1. Matt007

    Matt007 New Member

    Joined:
    Mar 10, 2017
    Messages:
    3
    Likes Received:
    0

    need help with character personalities and dialogue

    Discussion in 'Dialogue Development' started by Matt007, Mar 10, 2017.

    How Do you come up with a good personality, and good solid dialogue for characters
     
  2. Jack Semmes

    Jack Semmes New Member

    Joined:
    Mar 10, 2017
    Messages:
    13
    Likes Received:
    19
    Cast your characters just like a movie maker.

    For example, if I wanted a tough old detective I would download a picture of Nick Nolte. I would create a character sheet around that picture. Personality traits must match the image of Nolte I have in my mind.

    I find when I cast my characters, these actors play the part in my mind's eye. They talk to me as I am writing. They take the story in directions I had not planned. They become real to me and my readers.

    Good Luck!
     
    Oscar Leigh likes this.
  3. Simpson17866

    Simpson17866 Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Aug 23, 2013
    Messages:
    3,406
    Likes Received:
    2,931
    Welcome both of you to the site!

    I need a Dungeons and Dragons alignment (9 possibilities), a MyersBriggs type (16 possibilities for 144 combinations), I need to know what my characters are doing, and that's it ;) Once I have that to get started, everything else develops in more free-form.

    I am a Chaotic Neutral (antiauthoritarian, neither extremely heroic nor extremely villainous) INTP (asocial, abstracting, insensitive, disorganized) fiction writer.

    Alec Shorman, the narrator of my Urban Fantasy WIP, is a Lawful Evil (authoritarian, villainous) ESFP (social, practical, sensitive, disorganized)

    Charlie Petersen, the MC of my same book, is a Neutral Evil (neither extremely authoritarian nor extremely antiauthoritarian, villainous) ISTJ (asocial, practical, insensitive, organized).

    I tend to live my life with my head in the clouds, not paying much attention to the real world around me and not too personally concerned with the other people in it except in an academic sense.

    Alec needs to be around people, but his people are more important to him than anybody else. He wants you to be his friend (unless you've made him angry and haven't made it up to him), but if you're not his friend, and if his friend tells him to shoot you in the face, he'll do it (though he'll also try to be "polite" about it unless he's angry with you, or if he's told otherwise by the friend giving the order).

    Charlie's a professional and a pragmatist: she'll work for you for as long as you can guarantee a steady job that she can do in an orderly fashion for a steady paycheck, but if she sees a chance to get a steadier job and a steadier paycheck by throwing you under the bus, and if you're not a friend that she cares about personally, then she'll do it. And she doesn't make friends easily.

    I have one scene where the two of them are walking into a bank to rob the place. Alec asks if Charlie wants to get in line to give the teller their demands while Alec sits in the back as reinforcements in case of a shoot-out: Charlie's his Boss, she gets the more "prestigious" role in the job (unless she doesn't want it). She then tells Alec that he's taking point, she's waiting in the back, because he's better with people and with improvising on the spot in case something happens than she is. Alec then does what his friend tells him to do because She's The Boss.
     
  4. ChaseTheSun

    ChaseTheSun Senior Member

    Joined:
    Jan 7, 2017
    Messages:
    257
    Likes Received:
    244
    Interview them. Take the time to sit down with each of them one on one and ask them questions and write down their answers. Be Oprah, or be Ellen, or Jimmy Fallon or Dr Phil. Allow the characters the freedom to be serious or tragic or hilarious: prompt them when necessary, ask clarifying questions, and let their voice and fears and thoughts wash over you. As they become real, so will their dialogue and attitudes. There are tons of interview templates online. I compiled my own through job interviews, dating questionnaires and character type quizzes. Have fun!
     
    Matt007 likes this.
  5. Spencer1990

    Spencer1990 Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Mar 13, 2016
    Messages:
    2,429
    Likes Received:
    3,389
    Another way that works for me is to just write.

    I don't do character sheets, interviews, Meyers Briggs or anything else. I write a character in a situation. What that character does and who that character is serves my plot.

    I find that character sheets stifle my creativity. They don't help me actually write a story.

    Which is not to say that those things are invalid. They work really well for a TON of people. But I just wanted to be a voice on the opposite end of the spectrum.

    For me, all I need is an end goal, an inciting event, and a decent first line. Then, I just write and make it up on the fly. Sometimes it's good. Sometimes it's bad and upon revision I make the changes necessary to make a character shine.
     
  6. zoupskim

    zoupskim Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Jan 11, 2015
    Messages:
    1,689
    Likes Received:
    2,511
    Location:
    The presence of Y'golonac
    Write short stories for them. Take Greg, the nothing character who appears in two chapters, and write a short story about him reading a book, loosing his place, and trying to find a bookmark. Practice their interactions, tone, dialog, animus, with writing, and you'll find their place in your story easier to define.
     
  7. Forinsyther

    Forinsyther Member

    Joined:
    Nov 9, 2016
    Messages:
    85
    Likes Received:
    75
    Location:
    Newcastle
    In order to develop characters and make them deep enough, I'll make a mind map of what I want the character to be. For example, Remus is a;
    doctor, brother, son, loner, disappointment, etc etc.
    I think about all the things he could be, and then expand on each of these points, writing how he feels to be each one, and how it affects others etc. And then once I've got more information I'll make a mood board based around the points, filling it with people who look like my character, props he would use, quotes that could be associated with him, whatever you want. I'll also look at character questionnaires (there's a million of them out there) if I'm really stuck.

    To write good flowing dialogue, I will usually go for a walk, or somewhere no one can hear me, think of the scene I'm stuck with, and then play it all out loud, as if I'm acting in a movie. Except I'll play all the characters involved. This has always helped me figure out what people would say to each other naturally, and how to make it sound more like a genuine normal conversation. And because I put emotion into it, this method also helps me think more about what the characters would be feeling, and the expressions that go with it.
     
    Oscar Leigh and ChaseTheSun like this.
  8. S A Lee

    S A Lee Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Feb 4, 2017
    Messages:
    1,070
    Likes Received:
    1,396
    Location:
    Greater London, England
    One of the biggest pieces of advicMye I was given was by a published author at the time named Adrienne Dines, when she was doing a workshop in a local library to me at the time.

    Trust your characters, and something doesn't seem to make sense, look into their past.

    My characters fire me one-liners all the time, which I jot down to help me understand them better and understanding their past does help build the person they became leading up to the story.
     
    Simpson17866 likes this.
  9. MusingWordsmith

    MusingWordsmith Shenanigan Master Contributor

    Joined:
    Oct 13, 2016
    Messages:
    578
    Likes Received:
    474
    Location:
    Somewhere Over the Rainbow
    I just kinda think about them, write them and let them flesh themselves out. They tend to start kinda one-dimensional, but the more I explore them the more they develop.
     
    jannert, Oscar Leigh and Rosacrvx like this.
  10. Rosacrvx

    Rosacrvx Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Oct 13, 2016
    Messages:
    698
    Likes Received:
    427
    Location:
    Lisbon, Portugal
    Same for me.
     
  11. LostThePlot

    LostThePlot Naysmith Contributor

    Joined:
    Dec 31, 2015
    Messages:
    2,398
    Likes Received:
    2,026
    I totally agree. Character sheets are great for D&D but bad for writing.

    The thing is that character sheets will either constrain how you can think or not be actually useful. If you didn't think to write something about this specific thing in their history that you find you need then it's just not doing their job. Since you don't actually know what stuff you will definitely need then you're always going to miss stuff and end up just writing it on the fly anyway. On the other hand, if you try to just stick to the details that you put down then you are really restricting where you can take the character, especially when they are rubbing up against other characters in new and exciting ways that aren't immediately predictable. So either way it's not really doing what you would want.

    If you want to make some character notes, fine, but only refer to them for details that you can't remember, rather than to tell you how to write. When you are writing just write. People, including me, like saying things like "let the character tell us who she is". And that's just a slightly pretentious way to say "write what feels good for the character." Even if that is something that you didn't expect, or didn't think you wanted, follow what feels real and feels engaging. That's what you want. As you write the first draft you'll slowly zoom into who the character is, because you've put them in action, made them overcome things and grow and then you can start from the beginning and stick it in knowing exactly who this person really is and what you want to show them doing and when.

    That's really why I feel character sheets or bibles or whatever as being a waste of time. Because in the end you only really get a tight fix on a character by writing them. That's ok. You're going to come back anyway. So just write the character, make them someone engaging, then come back to the start when you didn't know them so well and fill in the blanks. Jobs a good'un.
     
    Rosacrvx and Oscar Leigh like this.
  12. badgerjelly

    badgerjelly Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Aug 10, 2013
    Messages:
    1,558
    Likes Received:
    939
    Location:
    Earth
    I'll tell you something I used to do years ago for minor characters that you may find useful.

    Buy a pack of tarot cards and do a reading. Basically the first card represents where the character is, the next what is of importance to them now, the next what they have to work with, etc.,. You should be able to find basic reading methods online. The beauty is that, like all methods of fortune telling, they are engineered to be interpreted in various different ways.

    Unlike using some ready made computer engine to come up with a character you simply allow your brain to fit the character into your story (a far more powerful and creative piece of equipment!)
     
    Rosacrvx and jannert like this.
  13. Simpson17866

    Simpson17866 Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Aug 23, 2013
    Messages:
    3,406
    Likes Received:
    2,931
    That's why I keep my character profiles as quick-and-dirty, bare-bones minimalistic as possible. Instead of making a chart with columns for
    • Alec
    • Charlie
    • Amy
    • Jason
    • "The KT Bomber"
    and rows for
    • Favorite food?
    • Favorite color?
    • Favorite movie?
    • Ideal vacation?
    • Ideal first date?
    • Favorite car?
    • Blah
    • Blah
    • Blah
    • ...
    And trying to create a general pattern of the character from those details, I start with
    • Alec: Lawful Evil ESFP
    • Charlie: Neutral Evil ISTJ
    • Amy: Chaotic Evil ESFJ
    • Jason: True Neutral INFJ
    • vampire with numerous aliases: Chaotic Evil INTJ
    And then I work out the details from there.

    The Koch Snowflake fractal starts as a triangle in the first step, then becomes a Star of David in the second step, then something that looks like a snowflake in the third step... as you approach an infinite number of steps, you approach an infinite level of detail, but if you tried to start with the detail, you'd get yourself twisted around pretty quickly:
    [​IMG]
    For me, starting with a large amount of detail and trying to find the core of the character doesn't work as well as starting with the core of the character (Alec is a Lawful Evil ESFP, Charlie is a Neutral Evil ISTJ, ...) and trying to expand into further detail
    • Alec being a Dungeons/Dragons nerd who went to prison at 15 for the better part of a decade after taking the sole blame/credit for something he and Amy did together
    • Charlie being a chemistry nerd who's tired of being reminded that her parents named her after a Jazz legend, and who doesn't want to be in charge of Richmond's criminal underworld as much as Alec and Amy want her to be, but who wouldn't hate the idea either
    • Amy being a serial killer who loves war songs, Civilization III, and who is taking anti-anxiety medication for PTSD but who would bash your skull open if you told her that her adolescent trauma turned her into a serial killer (she comes down very strongly on the side of Nature over Nurture, and she feels very strongly that she has more in common with somebody like Ted Bundy or Jeffrey Dahmer, who became serial killers without being traumatized, than she does with somebody like Lady Gaga or Oprah Winfrey, who were traumatized without becoming serial killers). Or if you told her brother Jason that she's a sociopath; she loves her brother and it is very important to her that he not hate her.
    • Jason being the bookkeeper for Charlie's drug ring because he loves isolation, spreadsheets, and because Amy wants to protect her brother from the more violent side of the job
    • the vampire having grown up in New Orleans, calling herself "The KT Bomber" as a dinosaur joke that accidentally turned into a vampire joke (both in-universe and out :D ), claiming to have been the Zodiac Killer, and having a not-very-positive interest in Amy's career as the Richmond Ripper
     
    Oscar Leigh likes this.
  14. Pinkymcfiddle

    Pinkymcfiddle Banned

    Joined:
    Feb 17, 2017
    Messages:
    815
    Likes Received:
    454
    I've gotta agree with what people above said about character sheets- I find them counter-productive. My characters occur fully formed and generally take in traits from people I know and people I know of (usually famous) with a large sprinkling of my own personality thrown in. Labels, such as ESTJ etc, mean nothing to me in the real world, they don't describe anything tangible.
     
    Spencer1990 and jannert like this.
  15. LostThePlot

    LostThePlot Naysmith Contributor

    Joined:
    Dec 31, 2015
    Messages:
    2,398
    Likes Received:
    2,026
    Honestly, even those very bare bones descriptions are a bit much for me, still has too much set in stone. I write to figure that stuff out. I just find knowing how someone will react in advance means I try to force that to happen, you know? And that I don't like. I like whatever transpires to be important be the important bits, not the stuff I figured out before hand kinda hoping that they would have chemistry.
     
  16. Simpson17866

    Simpson17866 Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Aug 23, 2013
    Messages:
    3,406
    Likes Received:
    2,931
    Charlie was originally supposed to be INTP before I decided that ISTJ would be more interesting ;) If you don't outline because once something's written, you can't edit it, then wouldn't you not be able to write either? Writing requires editing when you come up with something better, so why wouldn't outlining?

    The big thing I always remember is that my "character profiles" don't cover everything. There are 144 combinations of Alignment and MyersBriggs, so with almost 7.5 billion people in the real world, there's going to be millions of people in even the rarest box. There's going to be a lot of difference between different people in the same box: I'm a Chaotic Neutral INTP, but I'm pretty different from all of the other Chaotic Neutral INTPs in the world.
     
    Oscar Leigh likes this.
  17. LostThePlot

    LostThePlot Naysmith Contributor

    Joined:
    Dec 31, 2015
    Messages:
    2,398
    Likes Received:
    2,026
    I think this is the problem, at least to my way of thinking. If you just re-write the instructions for building the character while in the process of building the character then it doesn't sound like you need instructions, does it? And in the end, as you say, what you describe in your notes could describe lots of people; so is it really helping you all that much if it only tells you the broad strokes?

    That's why I really don't think this stuff helps. I think just having singular words in your head relating to a character is all that's needed to just write and make it work, bluntly concise things with no room for nuance. Beth is a romantic, she's depressed, she's manipulative, she's lonely. Tess is competitive, she's driven, she's prideful but has a sense of fair play. Charlie is competitive too, but she's compassionate, wants everyone to win. These kinds of descriptions don't need to be written down; they don't even describe a person really, they are nuts and bolts, and leave everything else up to the flow of the book to show who they actually are.
     
    Rosacrvx likes this.
  18. Simpson17866

    Simpson17866 Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Aug 23, 2013
    Messages:
    3,406
    Likes Received:
    2,931
    I could say the same about the narrative itself: should I not write something down in the narrative in case I decide to change it later?

    For the first few months of writing my Doctor Who fanfic, I thought that Captain June Harper was going to be one the lead hero. A few months in, I decided that she was more interesting as a bloodthirsty vigilante serial killer that her best friends were afraid of, so I had to re-write a lot of the beginning. Should I have not written the original version – without June Harper as a serial killer – because I was just going to change it?

    Plus, the word "serial killer" could describe a lot of people who aren't June Harper. Does that mean that June Harper being a serial killer isn't important to the story?

    Broad brushes without unique details do not make compelling characters. Funny thing is, I would say neither does the inverse ;)
     
    Oscar Leigh likes this.
  19. Simpson17866

    Simpson17866 Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Aug 23, 2013
    Messages:
    3,406
    Likes Received:
    2,931
    So this is ironic - and something I'll remember to start with if this ever comes up again - but the main reason I love these quick-and-dirty character profiles (despite finding the more complicated ones to be a waste of time for most of the same reasons that @LostThePlot does) is because I've always been a math/science nerd who's always loved Albert Einstein's line that if you can't explain a theory to a 6-year-old (without college level math), then you have a bad theory.

    Ideas feel more real to me the more precisely I'm able to describe what it is about the ideas that makes them worth paying attention to.

    I love a lot of the original Futurist paintings because I love the sharp color contrasts. There are non-Futurist paintings that I don't like as much because the colors are muted and there are Impressionist works that I love because the colors are starker, but saying "I love a lot of the original Futurist paintings" gives me a starting point to then single out which Futurist paintings I like better than the others (and which non-Futurist paintings I love for the same reason). Starting with "I love paintings with starkly contrasting colors" works better, but that doesn't mean that "I love a lot of the original Futurist paintings" doesn't work. Same goes for the starkly contrasted paintings that I don't like as much and the more muted paintings that I do.

    LTP I take it this is not the kind of person you are?
     
    Last edited: Mar 12, 2017
    Oscar Leigh likes this.
  20. Matt007

    Matt007 New Member

    Joined:
    Mar 10, 2017
    Messages:
    3
    Likes Received:
    0
    thanks everyone
     
  21. LostThePlot

    LostThePlot Naysmith Contributor

    Joined:
    Dec 31, 2015
    Messages:
    2,398
    Likes Received:
    2,026
    To take these points separately:

    Did you really need to write 'serial killer' down to know that the character was a serial killer though?

    You don't need to write down trivial things. You already know them. That's what I mean about just not writing things down. Because, well, I know this stuff without needing a note. I don't even think about it when I write them. I have a clean enough conception of what I'm doing that writing stuff down doesn't achieve anything.

    The thing is that the book is the description of the characters. That's where you precisely define the character, where only the information you give is there to characterize them. Whatever you write outside the book, the book itself is the thing that will actually make the character real. If just taking the time to write the notes makes it more tangible to work with then more power to you, I'm not saying it's wrong, just that to me at best it achieves nothing to do so. In fact, quite to the contrary, to me it removes the critical ambiguities and uncertainties, requiring that I make reductive descriptions of someone who's at their most interesting when I don't know how they will react.

    That's why it's just wasted time to me, even if it's a tiny amount of time. Because, in the end, I want to be directly engaging with the characters. The super-position of not knowing for sure if something is out of character or not is what makes them engaging to keep writing with.

    That's also the major reason why I always advise people to just stop writing anything outside of the book and just write the book instead. Because, in the end, to me that just looks like procrastinating, pulling you out of writing to just write something slightly different that you already know.
     
  22. Oscar Leigh

    Oscar Leigh Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Jan 21, 2016
    Messages:
    8,496
    Likes Received:
    5,120
    Location:
    Sydney, Australia
    I write notes but under no strict structure. Just like "tall, blond. Excitable, bouncy, eccentric. Hates John" Whatever details I get out my head. Assuming I don't just be lazy and not bother which I have done. I mostly think throught the details in my mind. I find comparing characters leads me to think of things I haven't covered, whether it's a missing trait or a thematic angle that gives me new light on how to make the story show them in context.
     
  23. Oscar Leigh

    Oscar Leigh Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Jan 21, 2016
    Messages:
    8,496
    Likes Received:
    5,120
    Location:
    Sydney, Australia
    I find writing down dialogue, imagining it said, and speaking to people help traits that unintended.
     
  24. JE Loddon

    JE Loddon Active Member

    Joined:
    Dec 8, 2016
    Messages:
    201
    Likes Received:
    161
    Location:
    South-East, UK
    I think of who the character is supposed to be, their reason for being there. Then, I ask how they got there, what their career is etc... Then, I think about what personality traits they would have to have in order to have gone into that career/act the way they act. Once I know what kind of person they are, in every dialogue, I ask myself what they would be likely to say in that situation, and what they are trying to achieve.
     
    jannert and Oscar Leigh like this.
  25. Lew

    Lew Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Sep 30, 2015
    Messages:
    1,667
    Likes Received:
    1,527
    I let my characters tell me their story. After all, I am their first reader!
     

Share This Page

  1. This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
    By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.
    Dismiss Notice