How Can I Start Writing Klance Wattpad Fanfiction With Strong Character Depth?

When I first tried writing Klance, all my early drafts felt flat—like cardboard cutouts just reciting catchphrases. The mistake was thinking 'character depth' meant piling on tragic backstories right away. Actually, depth for them comes from tiny contradictions. Keith isn't just 'brooding and impulsive'; he's someone who’d meticulously polish his knife while his coffee goes cold, because focus is his comfort. Lance isn't just 'loud and insecure'; he practices jokes in the mirror, not just for laughs, but to rehearse a version of himself that doesn't feel like a seventh wheel.

I found stealing moments from the show's margins worked wonders. What was Lance doing during all those quiet flights in the Black Lion? Probably writing terrible poetry on his datapad. What does Keith do on the rare day off? He might visit that space-mall and get overwhelmed by the sock aisle, because growing up in the desert meant he never learned how to choose fun socks. Those aren’t plot points, they’re texture.

Start by writing a drabble about one of them teaching the other something utterly mundane—like how to fold a shirt the Altean way, or why that weird space-fungus is edible. The dialogue there, the little frustrations and quiet successes, will show you their voices faster than any epic battle scene. My best-received fic was literally just them trying to assemble IKEA-style furniture in the castle. It broke my writer's block because it forced them to interact without the fate of the universe at stake. Depth isn't always in the big declarations; sometimes it's in the way Keith frowns at an instruction manual while Lance hums a pop song, already knowing he'll have to fix Keith's mistakes later.

From there, just let their dynamic breathe. Don’t force the romance to adhere to a schedule; let it be a byproduct of them genuinely seeing each other's weird, specific corners.

Honestly? The strongest Klance fics I've read ditch the show's plot almost entirely. The 'strong character depth' comes from transplanting their core dynamics into a totally different setting. Write them as rival baristas, or as neighbors in a crumbling apartment building. Strip away the space-war context and ask: what's left? Keith's guarded loyalty, Lance's performative charm covering deep care—those traits translate anywhere.

A trick I use: write a paragraph from each of their POVs about the same object, like the red jacket. For Keith, it's a practical garment, a relic of a life that chose him. For Lance, it's a symbol, a color he can't have, something that represents a confidence he's pretending at. That immediate contrast in how they perceive the world builds depth organically.

Don't get bogged down in making them 'perfect'. Let Keith be bad at expressing affection in words, so he shows it by fixing Lance's messed-up pod controls. Let Lance's humor mask a sharp observational skill—he notices when Keith's tired, even when no one else does. Their depth is in the gap between what they show and what they feel.

I think people overcomplicate it. You want depth? Make them annoy each other. Not in a hateful way, but in that specific, grating way only someone you're hyper-aware of can. Keith finds Lance's morning singing obnoxious, but also knows the exact day Lance stops singing means something's wrong. Lance complains about Keith's 'lone wolf' crap, but is the first to defend his need for space. Start a fic mid-argument about something stupid, like the last slice of space-goo pizza. Their real voices—vulnerable, defensive, fond—come out easiest when they're bickering. Just write that. The rest follows.