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  1. Siberian

    Siberian Member

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    How were your characters created?

    Discussion in 'Character Development' started by Siberian, Sep 6, 2018.

    I'm genuinely curious about how everyone came up with their characters and fleshed them out. To me, it has always seemed impossible to create several different characters with starkly different personalities and try to see the story's events through their eyes and the way they would judge it. I have one character and she is my second protagonist not my first, but I feel as if I know and love her the most above my protagonist or any other character. In any situation I know immediately how she will react but I find that when it comes to my protagonist I can't figure out what he would do or think.

    So, how did you guys meet your characters and keep their personalities consistent yet different?
     
  2. MusingWordsmith

    MusingWordsmith Shenanigan Master Contributor

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    So my general process with characters seems to be first to come up with an idea of their behavior. I'll write/play (roleplayer and D&D'er here) them for a bit, figure out their personality, and then really start digging into why they are the way they are, what their backstory is like to make them this way, what their goals are, all that good stuff.

    So essentially I first come up with a shallow 'sketch' and then fill in the details.
     
  3. minstrel

    minstrel Leader of the Insquirrelgency Supporter Contributor

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    In my main WIP, I have two protagonists. Their personalities are different because it would be practically impossible for them to be the same. One is a middle-aged-to-elderly man with a limp, who is very well traveled and very knowledgeable about the continent the two characters live on. The other is a twelve-year-old boy from an isolated community, so by nature he cannot have the knowledge or experience of the old man.

    So one thing I would suggest is to give your characters very different ages and backgrounds. Their characters will be forced to be different if you do so.

    I suppose I should say that coming up with characters is easy for me - the easiest part of writing. They just seem to flash into my head, often fully formed. If they're still vague to me when I first meet them, I just write little scenes involving them, scenes which are not intended to be part of the finished story. These scenes are just there to focus the characters for me. They fill in details of the characters background and behavior in given situations.
     
  4. writingistelepathy

    writingistelepathy Member

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    My protagonist takes a lot of inspiration from my own life backstory and personality, with amendments.

    I also find it easier to create characters with similar traits to people I know or characters I have read/watched and admired.

    The hardest thing for me at this early stage in my writing would be to create a character who I have never come across any one similar in real life or in literature/film.
     
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  5. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    The easiest trick in the book is to base characters on people you know. Not necessarily people who are close to you, but simply on people you know to some extent.

    If you start there, your characters will not all be the same. You can develop the characters so they end up not really resembling the real-life models all that much. You can even flip genders, which is not only fun, but does totally disguise the origin of the character.

    I base nearly all of my characters on real people. They no longer resemble the real people in the finished story, but that's how they got started.
     
  6. deadrats

    deadrats Contributor Contributor

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    This is pretty much what I do too. Basing a character on a real person is a great jumping off point, in my opinion. As you develop characters and the story, things change and the creativity and fiction aspect take over. I have had friends read my work and ask if a certain character was based on them. They've all been wrong every time. It just goes to show that the more you work your story and your characters, the less they will seem like the people you know or based them on. I also say so what if someone thinks they're one of my characters and so what if they're even somewhat right. I write fiction, and that always changes everything. But traces of truth or real life aren't a bad thing, I think. When something is published, the majority of readers have no idea who I am and who I know. A little truth in an otherwise fiction story can add something to a story without too much effort.

    I had based one of the characters in my novel on someone I met only once. But this person fascinated me. Then a good friend asked if I would base a character on her. Then that character became somewhat a combination of these two people, but at the same time completely fictional. I use real people as more of a springboard than anything else. I wouldn't say this character is anything like the people I had in mind while first creating, but it helped me get the story going and I think it can make characters seem more realistic if there is something real to them.
     
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  7. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    I based one of my two main female characters on a guy I used to work with. He was so much fun, extremely competent at whatever he did, pretended not to care about anything much, but, in fact, was the sort who would be there when needed, even when he was laughing it off. An interesting person indeed, with depths that were only occasionally revealed. My character shares the same sort of personality, but not the same gender ...or same century either. But I kept asking myself 'what would he have said?' in many of the story situations, and gave the gist of what he would have said to her. She's one of my favourite characters, yet I'm sure nobody who knew him would recognise the similarity at all.
     
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  8. DK3654

    DK3654 Almost a Productive Member of Society Contributor

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    As my WIP is set in a world of supernatural creatures/persons, a number of my characters started out with the desire to make a character for a particular supernatural race/group. But that is just a starting point.
    Like others have said, looking to real people, as well as characters in fiction, is a good way to develop characters.
    Something I have also done is create characters in a way that also develops the plot line. Because I want the story to be focused on the character's personal struggles and development over time, the personalities of my main characters were made with plot lines in mind. I couldn't make my story work if my characters were always very happy and very sure of themselves and their decisions. The story relies on the characters being notably flawed.
     
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  9. Siberian

    Siberian Member

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    This! I did exactly this when developing my supporting protagonist but I never really acknowledged what it was I was doing. This is great advice. @minstrel I like your idea of writing small scenes to practice getting the hang of how they would respond. Definitely will try this out.

    Could you explain this a little further? I'm genuinely curious, do you start out with a plot line and then create characters you would need to fill a role apart of that plot line or do you create a character first and then squeeze them into the plot line and change some things to make them fit?
     
  10. DK3654

    DK3654 Almost a Productive Member of Society Contributor

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    I'm talking about doing them together. Filling in characters after the plotline means doing a noncharacter focused story because if the story was more closely tied to the characters, by developing the plot you would necessarily create character outlines along the way. Likewise, though perhaps to a lesser degree, with a character driven story, creating characters decides what sort of plot outlines you have to work with.
    So the distinction between which one you start with is minimal.

    Therefore for me it's been a mixed bag of what the stages are. Sometimes I've given characters personality traits and then created plot arcs that play into them. Sometimes I come up with plot arcs then develop my characters around how it would affect them.
     
    Last edited: Sep 7, 2018
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  11. Cave Troll

    Cave Troll It's Coffee O'clock everywhere. Contributor

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    IDK, I just start writing and see what happens. :)
     
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  12. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    I agree with this, if you mean not to fall into the trap of overthinking before actually writing. But as you write, you do have to create characters. If you just create them on the hoof, they can end up being plot servers, rather than unique 'people.'

    I feel it's better to create a unique character in a purposeful way (except for spear-carrier types whom you don't want derailing your plot by being too unique.) I find it works to pick somebody from real life who is either similar to what you want your character to be like, or who is maybe different—which gives you a challenge and an extra dimension to work with. Try to keep that real person in focus as you write them into your story. They will evolve away from the real model, of course, but it's an excellent starting point.

    As usual, truth is often stranger than fiction. So why not use a real person as a model? They are more likely to surprise you than somebody you just 'think up,' assigning virtues and flaws, etc.
     
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  13. Titan Of Kystolni

    Titan Of Kystolni New Member

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    My main character is very similar to myself, according to everyone who reads any of my book. I didn't intend it but it happened. After that I basically built his family around him (stern father that he rebels against, twin brother who is the level headed to his hot headed, little brother who looks up to him, etc etc) and then farther down the line the other characters have just occurred to me
     
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  14. Stormsong07

    Stormsong07 Contributor Contributor

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    With my main character, I spent some time thinking about what her major flaw would be, and how her story would be about her overcoming that flaw. Then I thought about what kind of life would have given her that flaw, and a few supporting characters were born. Then I thought about where she was going and how to overcome her flaw, and more supporting characters were born. For example:
    Flaw: Lack of confidence in her abilities.
    How did she get this flaw? A father who only wanted her to live a simple life with no adventure and keep her safe. A bully who always mocked her and put her down.
    Overcoming flaw: Leaving home and having an adventure.
    How aided in this? A mentor, an understanding weaponsmaster, a new best friend, etc.

    And once I was rolling, the characters just popped up when the story demanded it.
     
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  15. EstherMayRose

    EstherMayRose Gay Souffle Contributor

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    I had to think carefully before replying to this thread, because my technique bears the closest resemblance to Cave Troll's answer! What I do most often is to just come up with a name, a face will spring automatically into my head (certain names have certain appearances for me), and then I bung a few key traits together and begin writing. They'll either flesh out around these traits or desert them completely. For example, I had a young child who was full of energy, excitable, and enthusiastic. But she turned out to be a quiet, serious girl with high-functioning autism and a fixation on maths. A minor character who was placid, friendly, and incredibly likeable became a brash, abrasive kid who bullied the other girls to cover up insecurities, and took over the book. Another character's plot was based on thinking about what I'd do in a situation presented in another book, so I naturally ended up using myself as a starting point. She grew away from me a lot, and once I had a backstory for her, she was shaped by that a lot, but she'll always share a few key traits with me, one of which is a major hindrance in completing her quest. With yet another, I turned one of my biggest problems with the story into a character flaw. I was worried that my fictional country was too perfect, so I made my character's life too perfect, which blinds her to a lot of the problems in the world. So what I'm trying to say is that you can shape your characters around what your plot demands, and IME, they'll often fall into place on their own. I'm going to back minstrel's advice about writing scenes, and add that you don't actually have to write them down, just come up with them in your head.
     
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  16. Kalisto

    Kalisto Senior Member

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    I'm like Cave Troll. I never start with any particular idea on what each character will be or become. I start out by just trying to figure out what the story will be and what kind of people would need to be in it to tell it.

    Does it ever stay that way? No. But hey, it's a fun ride.
     
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  17. Siberian

    Siberian Member

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    That's interesting that a character based on yourself ended up only sharing a few of your traits. I have the same with my supporting protagonist who was supposed to actually be like me but ended up only keeping the humor aspect of myself. I guess I just really psyche myself out in my own head and over think whether or not I'll be able to maintain a consistent character who is supposed to see and react to the world differently from how I would. Sounds to me like I just need to commit to trying and also kinda wing it.
     
  18. MusingWordsmith

    MusingWordsmith Shenanigan Master Contributor

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    On the note of 'scenes to write to flesh out your characters' I had a writer's club that covered that one time actually. Just 6, but these should help you really flesh them out.

    1. What makes your character happy?
    2. What makes your character hurt?
    3. What is your character doing in the story?
    4. What moment defines your character's relationship with their parents?
    5. What moment defined your characters desires?
    6. What moment defined your characters fear?
     

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