[Michelle]

I'm just not good at this, no matter how much I want to be, unfortunately. >.> sorry.

Firstly, don’t say this. Of course you’re going to struggle with this. Everyone does; personality is always the toughest part of a character, because it’s not like it’s super simple stuff. It’s not like J.K. Rowling just rolled out of bed and magically created Severus Snape in a few minutes. Creating a character’s a complex and highly experimental process, and the only way you’re going to get better at it is if you keep at it. The secret to writing is rewriting. So don’t think you’re the only one who is ‘just not good at this’, and don’t apologise for it.

And now that I have established that forming a character’s personality isn’t easy, it follows that it’s not easy to teach to others, either. A lot of character creation guides often just give you a bunch of questions to answer about your character, or give you a form to fill out details on. While they’re good for making you think about your character, they’re not good at making you know your character, because to say that you know your character completely after answering 100 questions is to over-simplify the character development process. It’s more complicated than it looks.

So that being said, I’m going to be more specific about what this character’s personality lacks, but this doesn’t necessitate that you will pass if you address everything I mention. You need to also link your new information with your existing information in a way that reveals the character’s complexities, and ensure that your character’s backstory can support your character’s personality; this will mean you may also have to change stuff in your character’s backstory, not just change stuff in his personality. I also will not be 100% specific; you will have to put some extra thought and effort of your own into your own work. Please consider and revise on the following issues very carefully:

• • 1. Your character lacks personal values. What does your character value in life? What is his idea of a ‘good life’? How do his values affect his decision making, and his personality overall? Note that a person still has values even if they’re not fully aware of them or what they are.
    2. Your character lacks personal goals. What does your character want to accomplish with their life? How much would they give to accomplish this goal? How do these goals affect his decision making, and his personality overall? Again, note that even a character who doesn’t know what they want still has something they want.
    3. Your character lacks personality flaws. Right now, the personality flaws of your character are that he’s a coward, and that he can have shallow perceptions of people. This is great, but you need more than that; people in real life have more than just two flaws. What about your character could be considered morally questionable? What about him could lead to failure?
    4. Your character lacks internal conflict. People have conflicting values, motivations, and goals. This is what makes them complex. What conflicts in your character’s values, goals and traits? Why do they conflict? How do they co-exist in your character's personality? How does this affect the way he acts, his decision making, his overall personality?[/list:u][/list:u]
    
    On top of this, I am to remind you that because a month has passed, it has now been twenty-nine years since the war of Veld. Because this character is not yet in the setting, your options are as follows:
    • • 1. Your character is now twenty-nine. This simply means you must edit your character’s age.
        2. Your character was born one year after the war of Veld ended. This means you will have to go through your submission and adjust all references to time accordingly, but your character remains twenty-eight.[/list:u][/list:u]
        Please state which option you have chosen, and revise.
        
        I've also been told by the admin that I must be honest with you on this next part, so here it is: I'm not expecting perfection from you; I'm not expecting perfection from anybody. But in order to pass, what I need to see is substantial improvement from you, for you. This basically means that I need to see a revision from you that is much better than your original submission. So far, what I've seen is not making the cut, but I believe you're on the right track. This is why I have not rage quit like you thought I would, and this is why I have not trashed this submission; there is progress here.
        
        However, the help I've given to you in this post is as far as I can help you without writing your submission for you, and as you can most likely tell, this is more help than I'd usually give to anyone (you can thank Zark, Pinkie and Fae for convincing me). Thus, it follows that this will be the last of my feedback on this submission. If you do not demonstrate enough improvement on your next revision, this submission will be trashed and you will have to start from scratch with a new concept. Again, this needs to happen because if you do need more help after this, I would basically be writing your submission for you. You should already know why that can't be done; it's not fair to me, to everyone else who has had to go through this same process, and most importantly it's not fair you, because you deserve the right to earn your success.
        
        I don't really want to be constantly reviewing your revisions (because it means that you're not improving enough, not because I have anything against you), and I know you don't want to be constantly writing your revisions, so here are some very important words of advice: READ every word in this post very THOROUGHLY, attempt to follow EVERY instruction, and DO NOT RUSH. Understand that my feedback is written very thoroughly, with every single word chosen deliberately to ensure that everything is there if you just read carefully enough. That's all, now go make me proud. Good luck.