I was unhappy with my writing for the longest time, so I decided to do something about it. A few reviewers stated that "this doesn't belong here," and that this was a rant. They were right. So without further interruption, lets try this again.

Chapter 1: Creating a character with reincarnation

You probably came here because you wanted to better your writing, make people enjoy your stories. I have some news for you.

That's not possible.

Your main character is called a Mary sue, or the male counterpart Gary Stu, a character with no weakness or flaws. A character that doesn't struggle with anything, a character that doesn't have to work for anything, like an rpg character playing on the easiest difficulty. A character that gets everything right, and is never wrong. People always agree with your character. Everybody likes them, or is intrigued by them. Everyone views this person as handsome or beautiful. They may even be a god. A perfect person, in every sense of the word.

And also very, very boring.

Not many people want to read a story about someone who never struggles, they want someone they can relate to. Someone who struggled for what they wanted. Sure sometimes a story about an overpowered badass saving the day is good, but in comparison to a character that achieved their goal through blood, sweat, and tears?

They fall short.

A good example of this is going out and building a retaining wall in your backyard. Sure you could pay some people to do it for you, or you could buy the bricks, sand, gravel, and cement that you need to do it yourself. It's much more rewarding to do it yourself. You get this feeling that you accomplished something. So that you can say " I built that, and I'm proud of it!"

Instead of saying, "Wow that's a nice wall," you can say "Wow, I built that wall"

Now onto getting your character into your story. There are a few ways and a few pro's and con's to each way.

The first is being a reincarnated self-insert into the world of Remnant. How this works is that you, the author of the story, die in the real world somehow. You then wake up as a baby, a new life.
Reincarnation, by definition, is the belief that each life started out as a previous life form, and that when they die they will be born again as a new life-form. This could be your ticket into Remnant.

The pros of this method are many, and there are a few ideas to go along with it as well. The first being that you have a family, a mother and a father, maybe a few siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, you name it. These people can be either major characters that influence your character in the world, or minor charcters to be done with as you please. Like killed off at the age of six, or abandoned at birth.
The second benefit is up to you or not, your character's body is native to the world, and therefore, may posses traits of that world or not at your discretion. Like faunus traits, such as cat ears, or a reptile tail. Do some research on animals if you are going to make your character a faunus though, there are cooler animals out there than a wolf, or a dog. Like a honey badger, they have a thick tough skin that makes them immune to bee stings and some forms of venom, as well as being fearless. I guess you could say that a honey badger has such a thick skin that it just doesn't have to give a shit.
Our final pro is that you may have fore knowledge of events in the show. This is essentially knowing the future.

The cons of reincarnation are just as numerous, if not more, the first being that it is far-fetched and a bit overused.
Another con being that, if you decided to reincarnate, it's random, you don't know what family you will end up with, and the chances are low that you will end up related to Weiss or Ruby, are low. Furthermore you have a 1/5 chance of ending up near Vale, there is also, Mistral, Mantle/Atlas, Vacuo, and Menagerie, this can also be a pro as you can world build these areas, make them as you see fit.
Another con may be that, because your soul is foreign, you may or may not have an aura. Aura in RWBY is defined as the physical manifestation of the soul, and the semblance a power based on you personality. If your soul if foreign, and the body native, you may run into problems. As we here in the real world know that the soul is something more philosophical and less physical, unlike in RWBY where both is true, we have no way of determining for sure that we can even have a soul in the first place.

So lets review

Pros

1.) Being reincarnated, you start as a baby a set number of years before cannon to your pleasure.

2.) You have a native body

3.) You have a family for sure

Cons

1.) It's overused for self-inserts

2.) The chances of being related to the original characters is slim

3.) You may not have aura due to having a foreign soul.

Some of these pros and cons can blend and become neutral points to pick and choose at will

Neutral points to cherry-pick

1.) You can create major or minor characters for your family and do whatever you want with them

An idea for this is your mother dies in childbirth, so you were raised by your father alone. Or both your parents died when you were an age, and you now like with your aunt and uncle. Or you only have a mother and your father dies before you were born.

My point with this, is that it is YOUR character's family, you can do whatever you want with it, just don't turn into that edgy faggot that has his whole family killed before his eyes, and now walks the earth as an avenger, hunting his family's killer(s). Be real, you aren't going to be that kid that raises themselves. You will probably end up on the streets, in which case a random stranger will come along and adopt you, they probably won't be special, just a caring guy that wants to do the right thing.

2.) You can pick and choose how your aura will work

It can be a major story point if your character doesn't have aura. Picture your character encountering all sorts of bad things, escaping by the hair on his head. It certainly seems dangerous, and you may or may not get hurt by messing up. It could be a comedic point or a very serious disability depending on the story you are writing. Depending on the way you write your Grimm into working, this can be a good thing. No aura? No problem! The Grimm can't sense you if you have no soul, the Grimm can't see thing's without souls, the Grimm won't hunt things without souls, the list goes on.

3.) You probably won't end up related to the main characters.

This could give you the ability to expand on lesser known kingdoms. Your character comes from Atlas? What is it like? How cold is it? Do they wear snow clothes? What does the city look like? What does your family do? Do you plan on becoming a huntsman? etc. etc.

The point I'm making is that when it comes to a story, you are the author, do what you like, just try to be real. A man who has never learned how to forge a weapon will not instantly get it right the first time. If you don't know how to wire a house together, you WILL get it wrong the first time, and the second time, and the third time. Until you sit down and learn about something, you will not know how to do it. If you want to give your character a skill, have them go through the steps to learn it. If it's something you don't know how to do yourself, do research on the subject and learn a bit. In a school, if you never learned algebra, you will not instantly know how to do it, it has to be taught slowly, spoon-feeding you information, until you can do it yourself. You will mess up and get things wrong.

Unless you are The Gamer or poses his powers, that's just cheating then and every point I made gets thrown out the window. Fuck everything, right? Just eat the fucking book containing the relevant information, and then level the skill up. Instant mastery in just a few short months.

A few ideas up for grabs. (Don't mention me at all if you decide to use these, I don't like getting credit for this)

1.) You are reincarnated, you have no aura, you live with your grandfather, the Grimm do nothing to you. Watch every major research facility, huntsman academy, and government try to get their hand on you to see how you work.

2.) You are reincarnated, you have can't get aura, you never watched the show, you live with your parents, the Grimm hunt you like any other person and have hurt you. You got lucky once. A story taking place from a person without powers, in a dangerous, uncaring, world that doesn't forgive mistakes.

3.) You are reincarnated, you have aura, you have a family, Grimm chase you like anyone else, you are trained by your huntsman family members, you just want to be a common worker and not a hero, to bad you're one of the best. You religiously watched the show everyday for three years. A forced huntsman story that would focus on the character growing into this idea and accepting that they are a hero. All his relationships will start off poorly, he works alone, he is slightly suicidal. He will fix his relationships with others towards the end.