Hey there!

So, the prologue on my new fic didn't turn out as well as I had liked it to, so I had decided to rewrite it. Problem is, I seem to have a problem showing the personalities of canon characters well, but most importantly, Fluttershy's. Never thought I would say it. It seemed it would be easy, until I got stuck at a point where my OC was talking to her, and I just couldn't get Fluttershy's personality the way I wanted to. At this point, my OC is asking her to recall a memory that was particularly frightening for her, and I just couldn't show that she was really impacted by it.

Now, to get to the point. If any of you have any tips to getting her personality right, or any general tips on how to really show anyone's personality, I would greatly appreciate it, as I'm kind of stumped at this point. I want the characters not to seem dry, which was the main problem in the first prologue I wrote. (If any of you want to take a look at what I mean, here's the story.)

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

show unwillingness and how she only answers EXACTLY what the question pretains to, otherwise have her drop the subject and divert the attention.

Well, I haven't written too much about Fluttershy, but what I have written seemed to go alright. I think the key to getting Fluttershy right is to make her very withdrawn, and hesitant. Like, for instance in your story, where you wan her to recall the memory, Fluttershy doesn't like turning anypony down, so she might say something like, "Oh... Well... Umm... It was... hard." And you may want to do something like that, or emphasize a word like "hard" so that the reader can better picture it as short and not nice to say.

That's my advice, it may not be all that great, but there it is.

Well as long as it's a pony she knows then she probably wouldn't be shy to the point of not speaking - though the memory could do that, I don't know - What I do with Fluttershy in my stories is have subtle actions demonstrate her shyness through conversation. For example, instead of writing 'Fluttershy stuttered' outright, I'll write something along the lines of 'Fluttershy averted her gaze as she spoke'. Both show a level of shyness, but whereas 'stuttered' denotes a general sense of timidness, averting her eyes makes it easier to picture, and draws the reader in more. That in mind, I'm not saying it's wrong to write exactly what a pony is doing to build character, I do it a lot too, but I find it easier to do so through their actions during conversation.

You might already know this, but it's all I can think of straight off the top of my head (I'm in the middle of writing a chapter and my brain won't function properly until these ideas are down in black and white). If I think of anything else you might find useful later on I'll let you know.

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Writing OC characters and writing canon characters are two very different things. canon characters already have established personalities and you want to write your fic as true to them as possible. It is limiting but at the same time freeing, canon characters does not have to be established or descried, allowing the story to progress faster and smoother.

OCs are characters we know zero about, you want to establish what they look like, how they think, their goals, strengths and flaws. You can do whatever you want with them but for the reader to be interested you have to establish them first as real characters. That is quite a challenge, one easily bypassed by using canon characters.

My suggestion is that you look at fics other authors have written and see how they handle Fluttershy. Or ask someone to do a roleplay with you, one being Fluttershy, the other one being OC.

W-Well...um, m-maybe you could-

Fluttershy is pretty easy to write. All you need to do is put yourself into the mindset of an incredibly shy person. So in the instance of making her recall a terrifying memory, have her try to dodge the question as much as possible. Re-watch "Hurricane Fluttershy". It deals with this exact scenario.

Um, y-yeah. Do that. I mean, if that's okay with you. I wouldn't want to tell you how to write, after all.
*Squeak*

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Thanks for your help, everyone. Now I can finally get some progress done on this rewrite, I think this is really going to help me get Fluttershy's personality right. Part of the reason I tend to get easily stuck is that I'm fairly new to fanfiction, so I guess that should iron out over time. Anyways, thanks for the help!

870777 Jew are welcome.

870777 No problem!

Best of luck to you!