Hi people 
. I’d like to make a personality for a male love interest that has a ‘cinnamon roll personality’ ( 
). I don’t want him to be too much of a golden boy though cause that will make his character quite bland. If you’re free, please help me to create his personality.
Thanks 
Moved to Episode Fan Community since this doesn’t belong in any Creator’s Corner categories. Make sure to check out our Forum Tutorial for more info about creating topics, and feel free to PM me if you’ve got questions. 
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In my opinion, a good way to make ‘cinnamon roll’ characters cute is to give them something they’re really passionate about. Actually, I personally think that hobbies/interests are very frequently lacking in Episode characters.
And also, there’s nothing necessarily wrong with his interest being football, but I encourage writers to be more creative, too. That seems to be the Episode writers’ go-to, after all.
Obviously, another point is to make him a genuinely nice person. (So I’d say to avoid the stupid pick-up lines, lol. I don’t know about anyone else, but that stuff makes me roll my eyes so bad-)
But don’t make him flawless - nobody is. Write a character that you could conceivably go out and meet one day.
Actually, some advice that has always stuck with me about writing character flaws was that our bad qualities are just basically upside-down versions of our good ones. For example: somebody smart could come off as condescending, or somebody polite could end up shortchanging themselves.
The reason many golden boy characters seem bland, as you said, is partially because some authors neglect to add a realistic ratio of good to bad qualities, I believe. (The Mary Sue archetype, y’know?)
Anyway, I think those are the major points I’d suggest. Hope this helps!
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Thank you so much!! This really helps 
.
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You’re welcome! I’m glad to hear it!
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A lot of character archetypes suffer from this, but with cinnamon roll type characters, they are often left underdeveloped because authors think too hard about what their flaws could be. If the opposite of being nice is being mean, how can the nice character be mean so they can be flawed but still believable?
Realistically, this flattens characters out. Instead, think of how the context of different circumstances that challenge the character’s overall traits. So if by cinnamon roll you mean well-intentioned, empathetic, easily trusting, wants to make people happy, then also think about scenarios where those qualities may put the character at a disadvantage. If they trust easily, there will be times when they’re easily manipulated. If they are a people-pleaser, there will be times when they struggle to assert their own boundaries and feel worn down by having their boundaries not respected - which can lead to them being withdrawn, snappy, emotionally exhausted, etc. It’s important not to try to just stick traits together and hope they work. There are very few personality traits that are “always good” or “always bad.”
Additionally, think about their backstory and how they came to develop these traits. Maybe they were raised in a loving family that valued open communication, so they are just emulating what they know. Maybe they’ve had some traumatic experiences and didn’t get the support they need so they want to be more empathetic than anyone was to them (if you go this route, be mindful of how you’re writing about it and what details the readers actually need to know). Maybe they were inspired by some figure in their life or in history. This will help you decide what kinds of responses your LI has to different situations.
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