Curate, connect, and discover
Personally I like to take a character and combine 19th century and modern day advice.
The character is given every chance to improve, every chance to grow and learn but they ignore it stubbornly in favor of following their own path. This ultimately leads them down a hole they can’t climb out of, their ambitions and goals blind them to a point where they don’t even realize it.
Where I got the idea from is a story structure called the tragic plot embryo. This whole thing is what I’m using for my story In the Grey actually. If you want to see the tragic plot embryo and how I use it you can just hit me up or google it 😊
Every 21st century piece of writing advice: Make us CARE about the character from page 1! Make us empathize with them! Make them interesting and different but still relatable and likable!
Every piece of classic literature: Hi. It's me. The bland everyman whose only purpose is to tell you this story. I have no actual personality. Here's the story of the time I encountered the worst people I ever met in my life. But first, ten pages of description about the place in which I met them.