Yeah, they're right in that your character is kind of boring. It's also kind of hard to get connected when you've got so many format and grammar mistakes littering your draft. I know that some things are supposed to be yelled or that certain things are questions, but you end almost everything with a period or comma.
We don't know enough about Travis to care about him, but you're already dropping a bomb that he's in a gang in the first chapter. There's no buildup about Travis' personality, no hints in his relationships with his mother and uncle.
Show us that he's in a gang, and why he's in it. Is he angry at his father and he gets to take his anger out with whatever the gang does for fun? Is he feeling lost in general, and they give him a sense of belonging? Does he feel more accomplished or powerful with a gang than in school? Or does he just buy weed or alcohol from them and so he's "in" a gang because he's one of their clients?
Moreover, why would the gang accept him? Sure, most gangs take whoever they can get, but they still need some use for him. How old is he? What does he do? Is he street smart to compensate for his failing academics? Does his anger at his father make him a good fighter? Did he do something to help them out and then they offered to accept him as their own?
And I hate to admit it, but what race is he? If the gang are minorities, they'll probably accept him easier if he's a person of color or some kind of minority. If he's a white/majority person, they'll need a long time to accept him and then use him as their "cover" to get away with things.
It doesn't matter if you answer these questions in a post, but you need to think about it. Gangs are REALLY sensitive subjects in real life, and you can't just use them for drama.
MIA
i might think this over. maybe change the formatting, fix a few grammar and change the plot and characters some more. maybe add some depth to him or maybe the argument could have been a fight he got into instead of gang. what do think.
MIA
First, ask yourself questions. Who is the protagonist? What do they look like? Why do they look like that? How do they speak? Why do they speak that way? How do they dress? Why do they dress that way? Where do they live? Why do they live there? What do they want? Why do they want that? Why don't they have it? How can they go about getting it? Just keep asking questions, especially "why" questions.
Do that for every significant character. You don't have to put all of the details you know into a story, but it's better if you know them anyway. Forget about trying to make your character "relatable" or "likeable" because those are subjective anyway; just focus on writing a character whose actions logically result from their motivations, who moves the plot and isn't simply being dragged through it, and who isn't the center of the universe in terms of your story.
edited 13th Sep '15 10:35:43 PM by nekomoon14
Level 3 Social Justice Necromancer. Chaotic Good.
Hey ewolf, is English not your first language or something? I ask because the spelling and punctuation in your posts is atrocious, and it makes it really hard to understand what your problem actually is. It also makes you seem really lazy - the prose in your rough draft is reasonably well-spelled and punctuated, so why aren't you making that same effort to ensure your posts are equally readable?
EDIT: And honestly, the best advice I can give you regarding how to make your protagonist likeable and relatable, is to just write a character that you like, and that you can relate to. Readers aren't stupid - if you write the character honestly and sincerely, they will pick up on it. And if you don't know what kind of characters you like or can relate to, well, now's the time to figure that out.
edited 15th Sep '15 2:06:05 AM by Tungsten74
what does it take to make your character likeable? does have something in common like let's say how their a underachiever or a kid with low self-esteem anything that might make the reader understand what their going. when i ask a few people online what they thought about my rough draft, one person say my character wasn't that interesting. he seemed bland to him.