What should I do to try making my female characters more alive?

Make her a little vulnerable or give her some cheekiness to add to otherwise overly serious characters. I’m not taking personality gaps, just a little dash of human character.

Good luck with your story ٩(๑❛ᴗ❛๑)۶

maybe try listing her strengths, also include her weaknesses so it balances out her character.
what's her goal in life? or dream? purpose for the story?

idk exactly what u meant by "lifelike" but i do have many pet peeves about some female characters that u can maybe avoid¿

• overly loud and annoying with nothing to give to the plot ( this is so unrealistic¿, there's no substance at all and the women i know who are loud always have some sort of balancing aspect to them )

• doesn't make mistakes ( don't get me wrong, i love strong female characters, but for it to be close to reality, it would be nice if we can see the character sometimes doubting themselves )

• man-pleasingly feisty ( again, i love edgy female characters, but some of them are just plain rude to other characters without even any reason? sure, there's people like that, but it's more realistic for them to not care rather than being bitchy af all the time )



maybe i just listed down what i dislike, it's just my opinion but for a female character to be "lifelike", make sure they have their strengths and weaknesses that only resonate with them ٩(๑❛ᴗ❛๑)۶

maybe give her a soft spot for a certain person/thing?

Maybe you could make her have a duality?On the outside she may be cold or harsh,but on the inside she actually feels a little range of complex emotion like shock or entertainment,or you could make her a bit unpredictable.Since you made her loyal,maybe try giving her a trait where even though she is loyal,she tends to enjoy the indifferent actions of her master

Hope this helped(￣∇￣")

Well I have not written any books or anything but I have a tendency to imagine many stories all in my head . So if I were to imagine a FL with cold ,loyal and cautious type then instead of directly showing her emotions that sheis not lifeless ,I could have added many scenes where FL 's kindness and emotions could be seen

Well it's not bad to show a soldier FL an emotion less character bc situation are like that that one is not able to show her emotions and if you were to make a lively character then it would make her look weak and idiotic

Well you could add some this kind scene that she is the lead of alpha group and she was informed that delta group was captured by enemy and her superior told her to leave it to management and she was like. -" We can never abandon our soldiers and our pride -------" or something like this portraying how she cares about her other fellowmen or you could do something like this that how she always indirectly keep tracks of her teams health and if they are hurt she is like giving them some well how should I say less heavy task or some rest kind of stuffs . Well my grammar and vocabulary is kind of weak so you might find some mistakes

I do believe that it is not necessary to directly make her show emotions. Well you can also add stuffs like this that seeing her comrade die , she simply closes his/her eyes andgive a moment of silence in his name or make a grave and give humor her a proper burial . Well I would have shown her emotions like this

Hello! I’m a gal in that age range.

What I’m hearing from her backstory is that she was basically brought up as a tool for someone else. Therefore I assume she wouldn’t have much experience with friendships/relationships and interpersonal skills, especially showing vulnerability.

If I were her, I would get embarrassed more easily over things others perceive as “normal” (compliments, skinship, casual conversation, receiving gifts, etc) and I would fumble with how to reply to these things.

A good underlier for cold personalities is a huge emptiness or sadness. People will usually react coldly or in anger to protect themselves because they are actually quite emotionally vulnerable. Maybe she could have moments of emotion, like she gets frustrated and starts crying without realizing, then tries to hide it, and then lashes out at whoever witnessed it, or lashes out at whoever tries to comfort her. As a war orphan, she probably doesn’t know how to accept comfort like that, and you can write about her awkwardness.

Maybe she’s tired, mentally or physically, but can never show it. So when she’s alone she comforts herself with something seemingly regular and normal (but totally out of character for her), like maybe singing to herself, or picking flowers, or collecting things etc.

If she’s been trained to be loyal, maybe she’s desperately yearning for attention. Maybe someone can do something nice to her and causes her to smile. Maybe she can blush when praised. Her reactions should be almost opposite to how she acts; that way she’ll seem less like a robot.

While she is probably way more mature than her age because of her training, there is a lot of life she missed out on, so be sure to portray her reactions to those experiences as an age younger than how she usually acts.

Just a random thought, what if she sees another female character with braided hair (or something) and she thinks it’s pretty so she tries to do it herself, but it’s not the best, and someone else sees her hair and she immediately gets embarrassed and takes it apart and walks off all angry and cold-like?

Hope something in there helped

consider why you placed her in that role in the first place.

- how does her past as a war orphan help to shape her current personality/value system?
- what do her relationships look like? does she abhor the count? the count's son? does he remind her of herself? or does she dislike him because of their presumably different backgrounds?
- is she being forced into it, or does she genuinely enjoy taking care of the count's kid? does he trust her? does she have any impact on any of the characters at all?
- what's her ethos? are there values she won't compromise on?

just don't treat your character as a stationary thing basically lol

I agree! She is constantly insecure because of her orphan and commoner status so maybe some occasional dash of cheekiness to make others speechless? The novel itself doesn't have much peaceful scenes, so maybe a cringe joke in between of a battlefield? It somehow makes the battle scenes more interesting.

Weaknesses............maybe an unexpected allergy? or maybe a weak spot for food? what can u suggest gives her more of an 'normal girl' vibe?

Because in the end, I wanted her to retire and give her the peaceful life she deserves.

She doesn't have any dreams or goals. She just wanted to be useful and repay them for saving her life, also one of the reasons she isn't close to her subordinates.

Her main purpose in the story is her knowledge. she provides essentially wise advices because of her tragic past. It helps the MC move on from being stubborn to being more accepting of others opinions.

Thanks for the heads up!

She does have conflicting views, Her desire to protect the people close to her means she has to kill her enemies to keep them safe. But she doesn't want to kill them either.

I still didn't decide on how to work this situation out, but she would definitely make choices being overly emotional. So she makes the wrong choice, helping her grow further.

She does (▰˘◡˘▰). But it would be revealed in between the story because of her great acting skills! But I don't know to what extent she has to care for that person. Like should she bet her life to save them or should she just try to keep them safe?

Either over protectively toxic or give that precious person freedom but almost die protecting them?

Ah yes! everyone has a sadistic side to them!

but I made this character to be the wise one, so she doesn't find pleasure in meaningless things like other's pain or others in general.

But she does have the guilty pleasure of enjoying her master smiling and making mistakes. she helps him in the end anyway, so its like a mother seeing her son grow up?

If you get what I'm saying.(づ￣ ³￣)づ

'Actions speak more than words.' kind of thing?

It shows her decision making skills and her emotions very subtly but very convincing. What a practical way to show how she feels! Thank you! (๑•ㅂ•)و✧

That was very detailed and unique! As a guy thinking about how the simple sight of a girl having braided hair impacts V is quite new to me. Did you study psychology?

emptiness and sadness, yearning for attention and being awkward at times is something everyone has. but it is cured when people close to you make an effort to care about you. Even my MC is an orphan who suffered through depression, but to put it into words thank you!

Unfortunately, even though her master cares about her like family, he doesn't know how to express it so she doesn't know he cares. Thanks for the tip to make her more childish! I personally want to see her blush when she realises she behaved immaturely.（/TДT)/

from what you've told me, i dont think being overtly protective would suit her personality. instead maybe u could do a scene where the person who she cares about gets hurt and she, like, sort of "bursts". like she gets really angry or emotional or whatever. those scenes are my guilty pleasure, and it'd be a great way to enhance her character.

Um..........Wow. That was deep.

And I will answer every question you asked! because it helps me sort out what information I have now!

-Her past plays an important role because her status as a commoner and past orphan makes her insecure. Before she entered the army along with the count's second son, she accommodated others before herself making her seem like a pushover. But in the army she grew strong and confident, at least in the eyes of others. But she just hid her insecurities making her more complex when she makes her decisions.

-She doesn't abhor the count. She is grateful to him for taking her in. But she never considered them as family, only superiors she shouldn't dissatisfy. Her loneliness and sadness of losing her family were locked away in her heart making her vulnerable and sometimes overly emotional. but those occur very rarely.

-The count and his family unconditionally trust her, but the same cannot be said the other way. Her complex emotions and insecurities make her cautious towards everyone and cold towards people who reach out to her. Because she doesn't want to lose people close to her again. (But obviously there will be exceptions who wiggled their way into her heart subconsciously, making them her soft spot.)

-Tremendous impact on the MC. She changes his perspective little by little by shattering his views steadily with her unexpectedly wise advices.

-She won't kill unless necessary. but that won't last. Her ethics degrade after she is betrayed by one of the people she somewhat trusted.

Yea! seeing her lose her cool composure is very satisfying! thx for ur opinion!