@zims
Brodie
First thing is identifying marks. The tooth thing is great, but is there anything else that could set him apart? If it got fixed it's not really something people could use to identify him.
Yeah I'm not great at thinking of identifying marks so I'll take a look into that.
Speech is great I love what you have I think it's kinda funny lmao but add in what his speech patterns are. Does he speak with a slight accent (he sounds Canadian to me lmao) does he speak in a sing-song voice? Does his voice get higher pitched when he's nervous or lying?
I'll definitely go into more speech patterns. He's Minnesotian so I can definitely clarify that's where the accent's from
Okay so the first thing I notice in his motivations is that it seems him almost dying at six months has impacted his life view, which is fine I guess, but it just doesn't seem very logical. Long-term memory doesn't really set in until you're around four years old, so logically he wouldn't even remember his illness, let alone would it impact his view on the world and living life with no regrets. My advice is to change the disease to one that effects older kids (maybe middle school age?) or just change his age when he had the virus or just get rid of the illness all together (i like the idea of him having an illness earlier in his life, so maybe just try to change the age?) and let something else motivate him towards this you only live once type of outlook.
Yeah, so the whole Kawasaki thing is something I have experience with and that's wear it came from. There's yearly check ups either till your 8 or as long as they're still concerned and there's this constant "I can't believe you didn't die" kind of air about it. The tests also really suck, and I'll also add the whole testing after the fact stuff to the character sheer.
Again in motivations speak more of what he has in his life to get to these goals. Does he take extra writing classes? Did he enroll in cooking classes in high school? Also, does he still plan on being a journalist after college or is he leaving that behind and moving towards a career in culinary arts? If that's the case, maybe just get rid of journalism (unless through high school or earlier in college there were major ways that career idea impacted him)
All I really have is just a small note that his family taught him how to cook so I can add more to that, and to the writing too. He's definitely leaving behind the whole journalism thing except for maybe a fall back. I thought I wrote it down, but it might just not be clear, but the whole going off and deciding to go for a culinary career is a bit of a risk for him. His grandparents get mad at him about it and all that jazz.
I like the humor in his joking that whenever he's stressed he says he's gonna become a fisherman in Alaska. Keep it, but add more to what he does when he's stressed. Little things. Just because I feel like if he simply did that everytime he was in a stressful situation it could get a little awkward hahaha. Maybe put it as he tends to just laugh things off in serious situations instead of just the same phrase? It'd be like overusing a joke. But I do love it though.
Yeah, I'll definitely change that so it doesn't say "when" like always and is more like "if he's really stressed" or "sometimes when he's stressed"
Again with conditions. If he doesn't remember it, it would not impact his life as greatly as you say it has. I could understand if the illness had lasting effects throughout his entire life, but he seems perfectly healthy. It doesn't make sense that something he doesn't remember would impact his life so greatly. Consider changing the illness to something that affected him more later in his young adult or middle school life.
I like the struggles/obstacles but I feel like you should shorten it a bit. You could sum it up with "Brodie struggles with internalized homophobia." A lot of what you listed could just go into his background.
Yeah I guess that's more just how I like to format my characters.
In religion maybe go a bit more into what exactly the beliefs he's questioning are.
I can understand his mother explaining to him he almost died and him processing it, but still. He doesn't personally remember the experience, he doesn't remember how he felt then, it shouldn't impact his entire world view. (I've said this so many times I'm sorry if I'm coming across mean!) Other than that his background is pretty solid! Talk more about how his desire for a career in journalism impacted his high school career and talk more about his desire to cook.
I'll definitely expand on stuff in his background it's a bit sparse right now.
His tendency to constantly make impulsive and reckless decisions is played up a lot in his sheet, and contradicts with his ability to buckle down and study. Someone who is as impulsive and reckless as Brodie should have a much harder time making himself really sit down to study or do homework. My suggestion is to either play down is impulsiveness or talk more about how it takes a lot of effort on his part to really study. Maybe constant nagging from a parent or something like that.
Yeah, my thing was just, the guy obviously needs to be smart and able to study to get into a college like Yale, y'know. And I figured with the pressure (that's really just from himself) of "both my sisters got into great schools I've got to too" would give him reason to actually be able to settle down and study.
Jason
Again with speech, talk about his speech patterns as well.
Will do
Motivations don't just have to revolve around what the character wants to do out of college. It could be something like, what is making them continue school? What's keeping them from dropping out? Simple things, people, like family, friends, pressure, etc. What motivates him to play hockey?
Motivations give me trouble sometimes so I usually just give them a school/job motivation and then revisit it later. So I'll make sure to work more on that.
Explain how he's able to just get over his anger and switch on his charisma again? What breaks down that wall? Because with what I've seen from his personality it seems like it'd be hard for him to come to a compromise at all.
It's honestly just time. Which I'll look back at him again and try to make sure it's clear. I have a bad habit of writing like blocks of text when describing like one thing so I'll try ad make it clearer.
With struggles/obstacles, again, you could just sum it up in a few words and put the details into his background. That's what makes more sense to me, but it's fine if you don't want to.
Talk more about what Jason's PTSD is like for him and how it effect his day to day life.
Sure
That's really all I have for your characters! They're both pretty solid. I'm sorry if I came off harsh in anyway, all of this is meant to be taken as suggestion
Thanks! I'll definitely look into all of your suggestions!
