Advice/Help Character dynamic/ fleshing out

[Lovely_they]

This is a character showcase/ help. Keep in mind, these are only prototypes for my ocs that I plan to build apon later.

While I want to create this big world for someone to roleplay with and maybe even write for myself, I need good character dynamics.
I have two characters, a teenage boy from the 1950s and a young veteran that looked like he stayed forever in the 1940s.

The teen boy ran away after having a horrible day at school and ran so far from home that he doesn't know where is. He's meant to be a character that's like any other kid, he wants to be popular but he doesn't have the charismia for it, but tries really hard. Also comic book geek.

The veteran has a much bigger backstory with love, loss, freedom, and regret to his life. He appears surprisingly young (I know this is cliche, but his appearance would look similar to Chris Hemsworth. I know this might date me horribly and he might age horribly, but as of 2021, He looks like him) He's cold, but also kind and much more charismatic than the teen boy, acting as a father figure he wants to be.

I just need a little more help fleshing them out. My mind goes blank at times, is this writer's block? Here's everything I have to write about them.

Trouble always seems to follow me wherever I go. Life's regularly given me a ''kick me sign'' behind my back every corner I turn. I ran late for school, got rejected by the prettiest cheerleader, and now I have no idea where I am.

After wanderin' all by my lonesome, my stomach rumbled and I had some lunch money so I dropped by the street vendor for a hot dog and small drink and that's when I saw him across the street. He looked like he'd belong to the 1940s with his slick, bleached, Hollywood haircut and olive green bomber, but despite that looked no older than his mid-thirties. He had no obvious military apparel, but every once of me told me was in it, for sure. Every so often I would glance at him while taking a sip of cola. He had these cold, yet kind eyes that somehow got to look back at me with this almost sly smile on his face. I finally waved at him and to my surprise, waved back at me. After a few more gulps of cola, the man walked off the bench and a small trinket glimmered as it fell out of his pocket...

 

[Lovely_they]

I love these characters, but sometimes I worry about ''Show, don't tell.'' How can I show? Am I show too much? Am I spelling everything out to my audience? I just need a writer's or roleplayer's thoughts on the table. Are these even characters or just archetypes? I'm willing to take any criticism.

 

[GojiBean]

Hoyo!

"Show, Don't Tell" is an axiom of story telling that simply warns you not to substitute passive explanations for dynamic dramatizations.

For example: If a woman is walking down the street and she sees a man walking towards her from the opposite end, and she's scared of what might happen, use her body language, inner dialogue, and her actions to show us that she's afraid of this mysterious man and what he might do if she continues walking straight past him. Nowhere in your narrative text should you ever once tell us what she's feeling directly using words like "scared," "frightened," "nervous," etc. Let her actions do the talking.

Like so...

As she gingerly walked down the street she noticed a male figure approaching from the opposing end. The one working street lamp behind him shadowed his face, denying her a view of his eyes and where they might be looking. Instinctively her hands clenched into fists in her pockets as she continued walking. Her heart rate spiked, and she could feel her pulse in her throat thumping against the fabric of her collared coat. She glanced over her shoulder. No cars coming. She looked ahead. No cars coming. The figure was getting closer and his pace seemed to quicken. Her eyes darted up and down the street one last time before she swiftly took a step off the curb and walked around a parked car. As the man passed he kept his head forward never once looking her way. Once past the car she retook the curb, stepped onto the sidewalk, and kept an eye over her shoulder until he rounded the corner of the street behind her.

Note the way her heart rate, clenched fists in her pockets, and glancing up and down the street communicate her mood and the urgency running through her mind rather than seeing me type out something like, she nervously looked up and down the street praying there were no cars coming.

The moment you put an emotion word like "nervously" into your narrative text, you're trying to force the audience to feel a certain way to empathize with the character. Audiences don't want to be told how to feel. They want to feel what the character feels. And the best way to help them feel it is to dive deep into the character's head and live the experience through your words on the page. As her heart quickens, the audience's heart should quicken with it. While her hands are clenched in her pockets, audience hands and toes will clench and curl in anticipation of a potential conflict. Etc.

This is the essence of "Show, Don't Tell."

Dynamic dramatization over passive explanations.

Let the audience live the moment. Don't tell them how to feel in the moment.

As for your characters and getting their dynamic in order, I would argue it's best to let their dynamic develop naturally. If you try to plan out how two characters interact, you usually end up overthinking it which stifles your creativity and can lead to more problems than it solves.

Instead, I would focus more on developing each one as an individual before they meet. The more detail you have on each one as an individual before the meeting, the more you'll naturally understand how the two would actually interact when they do meet. How they speak. How they think. How their impression of others starts and how quickly it can sour or be improved. Etc.

Anyway. Just some advice from a geezer of an RPer. Lol.

Cheers!

~ Gojibean