How Do You Create Your Main Characters?

Discussion in 'Character Development' started by TheoremAlpha, Jan 21, 2016.

  1. Vanthu

    Vanthu Member

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    I usually base them on myself and what I would do. But they usually become a little different, and a lot less shy.
     
  2. Tiamat384

    Tiamat384 Member

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    I plan on using that method, but have gotten slightly too close to the person based off of, though only in mind and soul. Hmm, too easy to fall. Should be fun though, it is the simplest of ways.
     
  3. ddavidv

    ddavidv Senior Member

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    I also do this to a degree. I do write a backstory about my characters (that generally is not included in the actual work--it is for my use only) as I need help with where they come from, traits such as smoking or drinking, physical attributes and so on. I may have a vision of what their personality is like but that is more revealed as I write, as described above by KhalieLa. My favorite character completely changed on me as I wrote my book. Fortunately, she became far more interesting as well as more difficult to write. She's a wonderful challenge that I enjoy working with.

    I only ever used one person I actually know for inspiration of a character. I had a male MC that I simply couldn't get a feel for. He needed to be a certain way and someone I am decidedly not. I pondered numerous people I knew and fell upon a distant friend who fit the requirements nicely. Physically, the description is much different but the personality and mannerisms are 'borrowed'.

    Other traits of my characters are results of the type of person I would want to know (a love interest) or the type of person I wish I really were (heroic instigator). I suspect Ian Fleming wished he really were James Bond. I use a bit of that sometimes, though thus far never as my MC.
     
  4. NeighborVoid

    NeighborVoid Active Member

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    I deliberately contrast my characters while satirizing existing archetypes. This helps create potential for conflict while retaining order. The hardest part is creating a relevant backstory that doesn't exist in isolation from the current plot.
     
  5. R.K. Blackburn

    R.K. Blackburn New Member

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    Heroic characters need to be flawed in some way. Monstrous characters need to be endowed with some redeemable traits. William T. Vollman in his NYT review of All the Light We Cannot See accused Anthony Doerr of failing to write Reinhold von Rumpel, the Nazi treasure hunter who commands a large part in the story, as a fully made round character because he was without any redeemable qualities. He used Hitler as an example and pointed out that Hitler was an animal lover and to write the monstrous character Hitler without including that tender side of him would leave the Hitler character not only unbelievable, but undetestable, just a paper monster that the reader could blow away in a single breath (just my interpretation). So there should be a hint of choir boy in every villain and a hint of sex offender in every hero. And then, of course, all fiction is autobiographical to some extent.
    If you are writing something that depends on plot then work back from your critical scene and "profile" your character(s). Who could possibly wind up in this kind of predicament and what kind of lifeline or training could have led that or these characters to this scene. Then add a little choir boy or sex offender as necessary and endow each and every one of the important characters with as little bit of yourself. If your piece is character driven then let the story develop around a "profile" of that character. Who knows where that will go, just make sure a story has been told when you get to the end.
     
  6. X Equestris

    X Equestris Contributor Contributor

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    I look at characters in other media that I like and tinker with them until I settle on something that fits the sort of story I want to tell.
     
  7. Holden LaPadula

    Holden LaPadula Member

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    For me it comes spontaneously. It usually occurs when I watch a movie or witness people in real life act in an extremely otherworldly way, whether outrageous or simply divergent. I take the unusual characteristic that drives the action (unusual because who wants a cliché John Nobodycares?) and develop upon it. For example, if you watch somebody at the market spend forty minutes choosing and analyzing each individual apple, that might stick out at you. So then you take the obsessively compulsive trait and build on it. So maybe that character is a man: why did he end up that way? Drunkard mother who gave him a choiceless childhood that he wanted to make up for by being a control-seeking adult? What are the other implications: controlling, bad boyfriend? Might that cause the conflict? Also, slap irony wherever you can to keep the character interesting. If the character is blind make him a painer. If the character fears heights, force him to live on a planet with cliffs and only cliffs.

    Go crazy!! :D
     
  8. DoctorDoom

    DoctorDoom Member

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    I like to take an idea or philosophy and take it to it's logical extreme and then work from there.

    For example: What if you had a species that did not reproduce sexually. What if this species divided like starfish when it got snacked on by a predator. What if this species had fragmented ancestral memory and eventually naturally selected itself to become more and more intelligent by dicing up intelligent variants to make copies. What if the more likely one was to be diced, the more likely it was to reproduce, the more that variant existed. Fast forward a couple million years and you get hyper intelligent hyper annoying aliens who all seem to like getting themselves killed in new and horrendous ways because that drives it's species evolution. If you put two of them in an enclosed space with no entertainment systems, they won't do what humans would do, they simply kill each other. In fact, if they so much as see each other, they will immediately go into a homicidal rage because that's how their species reproduces. Their intelligence, arrogance, narcissism and intense mockery of everyone and everything, is both a result of ancestral memory and a gambit to make every other living creature in the universe want to rip them limb from limb. But, because other intelligent life forms know this will only make more of them, they are forced to stay their hand and just deal with it.

    This is how I come up with all my main characters. The secondary ones are usually contributing factors to the main characters (or the story's) insanity, or something similar.
     
  9. furzepig

    furzepig Member

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    Characters that I like enough to be main characters just kind of show up sometimes. I feel like I don't so much invent them as get to know them. I love that process.

    That's all well and good, of course, except that these people show up so rarely. If I want to write continuously, I'm going to have to figure out a way to build main characters from the ground up. This thread has been helpful.
     
  10. Lew

    Lew Contributor Contributor

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    Sack-a-Doo, you write just like I do! I can't conceive of creating a character, I am not sure I understand the people talking about doing so! I tell my story, the characters emerge, grow, change, they tell me their story, I don't define them. And with a 250K word piece complete, my beta readers and editors love my characters... a rough cut centurion who begins as incredibly shy around nice women. A shy, quiet Chinese girl of Roman descent who turns out be the abused concubine of a not very nice Chinese mid-level official... and marries the centurion. A pirate who turned out to be one of the heroes of the story. A warrior woman with the Xiongnu north of China who came by that role in an incredible painful way. And taught the shy Chinese girl how to fight like a woman.

    I had to go write each night, so I could find out what happened next. It wasn't like writing, it was like watching a TV series. So yes, Sack-a-Doo, it does work!
     
    Sack-a-Doo! and KhalieLa like this.
  11. KhalieLa

    KhalieLa It's not a lie, it's fiction. Contributor

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    This is what I love about writing. Discovering what my characters will do next. I'm deliberately not writing write now so that I can focus on edition and it's painful because I miss the high that comes from discovering whats on the next page.
     
  12. Stesha

    Stesha Member

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    I usually have a vague idea of what kind of characters I want for what story, and I flesh them out either as I'm writing, or I create little character charts and drawings of them. Some are based on real people, or myself, or inspired by other media, or my pets, or even objects laying around the house.
     
  13. TkTish

    TkTish New Member

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    I tend to get an idea for a story first, then I create characters to populate it. I very rarely base any of my characters off real people or people I know (it's great if that works for you, but I feel uncomfortable doing that). Once I have a bare-bones version of a character, I'll name them, find a picture to represent them for my own reference (usually just body type and almost always a no-name model rather than an actor), and build a backstory for them. That characters will always change and grow during this process.

    Before I even start writing, creating characters is my favorite part, even if I do sometimes get frustrated when I need to change a character's name 5 times to fit with everything.
     
  14. zoupskim

    zoupskim Contributor Contributor

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    I write bios for all my characters. Upbringing, education, jobs, beliefs, and tastes. You could follow any of my characters, secondary or background, and they could have their own book, story, movie, etc. I try not to make straw-man characters. If someone has a strange idea, it's not just because they are weirdos. They arrived at that place in their mind for a real reason I can tell you about in detail.

    I like to put my characters in settings or plots that would cause them to react and struggle. A story about a feminist living with feminists under a matriarchal government is boring. Magic boy learning magic peacefully in school might be cute, but imagine that boy learning magic in a world where magic is cursed and shunned, so he joins a fascist magic cult bent on carving a niche out of the world in blood of the lesser humans.

    Once I place my characters in the setting I let them live. I try not to force their actions or reactions. They know who they are, and how they will treat a situation or hardship. If they change, then they have a reason. I love seeing them struggle, because when they get their ending they have earned it. It might not always be happy, but it is the one they led themselves to.
     
  15. I Am Vague

    I Am Vague Active Member

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    My characters are all based off of someone I've seen in the past. I can't conjure up a person like others can, at least not as easily. I just can't do it. I've based characters off of friends, people I've seen on TV, people in dreams, I even based a very important character off of someone I passed on a trip to Universal while waiting in line for the Harry Potter ride. Yup. I even snuck a picture and everything as stealthily as I could. I liked everything about her; she was gorgeous. Is it creepy? Damn right, but she doesn't know about it, although her brother might because I believe he might have caught me. Oh well. She's stuck in my brain now.
     
  16. Cattlebruiser

    Cattlebruiser Member

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    It completely depends on my story, personally.
    ie My current protagonist of my work is pretty much someone like me!
     
  17. tristan.n

    tristan.n Active Member

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    I usually start out with an MC in mind, and I start fleshing out a plot that revolves around that person, and then one of the side characters catches my attention and I change the focus of the story to that person instead. I was going to write about someone who is intense and full of anger and has only ever known the world from inside a cell, and now it's about a girl who lets people perceive her as weak and timid in order to protect the flame of independence and strong will she's been secretly fanning for years. I guess a character idea inspires a story idea, and once that has solidified, then I can identify the best option for my MC/POV character.
     
  18. King_Horror

    King_Horror Member

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    I, oddly enough, always end up naming my MC John. I do not know why, it's just like that.

    I remember when I was very young, I would write stories with females getting blown up with grenades.

    Of course, I obviously do not do that anymore, but I look back and I have a feel-good moment on how I've grown as a writer.

    Going back to my first point, while my MC ends up being called John 90% of the time, I always have a plethora of names to choose from for secondary characters. To me, a protagonist named John just seems right.
     

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