get the "voice" in my head.  So far so good (I think). 

To try to stretch I wrote my epic monster Gathering Loose Ends mainly to 1. explore post NFA for the first time and 2. try every character I could think of who would be around for post NFA.  It was interesting and helpful for me.

The more I like a character the easier it is to "hear" them but with effort I usually mange passably.

Kathleen

I think Drusilla is probably the hardest for me to write.

Oh God, Drusilla is so hard to write. I don't think I'll ever write her.

The more I like a character the easier it is to "hear" them but with effort I usually mange passably.

The more I like the character the more I want to write about them, but it can be tricky. I remember my first fic ever, it was Spangel and since I adore Spike to bits, he came out as a whiny, pathetic little girl while Angel was written like an assholic teenage boy. God, it sucked!! I remember there was a Xander-Spike scene in the fic that appeared more like fan-discussion, with Xander listing his reasons for disliking vampires and Spike correcting him. Awful, awful!! Everybody were wrong and asses, except for Spike, because I loved him so much, I couldn't bare to make him make mistakes and always justify his bad traits. I wrote that fic with a friend of mine and now we took it off the net and trying to re-write it again to make the characters sound like themselves for a change. First fics always suck. :)

God, I cringe whenever I look back at any of my old fictions.  They were so beyond horrible, I like to think that I've majorly improved since then.

Actually, taking a lesson from my old art school days, you should tackle the thing that you are weakest at - like writing Faith or Drusilla.  The more you write the hard stuff, the better you get.  

I find it helpful to watch an episode based on the timeframe I plan to write to get the "voice" in my head.

Absolutely! The characters changed a lot, and yet quite subtly over the seasons...getting the voice not only true to the character, but true to them at that point in time esessential. Re-watching the episodes is definitely the best advice.

say Buffy is my favorite character, I'm more interested in her than any other character, which can make me quite biased when I write her. I justify her mistakes and put the blame on the other characters, she does no wrong, she's always misunderstood and so on.

Why? I think most of us love the characters warts and all...take away the warts and they aren't the characters you love...they just become cardboard cut-outs.

I love writing Faith, she's another favorite.

I've written just about everybody in at least a couple lines by now. It took a while before I wanted to tackle any of the AtS characters, just to make sure the voices were in my head. Luckily, I'm an auditory learner, so the memory of actual voices stays in my head pretty much forever. I've found great fun in writing Angel and Spike banter. And Cordy's fun when you need to smack other characters upside the head with truth. Wes is actually more difficult, because he almost always uses the higher vocabulary. Especially if Giles is there, you can't have two Englishmen sound the same.
I don't write much Willow or Xander. I usually don't have much use to, or want to. They've never sparked me, if you catch my drift. I haven't put Eve in anything, and Lindsey and Lilah have only been used once very briefly.

CM

Actually, taking a lesson from my old art school days, you should tackle the thing that you are weakest at - like writing Faith or Drusilla. The more you write the hard stuff, the better you get.

Oh, I wrote Faith once. It was like a S7 missing scene. I was really nervous about her, but readers reassured me she sounded good. Phew. Drusilla is a scary character to write because she's insane. And there's the English accent problem. Maybe one day, when the story requires it.

Why? I think most of us love the characters warts and all...take away the warts and they aren't the characters you love...they just become cardboard cut-outs.

I agree. That's why I said that Tara doesn't interest me. Because she's not like the other characters who are a mixture of good and bad. It makes them all more interesting, gives them layers. But we can't deny that sometimes you find fics where the main character is made to be saint while the rest complete assholes. *remembers her first fic and wants to kill herself*

Ahhhh the Dru situation is easier when you see her facets.  To reduce her to "insane" and that alone makes her impossible for a sane person to write.  She is more than that (ask Spike!).  She has moments of lucidity but there is also the problem she had prior to insanity...the visions!  Put into the mix the human portion (even the judge said it was there).  Her human self was likely one of the most pure and "good" people the show created.  She had a fear and awe of a God she truly loved and wanted to please only to be corrupted to the point of that insanity.  She had a love for her family that caused her to still want to torture Angel before the ritual to cure her (her ramble about the little one that loved to eat cake but Angel had killed was a sad lament and part of her lucid memories that tortured her human self).  When you realize that her "crazy" comments often were merely twisted attempts to express her visions and her bits of reality it becomes a bit easier.  I adore Dru, just not as a lover for Spike because Angelus made it impossible for her to love him properly and he deserved that.

Kathleen

But we can't deny that sometimes you find fics where the main character is made to be saint while the rest complete assholes.

LOL Nope, definitely can't deny they exist... but I don't choose to read them, and as a writer I definitely don't aspire to write them (well, unless it's completely tongue-in-cheek). The thing is that you were saying that if you like a character alot that is what happens...so I guess the only response to that is--if you are aware that it happens, don't let it. But be careful not to overcompensate and go too far the other way. Which brings us back to Kathleen's suggestion of re-watching the eps....the more you watch them the easier it is to 'hear' their voices in your head and have a good idea of how they would respond in certain situations.

Yep, watching episodes is the BEST way to go, especially when writing a character you never wrote before :)

Wes is actually more difficult, because he almost always uses the higher vocabulary. Especially if Giles is there, you can't have two Englishmen sound the same.

This would be a cool writing project - Wes, Giles and Spike in a scene together and differentiating between them by dialog.  Separating Wesley and Giles would be really tough.  Wesley in the beginning at least was prissy where Giles was tough. 

I love writing Drusilla.  She's a difficult, twisted character that it's hard to get her pinned down, but when you do, she's magical.

Truthfully, of all the characters I had the damnedest time getting into Xander's head, especially in the Originsverse.  For some reason (and I think it's because I really don't like Xander all that much) I couldn't hear his voice at all.  But I plugged away at it, and forced myself to write him.  And I think I got him down pretty well.

I very strongly identify with Faith -- I've been that out of control girl, so I get where she's coming from and I know why she hides behind the bravado.  I can taste it;  hell, I've lived it.  So Faith for me is like an old pair of leather pants and heavy boots, always comfortable and wearable in nearly any situation.

Wes is actually more difficult, because he almost always uses the higher vocabulary. Especially if Giles is there, you can't have two Englishmen sound the same. This would be a cool writing project - Wes, Giles and Spike in a scene together and differentiating between them by dialog. Separating Wesley and Giles would be really tough. Wesley in the beginning at least was prissy where Giles was tough.

Um.   Here again, I've written that scene, a few times.  Having all three Englishmen interact has been, well, honestly?  I've had no problem writing them -- in any number of permutations.  To me, Wesley is the bridge between Giles and Spike; and conversely Ripper and William.  I have always believed that they are very, very similar characters and not just because they all hail from John Bull's taverns.  I love writing them together (very fun to play with them and it's always a surprise which side Wesley slides over to). 

But I do agree with the theory that you should push yourself to write those characters that you aren't comfortable with -- because sometimes, that's the only way to get into their heads.  For me, it's easier when I slip into their thoughts and put them down interspersed with their actions, so it sort of gives the character to have time to be comfortable with me as well.

Yeah, seeing your example of the Englishmen in the Originsverse has been inspiring, Niamh.

I guess I'll write a Spike/Drusilla fic some day, when I get an interesting plot. Or a Spuffy that starts from Crush. Just so I write Drusilla :D

Truthfully, of all the characters I had the damnedest time getting into Xander's head, especially in the Originsverse. For some reason (and I think it's because I really don't like Xander all that much) I couldn't hear his voice at all. But I plugged away at it, and forced myself to write him. And I think I got him down pretty well.

I think having a beta or two helps with this situation. Maybe a beta that understands Xander's character, they can give you tips and point out the mistakes. :) I never post an unbeta-ed fic and even though I think I'm very good at writing Buffy and Spike, I insist to my beta to be very critical and show me the offs in all characters. Once I wrote a missing episode fic with Willow in the coven and I searched for a beta who understood Willow's character because later seasons Willow is a hard charactere for me to write. It helped a lot.

Yeah, seeing your example of the Englishmen in the Originsverse has been inspiring, Niamh.

Aww.  *blushes*  Thanks so much.

I think having a beta or two helps with this situation. Maybe a beta that understands Xander's character, they can give you tips and point out the mistakes. :)

Ah, well I didn't know anyone in the fandom when I started writing, so asking for a beta wasn't in the cards.  And truthfully, it wasn't until WriterCon, when Spikeslovebite begged er, wore me down, um, asked nicely that I finally agreed to have a beta.  I don't need one for plot and/or characterizations, I just need one for grammar and spelling.  And it wasn't because I was too arrogant, I just didn't trust anyone enough to let them see the unfinished product.  Whenever I write a character a bit "off"  there's a reason, and that's usually borne out later on in the story.

But the truth is, I watched the show obsessively for nearly three months.  Straight.  Seriously.  One after another.  So I really got into everyone's head.

I understand not trusting someone to read your unfinished fic, but betas, especially good ones, are a bless. It's good to have someone point out grammar-spelling as well as characterisation mistakes, it makes you more aware and able to correct the mistake before the fic goes public.

Watching the show is surely the best tip. It makes you understand the characters more.

Wesley is the bridge between Giles and Spike; and conversely Ripper and William. 

The three characters are related in interesting ways as the writers occasionally remind us - Spike and Giles on the swings together; Spike/Randy and Giles thinking they're father and son; Wesley, the younger pompous model of Giles both wiping off their glasses together; Ripper who is like Spike, Giles telling Spike that having a chip in his head would be a reason to become good. 

  Oddly enough, I think Drusilla is the easiest for me to write.  I've had some mental issues in the past, so I can almost see the way her mind goes, lovely twists and turns into dark and beautiful places.  She's barely able to function in the real world, yet she's usually more aware than anyone else.

  I love writing Spike.  It took a little while to get his way of talking down, and I still work on him as often as possible, but he's always a joy. 

  I can't write Andrew.  At all.  In any way shape or form. 

Ummm...that was TwilightChild by the way.  *points upward*