Writing likeable comedic anti-heroes/heroines

I have seven personalities in mind for what I'm doing, each one with good and bad traits to make them well-rounded and hopefully three-dimensional. Four of them have potential to be a likeable anti hero/ine I think, but I'm struggling to hold down which ONE is best for what I want here. You know the drill with these types - they're all different tints of grey within, sort-of lukewarm in terms of heart and morally ambiguous and with razor wit. Think Deadpool, Velma Kelly and Emma Woodhouse (to a point). I get that there are different types of anti-hero/ine, but out of these four colour-coded personalities, which do you think fits?


BROWN: down-to-earth, wholesome, practical, approachable, friendly, stable, structured, supportive, comforting, reliable, protective, strength, quietly confident, sensual, sensitive, warm, reassured, honest, sincere, dull, boring, frugal, materialistic, lack of sophistication, predictable, cheap and stingy.

RED: action, energy and speed, attention-getting, assertive and confident, energising, stimulating, exciting, powerful, passionate, stimulating and driven, courageous and strong, spontaneous and determined, aggressive and domineering, over-bearing, tiring, angry and quick-tempered, ruthless, fearful and intolerant, rebellious, resentful, and brutal.


YELLOW: optimism, cheerfulness, enthusiasm, fun, good-humoured, confidence, originality, creativity, challenging, academic and analytical, wise, critical and judgemental, being overly analytical, being impatient and impulsive, being egotistical, pessimistic, an inferiority complex, spiteful, cowardly, deceitful, non-emotional and lacking compassion.


BLUE: loyalty, trust and integrity, tactful, reliability and responsibility, conservatism and perseverance, caring and concern, idealistic and orderly, authority, devotion and contemplation, peaceful and calm, being rigid, deceitful and spiteful, depressed and sad, too passive, self-righteous, superstitious and emotionally unstable, too conservative and old-fashioned, predictable and weak, unforgiving, aloof and frigid. Can also be manipulative, unfaithful and untrustworthy.

 

I'm unable to get any idea of a character from a list of personality traits. I think that you need to create characters--and even then, it's quite difficult to judge a character until you see them in an actual scene.

Also, many of the traits seem contradictory.

 

I find that it's easier to build a character by relating to somebody you already know. (Either personally, or via a movie, TV or even book character.)

Think of somebody you know, and throw them into a situation that has the potential to be funny. Someplace where they might struggle to fit in, or make huge gaffes, or get stuck with something they really don't want. Maybe they're a city person who falls heir to a herd of cows. Or they are handed a squalling baby, and they have never held a baby before in their life. Or a giant geoduck clam gets plonked on their plate at a dinner party. How would your chosen 'person' react? Go from there.

Trying to build a character from a list of traits is certainly not the way I would go, when creating a character. It's not 'human' enough. It's just a list.

 

I found I can't create a character until I get them in a scene doing something. I can form a vague idea about them but until I get them cornered into giving an opinion or not or not an honest one do I start to realize I've got a person and not a personality.

You've got a list of interesting ideas there but ultimately telling me a person is caring when things are going good is meh … pointless. Most people are nice to nice people or in nice situations. What you want to do is throw your character into some conflict and see what happens. Just be careful of giving the character too many skills that nullify the conflict - for example if during a crisis she's levelheaded. That's good but it's tough to drag out conflict if she knows precisely what to do. Plus always referring to your list might not help the conflict as sometimes you might need your character to be something that doesn't coincide with your list. You need to be a bit spontaneous when writing especially during the first draft.

 

Just personal experience but I find giving them a colourful personality doesn't necessarily create three dimensional characters. As ChickenFreak said, it gives no real idea of character. I wouldn't worry about them being contradictory as many of us do have conflicting traits - I know I do.

To create real characters you need to get past their personality and into their psyche and ask where do these traits steam from. What drives them? what could be the symptoms of that drive? And what created that drive in the first place.