The fact that you can see flaws in your work already puts you ahead of most badfic writers.

READ. A LOT. READ EVERY BOOK YOU CAN GET YOUR HANDS ON. THEN READ MORE.

(Sorry for yelling.) This should teach you how to write proper characters, as it certainly has for every single person in my family. (I'm serious here- my older sister is trying to find a publisher for her books, my older brother is a very successful Fanfiction author, and even my little brother is trying his hand at NaNoWriMo summer camp! It's getting a little ridiculous.)

While it is true that practice will help a lot, I find that it often helps to read books that have actually been published. Get a feel for the canon characters, observe as they develop, inspect their flaws. Keep your agent ideas in mind, and as you find out more about characterization, add little bits on to them.

Another thing to keep in mind is that some character quirks can be traced back to past events. Maybe one of them has horrible table manners. Do they not see a need for table manners? Or were they raised in a way that made them not care about it? A betrayal will cause someone to be less trustful.

Hope this helps!

I personally read a ton of badfic when I was younger, so when I joined the PPC, all I knew about characterisation was not to make my characters x, y, and z, but that didn't necessarily mean I knew how to make good characters.

But then I got into more fandoms and read goodfic in those fandoms, especially good OC fanfiction (they do exist!), and by contrast, my own characters and my own writing got better. Personally, I think the shift in my writing style came when I befriended Miss Cam and kept up with her in the Battlestar Galactica fandom, because then I modelled my own writing style off of hers, and grew from there.

My rule of thumb when it comes to making characters is to say that I am writing people. I'm not writing an archetype. If they have aspects of archetypes, that's their thing and definitely not because I intended it to be so. Even if the characters are aliens or Elves or whatever, they were still created by humans, and are meant to reflect humanity in their portrayal in some way. By remembering that I am writing people, I remember that people have quirks and flaws and things that make them tick, and that these things make them different.

So don't worry too much. Put your characters on a shelf and just lurk around, analyse why certain characters work for you and why others don't, and try to use that knowledge to your own advantage.

(Then again, writing two OFUs has helped me because I have to breathe life into templates submitted by readers, so...)

Okay, this might sound lame considering two others have said it already, but...

The best way to do this is to practice. If I'd started hanging out on the Board last year, I can guarentee that my permission request would have been awful.

Your characters have potential; just try writing some 'demo' missions for them, then don't look back at it until a week later. What do you want to change now? What did you like about it? What works and what doesn't?

Also, don't be afraid to scrap something if it doesn't come out right. I rewrote my permission request at least ten times before I finally steeled my nerves and asked.

Read! Study how the authors use punctuation- I recommend Harry Potter *is shot* But seriously, that's where most people learn SPaG: from reading.

Don't drag yourself down. You've got a lot of potential. Everyone's gotta start somewhere.

*hugs*

*offers cake*

The good way to progress is to tire your fingertips with either the pencil or the keyboard. Keep writing your characters, open your imagination.

Tvtropes.org have a list of tropes, and surprisingly advises on how to write a good story, and how not to make Mary/Gary Stu. Here's one.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/SoYouWantTo/MakeInterestingCharacters

Nagi may still have their time to shine, but not now. In the meantime, practice by making them go to the market, or talking to another soldier about recent happenings or gossips, or even fighting when their four-Reaper-destroyer gun isn't functioning or inappropriate to use, and see how you can build a character out of it.

And write a short story. I mean now. Let us see what Nagi is doing now.

There's really no need to wallow in self-pity like this.

I'm sure that each and every one of us on the Board can say that some of their past writing was on the not-so-good side. Heck, some of us were former Suethors, myself included. I once wrote a terrible youfic in the Legend of Zelda verse with the most convoluted plot and terribly overly flashy action sequences all for the sake of the Rule of Cool. After I posted my story online, I re-read my stuff from the beginning (I literally posted the first things that came to mind) and went: "What the heck did I write?"

I deleted the entire story out of shame shortly afterwards and was afraid of writing anything for months afterwards out of fear of repeating the same mistakes.

Instead of hating on your writing skills, ask yourself what can be done to improve them. Listen to feedback and read, read, read. Read anything and everything. That way, you'll see how words and punctuation are used. You'll see how characters interact in specific situations. You'll see how to manage characters with supernatural abilities. You'll see a thousand other things that will inspire you and guide your writing. I kid you not, you'll become a better writer simply by reading.

Just take it slow and make sure that this isn't causing you too much stress. Have some soothing music! Writing should be fun, not torture.


Ganbatte!