Having done two degrees in writing, and self-published two books and two poetry collections (lots of two’s here, I should shake that up), I like to believe I’m decently versed in the theories, techniques and bones of writing a story. Executing them is another matter, and how you use the elements of writing varies between genre, style and personal unique preferences. Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses, and I’d consider one of my strengths to be a character.
Now, I could write a whole page about how to make a character, but that would be so boring and you could find that from literally any book or blog about writing. They’d probably be far more eloquent and informative, as well. What I’d instead like to talk about is how we apply the writing principle of restraint on character creation, and whether (especially modern) writers over-apply that to their cast.
a place of words 