1. The inquisitive writer

    The inquisitive writer Member

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    I know nothing about my MC

    Discussion in 'Character Development' started by The inquisitive writer, Jan 21, 2021.

    Well, that’s not strictly true. I know what they look like, where they live, their job etc. I know their motivation, wants/needs and so on. It’s their personality that I can’t see. I can have every detail of my story worked out but my MC is nothing but a blank canvas. I have seen character banks online where you’re given a pre-made character to put into your story (A twenty-something woman who wears baggy jumpers and drinks tea. She is shy but secretly yearns to be a famous singer. Loves cats, hates liars.) but these are usually no less bland and boring than what I already have. Does anyone else ever have this problem?
     
  2. Lifeline

    Lifeline South. Supporter Contributor

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    If you know their wants/needs, you should be able to tease out their personality. i.e. if your main character needs to be loved, why is that so? Has she made a bad experience? Why? What happened? How did she react to whatever-the-heck happened? Did she hide, thinking she's not worthy of being loved? How did it affect her work performance? Did she catch a reprimand because she couldn't focus on her job? Maybe she even lost it, and where did that put her?

    This technique, I believe, is called 'free-writing'. Try it. Do it for your main character, dive deep into their past, ask questions and at each answer ask the next. Eventually, you'll get a grip on more than a character sheet.

    Good luck!
     
  3. Mckk

    Mckk Member Supporter Contributor

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    It's why I don't find character sheets helpful at all. You come up with a bunch of arbitrary details that don't matter and frankly you don't remember - or I certainly don't remember because they're not relevant to the plot.

    Put your character in a bad situation and write out how he reacts. This situation can be from your book or just completely random - like if you have a medieval character, try dropping him in the 21st century and giving him a credit card. What would he do with it? Write whatever's the logical next step and over time, you'll get to know your character. In the end, it's a story - make it up :) That's the whole point, after all.
     
  4. alw86

    alw86 Active Member

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    So I had this problem with my current MC. I spent ages trying to do character sheets and free scenes, but nothing really seemed to help. I ended up deciding to start writing anyway and just focus on the mechanics of what she needed to be doing at any given time. About halfway through the first draft she started to click into place, and by the end I really got her. The second draft was essentially a complete rewrite, and I found the depth of her personality came out quite organically. The first round was quite frustrating to write because of that lack of understanding, but the second was a pleasure, because by then I knew her (and everybody else) so well.
     
  5. Hammer

    Hammer Moderator Staff Supporter Contributor

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    Well I was going to make a comment, but I agree so wholeheartedly with @alw86 that all i can say is ^this
     
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  6. Laurin Kelly

    Laurin Kelly Contributor Contributor

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    This sort of reverse-engineering is how I approach characterization. I'll know the types of characters I need for the story, and what their personalities have to be to fit the narrative. From that point, it's all about figuring out how they became who they are.

    My character with an amazing work ethic and easy-going nature? Son of a single mom who started working early due to his dad's passing, but also part of a warm and loving extended family.

    Stone-cold killer who likes the finer things in life? He grew up in a small town with a love for the food and fashion of the big city. When his entire family is killed, he becomes a deadly assassin but still retains that part of the boy he used to be.

    The amount of time I put into this is based on how much time the character spends on page and if they have motivations I need to understand to write them authentically. Main characters, lots of imagining their pasts; secondary and minor characters, not so much. Once I start postulating how my characters become who they are at the beginning of my story, I find that the blanks fill in fairly easily.
     
  7. Maggie May

    Maggie May Active Member

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    gosh, never had that issue. My MC unfolds in the story with all the good and bad about them. I am stuck that they cannot be perfect, ever. Their flaws must be real just like the good things about them.
     
  8. rick roll rice

    rick roll rice Member

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    Give them an urge they can't do nothing but to fulfill it, it doesn't have to make sense, it betters if it's not. See how it goes and play it fair with them to the fulfillment and there you have your first draft.
     
  9. marshipan

    marshipan Contributor Contributor

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    So I suppose you mean their tone/voice? How they interact and think. Is this genre fiction? A lot of genre's have standard characters that are popular. For instance, Urban Fantasy is the sarcastic anti-hero. So if that's the case, it'll help get you down the right track if you pinpoint the standard character type for your genre (if you have one).

    What's the overall tone of your story? How do you want readers to feel? Do you need to counteract dark themes with a more sarcastic or light-hearted personality? Or perhaps you want the story to cut deep and you need a broody, suffering type? Are the readers supposed to laugh and have fun, or grimace, or think wtf did I just read.? What personality would help the best with that?

    Also, think about some of your favorite characters and use them as a base to build up your own character's personality. That sometimes has helped me when creating a personality and making it cohesive.
     
  10. cosmic lights

    cosmic lights Contributor Contributor

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    Well, so far it's believed half of your personality comes from your parents and the other half from your environment and life experiences. What were this character's parents like? What did they do or not do that could have influenced your main character? Write down four life changing experiences for your character. Two good ones and two bad ones - they don't have to be dramatic. If possible make two of those life experiences plot related and a problem for your characters up coming journey. Everything for your character starts with their want. So telling us your characters want would help us give better suggestions.
     
  11. Xoic

    Xoic Prognosticator of Arcana Ridiculosum Contributor Blogerator

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    For personality I construct characters from bits and pieces of people I've known (including people I've seen interacting, without really knowing them personally, like at school or at work), characters in movies and TV shows, literature or stories, etc. Here's a writeup I did recently in a DM here to somebody. I'll just modify it slightly and it should get the idea across:

    **Constructing Characters**

    There's a big problem with writing yourself as a character. I've done this a lot, so trust me, I know. And I think I just understood why. It's because you see yourself only from inside, and you don't see your personality or character the way other people do. I now think it's necessary to construct a character, a personality, even for the MC, and even if it's told in 1st person. Especially then. Otherwise it comes out bland and flat. I think when we write ourselves as characters we're afraid to give them any real defining traits or characteristics, we tend to keep them very neutral. Like my character was in ****. I was very frustrated by that and kept trying to build him while the story was in progress, but he already was locked in as merely an observer in this strange land filled with powerful characters. In fact a lot like Bella in Twilight now that I think about it. I think that actually works for that story because the other characters are all so powerful. I think it needed a bland observer. Though he could have been more like Alice (in Wonderland)—she was feisty and strong, didn't put up with any nonsense (though she got a lot thrown at her). Yeah... he didn't need to be so dull. He was sort of a blank where there should have been a character.


    Sera's character (horrible but cute little cannibal girl in a land of gods, heroes and monsters) is a mix of several things:

    Regan from The Exorcist
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
    Hannibal Lecter
    [​IMG]

    And even little Natalie Portman (mainly for the hairstyle - and the tough street urchin thing)(Ok dammit, now I picture the character totally looking like her!!)
    [​IMG]
    Ok no not quite - Sera's not as tall and thin as Natalie, and has much thinner lips. Same hair though. Definitely.

    And now David Bowie has entered the mix after hearing Under Pressure. Not sure quite how he can be an influence, but just keeping him in mind will flavor the character a bit.

    But it didn't truly all meld together until I discovered the last puzzle piece -



    Puck from A Midsummer Night's Dream! Impish, irrepressible and mischievous.

    Fitting, in a story whose name is a Shakespearian reference! The above portrayal is a very energetic one by a very young Mickey Rooney.

    Putting together influences like that could result in a Frankenstein monstrosity if it doesn't take on life in your mind, but it did. They all did. Though I started by sawing up the various influences and stitching their parts together, something magical happened when I started writing the character. She wasn't how I had imagined her. She was different, not as overpowering or as monstrous, more subtle, but the parts had all merged and grown together and become a cohesive living character with it's own personality and mind that lives in my head. It's weird how this happens, but the mind does have this bizarre ability. It can create little homunculi, little living beings inside itself that aren't you and that work independently. I suppose it must have that ability, otherwise how could we dream? This means that by the time I've assembled my Franken-corpse from bits and pieces of people I know and characters from TV and movies and stories etc, and I start writing it, it's magically been absorbed into the crucible of the deep unconscious (home of dreams) and brought to life. A new creature, not dependent on the influences you tried to put into it. It may or may not be what you expected, often it's far better.

    When you have several characters who live and breathe like this in your mind, they begin to interact, and you get story. I wrote about this several time in the comments between story segments. And now I see this is why **** was so oddly powerful. Why it woke me up every morning excited to get back into it, and the excitement drew me on through any and all distractions. This is the real magic of writing. The characters.

    If they live, the story takes on it's own life. Your ideas and outline or whatever preparatory work you did helped define it, but the story will now get away from you to some extent (and this is what you want, otherwise it will be trite and predictable). Stephen King writes about this a lot in On Writing. He says he begins most stories with just a situation, not really an outline or a plot. A high-school girl having her first period and her repressive Christian mother made sure she didn't understand what it was, so it terrified her, and she gets made fun of viciously by the other girls in the shower at school. She also is developing telekinetic powers. This turned into Carrie. He said he never liked the character of Carrie White, but when he thought about a bunch of quiet depressed girls he went to school with and researched a lot and talked to some women he knew who were similar to Carrie, it came together. And though he never did end up liking her character, it came alive in his mind and in the story. And he had vague ideas about what would happen, but left it open-ended, and was often surprised by the way it went.

    You need to be absolutely true to your vision of life and reality. If you start to deviate from your truth the story will become flat and cardboard. But if you include all your convictions about life, about people, all you enthusiasm and wonder for the intricacies and magic of life, it will come alive and then you have art.
     
    Last edited: Jul 15, 2023
  12. Fiender_

    Fiender_ Active Member

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    I don't have a solid grasp on my characters until I've written from their POV for several chapters (sometimes it takes most of the book before I get a good idea :| ). That said, I think it helps to jot down some guiding personality traits before you begin. In his writing lectures, Brandon Sanderson mentions PROMS, a system he came up with for setting his baseline character bios:

    Past: Where did the character come from, and how did they get to wherever they are on page 1?

    Relationships: Who are their friends, their bosses/supervisors, their family, and yes, their paramores?

    Obligations: What are some things this character 'must' do? Do they have a child or younger sibling to protect, or any other sorts of duties? Or even, are they a recovering addict and must resist the urge to imbibe their poison of choice?

    Motivations: Why does the character want what they want?

    Sensibilities: What are some of the things this person does/doesn't like? I mainly use this one to define their social interactions, not just "this person likes books, and crayons, and Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within". Would this character freak out if they heard someone in the restaurant booth next to them casually and loudly detail a sexual encounter? Would they see someone throw out a donut with only a single bit in it and think "you are a food waster, and now my mortal enemy"?
     
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  13. Bakkerbaard

    Bakkerbaard Contributor Contributor

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    I took a videogame approach to my MC at first. GTA Online style. They give you a mute, blank character and you just imprint a personality on them as you play. I figured it would work the same for an MC, so I left physical descriptions out, gave him the minimum amount of motivation needed. I thought readers could better picture themselves in that role.
    Of course, the two people that read it so far found him like a cardboard cut-out. So in response I cursed and grumbled my way through a flashback chapter focusing on his childhood, explaining a lot of why he's like he is now.
    Then those same people said that chapter was crap and it didn't fit into a story like mine. So I flipped both of them off and apoligzed for that three days later, just after I cut the chapter out again. But now the MC was fully formed in my head. The flashback in now a reference file in my data-folder and wherever there's a need and space, I sprinkle in some background color.
     
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  14. Kalisto

    Kalisto Senior Member

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    Okay, how many drafts is this? You see, I have the same thing, but I don't view it as a problem. I see it as a phase. I'm only on the first draft and not even finished with it. I haven't figured out any of the themes or what I even want to say. And that's okay.
     
  15. Fervidor

    Fervidor Senior Member

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    You're focusing too much on your character. Characters are tools for storytelling. No matter how much you love them, they are effectively meaningless out of context. Nobody cares about your character, okay?

    What's your story? What story do you want to tell? How can you use this character to tell that story? Or, if you will, what kind of story can you use this character to tell?

    That's what actually matters, the story. Focus on that. I'm not saying you should disregard that character completely, but you chose to tell a story about them. Why? Once you know that, you can start figuring out all the other stuff.
     
    Last edited: Feb 22, 2021
  16. Nesrin

    Nesrin Member

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    I think it is important to really understand what motivates your character, and once you have that sussed out, break down the big parts and use the Socratic method to ask yourself why. For instance, if you have a character who refuses to be in a relationship, why? If it is because they do not like the opposite sex, why? If it is because she finds them to be pigs, why?
    Continue this until you get a clear picture. The biggest thing to remember is that you may not understand your character until the second or third draft, and even then, there will still probably be things that are not clear.
    If your character is damaged from trauma somehow, I think it is helpful to read some psychology articles or books on the matter and learn the little nuances that come with the territory. For instance, one of my characters has an anti-social personality disorder. It wasn't until I took a really deep look at that subject that I could give them more depth in the way they moved to interact with other characters rather than in just a stereotypical way.
     
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  17. Antaus

    Antaus Active Member

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    Often the way I develop a character is to write them in a variety of different scenarios to see how they react, why they do, how they handle a situation. That's how one of my favorite characters developed, a young man named Alexander. He's intelligent, sarcastic, resourceful, stubborn, and tends to shoot his mouth off before thinking when he gets mad.
     
  18. R.P. Kraul

    R.P. Kraul Member

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    I've found it helpful to write up beta scenes, mostly just conversations, until I get a firmer grasp on the personalities. These scenes have nothing to do with my story whatsoever, though if there are some clever dialogue moments, I may use a line her or there. They could talk about anything at all--anything from food to politics. Does each character tend to argue or smooth things over and quietly disagree? This has the effect--at least it has for me--of allowing a character's personality to separate itself from their stat sheet.
     
  19. Chekhov's pen

    Chekhov's pen Member

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    Eh... there's a lot of text already, so I'm sorry if the following has already been said.
    Remember the movie "inside out"? The concept of "core memories"?
    To begin with, just pick a few. Common things. Pick a first love. Perhaps the MC's parents divorced. Maybe the MC was mugged randomly at some point. Maybe they had an abusive boss but no skills to switch jobs. They don't all have to be bad, but... you know.
    1. Write the scene. Make it a short story. Make it impactful, as if you're going to throw the character away afterward (because that's how most people see themselves anyway "I'd rather die than X" --> procede to do X anyway. Or: I could never live with X --> but most people put up with it anyway).
    2. Now it's 3 years later, or some other time later. How have they coped? What are they like? How do their coping mechanisms express themselves in daily life? Put some thought into it, maybe even write/describe a regular day, or catch phrases they have.
    3. Repeat 1 and 2 until your character has a personality.
    You'll probably start with a pretty granulated person, having three major issues or something to define them, but after you've written a few pages it'll even out, and you can always go back to the start to glue the person's personality together.

    Hope that helps!

    P.S. ok ok I haven't done this myself too often, because it's too much of a hassle! But after a while you don't need to go too in-depth anymore because you kind of get an idea of how previous events shape a person's life.
    P.P.S. Do not forget the things that do not come from previous experience. "Nothing happened to me, Officer Starling. I happened. You can't reduce me to a set of influences." -Hannibal the Cannibal.
     
  20. Thundair

    Thundair Contributor Contributor

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    Character is a set of behavior traits that define what type of person you are. ... Character and personality are related, but they are not the same thing. Personality is inborn traits and character consists of learned behavior. Character may vary with the situation or circumstances or may be purposely changed.

    I was told at an early age I could change the type of character, but my personality was God given.

    So, when I develop my character I play God, but when I put the character in certain situations, their character comes through and they do something totally unexpected.

    I do feel I can get into my character quicker when I write in first person.
     
    Last edited: Apr 13, 2021
  21. naruzeldamaster

    naruzeldamaster Senior Member

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    I don't quite remember how my recent character came into being. The story yeah, but not the character.
    All I remember starting with was that she used magic.
    Then I named the story Hound and Fox and she became a Kitsune.
    Then I wondered what things she might use magic for. (other than her career choice)
    I wound up with a (kind of) jaded strong woman who despises most men. She doesn't trust others easily unless she needed something. I used that to shape the rest of her personality. She ended up being somewhat lazy normally due to her magic abilities. etc
    I didn't have a full grasp on her personality until I started writing her. In fact the writing prompt of the first chapter was to show the reader as many sides of her personality I could in a short time, but not to the point it got annoying.

    Don't be discouraged if the character's personality doesn't come to you right away. Sometimes writing them in random scenes and situations will eek out their personality traits for you.
    If you decide you want them to be timid? put them in situations where being timid simply won't work.
    Got a fighter who needs rounding out? Put him in a situation where his fists CAN'T do the talking for him.

    Seriously just get writing and...explore. I usually start with a flatline idea for their personality and let them grow as the story progresses.
     
  22. Gibdo Baggins

    Gibdo Baggins New Member

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    I probably haven't written enough to come across this problem too often, but I am having a bit of trouble with the MC in what I am currently writing. I tried making a character profile and gave the character quite a bit of history and personality traits, etc. However, as soon as I started writing, none of what I prepared seemed to really fit with the way the story was going and at this stage, I've abandoned most of what I'd made and the character is naturally developing. Who knows, though, maybe I'll look back at the profile I made at some point to try and fit in some of the character's history into the story, but at this stage it feels unnecessary.
     
  23. Carthonn

    Carthonn Active Member

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    It seems to me you have a decent understanding of your character. We have to remember that we don’t really truly know ourselves. We learn so much about ourselves as we grow and get older. You can’t expect to know ever single intricate detail of your character and you do want to leave some of it up to the reader to infer.
     
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