I'll *try* to be brief and get to the point, but fair warning: I have a difficult time doing that. At least I've got beyond the point where my hypochondria had me thinking I must be a psychopath or just have a single digit Social-IQ because I'm not good at creating characters. An interesting comment in another thread went something like, "My characters arrive, or otherwise come to me, including their backstories." It stood out to me because this is often how my ideas for stories come to life, at least in terms of plot, setting, and so forth. But characters? I'm missing something. Now I know how it feels for the people who can't come up with ideas for a story. I didn't understand how that could be possible. But, it would seem that things have come full circle, because that's my experience with character building, or developing. I'm not talking about the more superficial (although still important) elements like names. I... I don't know what it is. I'm so lost that I actually can't really identify the problem. At *best* I can have a decent, albeit rough, idea for a character in my head but I simply cannot bring them to the page for the life of me. I'm having difficulty getting out of my own head, I think. How I think, and my personal experiences, are getting in the way and so every character starts to just feel more or less the same. The only exception I've been able to find is with the narrator (and main character) of my short-story Madame Latrodectus. I wrote that character when I was in a particularly cynical, resentful mood. But I didn't plan him out ahead of time. That was all stream-of-consciousness pantsing. And even then, despite being perhaps the best character I've written in terms of expressing their thoughts and motivation, there isn't really any character development. Well, there sort of is, but it's vaguely implied at best, and very rudimentary regardless. I noticed that as I explore my characters, I tend to have them ask a lot of questions to themselves. Am I perhaps noticing a trend where my characters tend to lack conviction, and consequently action, because they're just meandering in thought-limbo? I don't know if any of this made sense. I need help writing characters because I am not blessed with them magically coming to me complete with dossiers and 3D mental imaging like some of the lucky members on here. Which is probably why my personal blogs, as well as my non-fiction, is stronger than my fiction. It's probably why writing a story without "I" is immensely frustrating for me. Because when I write, that's how I think. I am me, and I am writing this, and this writing is also me. Thus my writing is me, myself, and I. Seriously. I don't get why I am having such a difficult time writing a story from 3rd person limited, and switching back and forth between two characters. I struggle with separating the thoughts of the characters from the actions of the story, in terms of readability. As in: I don't want the reader to get confused that "this is my character thinking, and now we're switching back to narration", so I feel the need to put "he thought", "so and so figured", ALL THE TIME. S i g h. As a final comment, maybe I should try to blend acting techniques together with my writing in an effort to somehow embody the character and get myself in their shoes?
Oh, man..., I have the same problem. Details, description, setting are my strong suite; I am okay with style and plot; but I suck when it comes to characterisation. Some would argue that there is no book without strong characterisation, which is true, and some tell me that my characters are strong, but I know. My characters are not shallow, and they evolve, but that is driven by the plot, not other characters. None of my characters are social butterflies either, for I subconscious dislike (hehe...) Paris Hilton or KimK kind of characters. And, getting into a character's mind feels like I am a perv. I would rather observe how the character reacts to the setting and deal with it... but wait, I have to make the character react, and there lies the problem. A big problem.
Did a doctor tell you that, or did you just read about it on the internet? You've actually identified the first step: think of things about yourself, then think of people who could be different than that. A lot of writers do not find personality profiling systems to be helpful, but I love them for this reason: comparing and contrasting my characters against myself as much as against each other. My favorites are MyersBriggs personality and D&D Alignment: I myself am a Chaotic Neutral INTP (antiauthoritarian, neither a saint nor a sociopath, asocial, theoretical, insensitive, disorganized) The first-person peripheral narrator Alec Shorman of my novel is a Lawful Evil ESFP (authoritarian, sociopath, social, practical, sensitive, disorganized) and the MC Charlie Petersen is a Neutral Evil ISTJ (neither authoritarian nor antiauthoritarian, sociopath, asocial, practical, insensitive, organized) Alec loves The Rules, I hate them, and Charlie is pragmatically ambivalent about them. Charlie and I are not people-people, but Alec is. Alec and I are casual and spontaneous, but Charlie is more methodical and step-by-step. I love playing with abstract ideas, but Alec and Charlie look at the real-world application of everything. I've made characters without starting with these labels, and those characters have never been as well-develeoped as the characters that I built by starting with a label (and then possibly making changes later on, but possibly not) But there are also a lot of writers who despise these kinds of systems with every fiber of their beings, and you could very well turn out to be one of them --- More generally than that (and also less controversially), the most important thing to do to develop characters is to learn as much as possible about as many different methods of building characters as possible, that way you can see which parts of which methods work best for you (even if they don't work for other people) and which ones don't (even if they would for other people). The best writing class I've taken so far was a Great Course "Creating Great Fiction," and one of the lectures that stood out the most for me was on three different axes of character-building methods: Imagination or Observation: Do you build your characters from whole cloth, or do you base them on other people (real or fictional)? I myself skew about 90-95% in the direction of Imagination, but my father says that he skews about 70% towards Observation. Psychological or Circumstantial: Do you focus on what makes your characters unique as individuals, or do you focus on them as reflections of the world around them? I tend to aim as close to 50/50 as possible for this one, feeling that the combination of a character's Nature and their Nurture is more important than either one in isolation. Inside-Out or Outside-In: Do you start with a character's goals and motivations, then use this to determine their behavior and mannerisms, or do you start with their behavior and mannerisms, then use this to determine their goals and motivations? This is one where I tend to jump around all over the place instead of just settling on one general area: I start every story with a basic plot nugget, then fill it in with a cast of characters, so at this point I'm focusing more on their behavior – what they're doing and how they're doing it – than on the underlying psychology of why they're doing it (Outside-In) As I start writing and outlining, I start getting new ideas for the plot which force me to rethink my characters' values and motivations (more Outside-In), by I also start getting new ideas for my characters' values and motivations which force me to rethink the plot (Inside-Out), and there's a constant back-and-forth between the two By the time I've completed my first draft, there is a lot more focus on my characters' Insides than on their Outsides (despite that not having been where I started) As opposed to @Shoshin Samurai , who would probably skew strongly towards Circumstantial and Outside-In character-building @Foxxx What have you been doing so far on each axis? What do you think you might want to try differently?
Going wrong? You can't go wrong if you're not going anywhere at all. Have you ever thought that the sum of all your issues with writing is because you can never get to the dang point of anything? Sure, you say the point is to write some kind of story, but judging by how you wrote this question, I kind of doubt that. For example, you came on here to ask a question. The problem is, you never actually asked one. In fact, I'm not even sure half of what you were writing and the other half, I'm not sure it had anything to do with anything. Try this exercise. I promise it will change your life. Sum up everything you just wrote there into one question. A single question. Once you find the questions, you can find the answer. How can you do that? Well, that's writing for you. You have to put limits. And that's the same problem with your characters. I bet you don't have limits to them. I doubt you'll be able to describe any of your characters in one sentence. That one sentence is their role in the story. That is the sum of who they are. Contrary to popular belief, characters seldom, if ever, are a fair representation of a real person. We only create the illusion that they are real, but having them represent some part of the human experience.
One way of dealing with this problem: write in first person. If the events - plot - is what you're interested in, write them down as if you were at the center of them. That way, you never have to create a character: your characterization will come naturally from your own reactions and feelings about what's happening in the story, and it will always feel genuine, as long as you don't pretend to be someone whose experiences you don't know about. You can stay with that method for life, if you want to. (I do that sometimes.) Another approach is to write a very short story - don't worry about word-count or editing, just keep to a simple plot - in first person. Then, put it aside for a week or two and work on something else. Then, bring it out and see if you can transpose it into a third-person story, with all the reactions and feelings intact, and just the pronouns changed. (I never do that) I usually begin with a character I know very well, someone for whom I have a strong affinity, or at least sympathy, and tell the story from his or her point of view. Even if it's third person perspective, this is the character with whom I expect the reader to identify. In a short story, that central character is usually strong enough that I don't need prompts to keep track. For a novel, I make fact-cards, so I won't get their age or hair-colour, their mother's name or their favourite food wrong from one chapter to the next.
Looks like we're in this boat together then. Wow, thank you Simpson! This is some really good information. I had absolutely no idea that there was so much theory behind this. (I just use the word hypochondriac to describe my episodes where I'm convinced something is wrong with me without any evidence for it. Like worrying that I'm a psychopath or have a single-digit Social IQ because writing characters doesn't come easily to me, unlike most other writers.) The first step is definitely getting out of my own head. Difficult for me to do, in large part because so much of my thinking is introspective. Which means at my worst I'm self-indulgent and selfish. I'd never thought of using Myers-Briggs and D&D Alignment as tools for helping create characters. That's really cool! I'll definitely give it a try. I've taken the Myers-Briggs test before for myself, and I'm a big "fan" (for lack of a better word) of Carl Jung from whom it was mainly derived. I irregularly oscillate between INTP and INFP. --- Now you're just making me feel bad haha! I'm pretty sure I bought that same course- Writing Great Fiction: Storytelling Tips and Techniques by James Hynes? I only finished a few lectures before life stole me away from it. I definitely need to revisit it and finish it. Was actually pretty good. Makes me wish Brandon Sanderson had more of his lectures on YouTube. Imagination or Observation: 75/25, respectively. Although this is a weird one for me, because I don't believe you can just create a character without basing them off of *somebody*. It's just that, with "Imagination", you're not doing it with a specific person. Instead you're sort of tapping into the general human condition and experience. Archetypes and that sort of thing. Psychological or Circumstantial: I'm 50/50 as well on this. I think balancing Nature and Nurture is so important. Inside-Out or Outside-In: I'm really torn on this as well... I think because character isn't my starting point for a new story. If it was, I could see how starting with the motivations and goals would be logical. Like yourself, I start with an idea for a plot. The characters come in last which creates the problem you describe; the plot and the characters have to communicate and be painstakingly brought into harmony. Ideally they need to react to the plot, as well as drive the plot. In terms of what I might want to try differently: I definitely need to have a strong knowledge of the Goal and Motivation of my two main characters. I need to be able to write each in one sentence (two *max*). Then maybe try writing a paragraph about their background, for the purposes of Nurture. Then I can use that rough outline to help inform my answers when I use the Myers-Briggs / D&D tools. I don't see using those two things as restrictive; I think they'll help *guide* me and help me think, but like I already said, I myself don't fit perfectly into INFP or INTP. With respect, I don't think it's fair to make that sort of generalization based on just one post. This wasn't intended to be so much of a question as it was a general call for advice, because I didn't even know what question I should ask. And I often use writing as a means to help me explore and think-out-loud. I take your advice to heart though! It's spot on. I don't know why I hadn't thought of it, but if I know I need to be able to sum up my story in just a matter of a couple sentences, I ought to be able to do the same for each of my characters. Having that level of clarity is absolutely necessary. Thank-you for bringing that to my attention! I'll give it a try. Being able to formulate things so concisely will help give me direction, and I know that when I have direction, I don't meander and wander and go on long tangents. That's one thing I'm still struggling with. Writing in third person.
Happy to help! ... Who told you that writing characters comes easily to most other writers? Because whoever did is clearly very good at making fictions sound convincing The big thing here is to be curious about external information that you can then process internally Same here! I'm strongly IN-P, moderately T, so I've tested INTP six times, IN-P twice, and INFP once. That's the one! As a writer who started with fanfic, my favorite of his homework assignments was re-writing a famous scene into a different setting The first time I took it, I wrote the opening bank robbery of The Dark Knight as a Swords/Sorcery, and the second time I took it, I wrote the meeting between Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson as a post-zombie apocalyptic. His Laws of Magic have been very helpful to me, and I did love his Reckoners Trilogy Pretty much! One of my favorite games to play is to look for comparisons between my own characters and other people (real/fictional) after the fact This is pretty much "do you base your characters on other people deliberately or accidentally?" Nice! Which is where it helps to have a bare-bones starting point (much as a Myers Briggs type plus an Alignment) that you can then flesh out later on Sounds good! Yeah, well, nobody's 100% of anything, so you can't rely on the descriptions of the hypothetical 100% extremes It really helps to look at each axis individually to remind yourself that Myers Briggs is 4 simple personality measures more than it is a single complicated one (I'm about 90% I, 85% N, 65% T, 85% P). Best of luck! Fun fact: I started with third-person past tense, have since fallen in love with first-person present, but can't get myself to enjoy writing first-person past or third-person present. Not sure why.
Base your charectors on people you know well! Here is an excercise imagine your MC going to the store to get a limited additon item with your best freind and your greatest enemy is also after the same item in which there is only one of. Imagine the regular obsticle of the task and the obsticles your greatest enemy would place in front of you. Then also immagine your best feind was helpin the MC. What thought process would your best freind be going thru and what thought process would your greatest enemy go through. Then add some small details to the nemisis charector and the freind charector that would some what fit whith their personalities but are not present in your best freind or your nemisis. Learn to right the charectors you know and then change subtle things. Keep doing this and you will develope a process for forming an orriginal chrector.
While I have heard many people say that it comes easy to them, it is in all likelihood a fiction that I sneakily told myself. You are right! Wow, I've been slacking. I did do a couple of the exercises. There was often that feeling of "I don't see how this is going to help me", but I don't think it'd hurt, so maybe I need to just give them all a try. Perhaps I'll find a few I really like, in which case I can do them as many times as I want. I also found his Laws of Magic helpful. I wish more authors did some sort of college level course, and shared it on YouTube (don't we all). There are certainly tenses that appeal to us more than others. Never really gave much thought to why that might be, but it's curious, and probably can't be completely summed up by "what you like reading is what you like writing". It's all a matter of practice, I suppose. I feel a little more comfortable writing in third-person present now than I did before. There's always the nagging concern that I don't pick the tense and POV as deliberately as I'd like to. Don't get me wrong, I give it significant consideration, but I have much to learn about the pros and cons of each, which would allow me to better utilize them.
