Character Development

[KFelidae]

You see it all the time in fanfics.

"Original" characters that are little more than cardboard cutouts with a cute face.

And as you're reading through their flat dialouge, you're hoping, praying, that your own writing has never stooped so low as to include a... *gulp* ...Mary Sue.

It's true -- when an author, unversed in any way of character development, takes on the challenge of creating a character out of thin air, they are more often than not a dreaded Mary Sue. Bane of the fiction world. Horror of any writer. Cursed creature from the inkwell of Hell. Mary Sues, for those of you who came in late, are horrible mirror images of the author that are somehow reflected back into the stories as near-perfect beings, straight-arrows that are always one step ahead of their in-story counterparts. And this is the spawn of not considering any sort of character development before picking up that pen (or keybaord, typewriter, pencil, feather...)

So now I will rant on the joys of character development, and how it can help [i]you[/i]!

[/bad Saturday-night informercial]

Alrighty. So you've got a story idea, be it fiction or fanfiction, and you want to persue it. But your current stable of characters seems... lacking. You need some great new face to spice things up. What do you do?

Well, there are plenty of options.

The easiest, though easily-Mary-Sued in another way, is to take someone you know and add them in. Not directly, mind you, but we'll get into that later. So just take someone in your life (it's actually a little more fun if its' someone you don't like and make them a hero, or vice versa) and change their name to suit your needs. What you're really doing is taking the good and bad out of that person, their quirks and their follies, and putting them into another shell. Depending on how this is used, it can be called satire. This requires the least imagination (on the whole) and is done in the cases of needing a mentally-developed character, fast.

The next step up from that is to find a person (usually a celebrity) of whom you known only the basest information about, and working off what little you know. This means taking the example from above and filling in everything you don't know about them with your own story. This involves a little forethought, because what you're filling in must be consistant with the info you [i]do[/i] know. For instance, you could take Errol Flynn (boy, I'm a dated kittybirg!) and turn him into, oh say... Ed Flynnigan. Now, Errol was a womanizer*. So that means that ol' Ed will have to share Errol's... love... of women. That also means that he probably wouldn't deny himself a night on the town with the ladies, even though there are no instances of Errol actually saying that this happened.

*Errol was also a bit of a pervy fellow, hense the term, "In like Flynn" for being ankle deep in women and sex, and walking the razor's edge of getting caught (There are other meanings, but this is the one I'm most familiar with)

The last that I'll mention on this list is the hardest for people to sit down right off and do. It's simply pulling a character out of thin air. Some people can do it, but very few can do it well. And so we must look back on the previous two ways of coming up with a character and take little bits of each to achieve this without pulling something out of a cloud, so to speak. I understand some people can, but for the rest of us, we must rely on the former two to end up at this step. Take little bits of the above two sections, the things you like (that are appropriate for the character you need) and mesh them together. Sometimes, they won't mesh at all, and you'll have to go back and weed out the things that don't fit, but in the end, adding these little tidbits to the random things you can make up for your char will make them a little more interesting. of course, for those who can just pull them out of the hat, good for you. For those that can't yet, but want to give it a try, here's a little sub-rant on that.

[b]Sub-Rant: Creating Characters "Out of Thin Air"[/b]

Now really, what you're doing here isn't simply grabbing out and pulling a fully-formed character out of a hat. That's horribly hard and near-impossible. No, here, we're going to look at actually developing a new character. This can also apply to the first two ways of creating a character, but for them, this would be more evolving for change, not simply development.

Anywho.

It helps to have a list made up of traits, personalities, temperments, ect. before you start. This should not just be the ones you like, but also the ones you can't stand, and the ones you're pretty bleh about. Try not to think about the character you're choosing these for when you're writing them, because you'll be more apt to write down only the ones you have already mentally picked out for him/her, and ignore some other potentially interesting ones. Now... When creating a character, you should always try to pin him or her down to the last decimal as far as personality. Actions and history come later. Because their personality, in most cases, determines their history. For most people, this is the hardest area. Don't just pick and choose from the list blindly. Think of your character. Is he a hero? A villian? Just an average guy? Give him at least 3 good traits and 3 bad traits, no matter what allegience he holds.

A hero might be loyal, bold, and courageous, but he can also be arrogant, rash, and a glory-hog.

On the same token, a villian may be stern, dark, and a killer, but he also might love his sidekick, be honerable (to some degree), and practice mercy when he feels it nessessary.

And normal people aren't all that straight-arrow, either. I'll just use myself for lack of any imagination in the middle of the night. I'm loyal, happy-go-lucky, and passive, but on the other end, I'm intolerant, stubberon, and rude. No one's really perfect, y'see.

So... what exactly should go on that list thingy?

Examples:

[u]+ Pluses +[/u]

Bold
Courageous
Smart
Funny
Upbeat
Level-headed
Friendly
Likeable
Honerable

[u]- Minuses -[/u]

Meek
Agressive
Dishonest
Liar
Stupid
Hot-headed
Full of pride
Unlikeable
Coward

Just a suggestion, mind you. And, if you want your character to have a personal conflict, pick both honest and dishonest and make it an issue to show him or her dealing with both in their life.

These can be used to determine how a character would react in a given situation. For instance, a character that is honest would return a wallet they find on the street, whereas a dishonest one wouldn't. Simple enough. But how about a roomful of hostages, and the easiest way in would be to blow through the front door with a grenade? Now, a character that is hot-headed might do so without thinking, even if his personal beliefs spoke out against putting human life in danger. Whereas a more cool-headed one might decide to take the more cautious approach, going around back, more to save his own skin than the ones inside, as he might not have anything against killing the hostages inside in his attempts to catch the bad guys.


I'll say I'm done ranting for now, mostly because I can't hold much of a straight thought anymore. Eh.

*goes to sleep*


-KF

[LightningAurora]

Excellent points. I loathe stereotypical characters (except, maybe, in parodies). I always think it's best not to have a purely evil or purely good guy - they tend to be not very interesting. I try to ensure my good characters have bad points and my bad characters have good points.

This is good advice (or was it ranting?? )

[silver_dreams]

excellent points.

even though, i had created a rant similar to this, about stereotypical characters, not too long ago..but this gets the point across clearer.

Remember people: IMPERFECT CHACTERS ARE BETTER.

[kitsunelover25]

Well....I created a whole manga plot out of thin air...We had to go to Maryland to see my Aunt because she was sick. ( I live in Kentucky. That's like a 5 hour trip! )
But anyway, on the way back, it was so boring, I thought of a manga plot and my main character. ^_^ It's going pretty good. ( I hope ) But if I hadn't of went on that terrible trip, I would of never thought of it! Mind you, it's very hard coming up with new characters...I'm trying to think of a design for my newest character right now...It's very hard...But I hope I can get it out on shelves before I'm to old to care.

[PandaPants]

[i]PP: Weeh~! Character rants! Much fun, yes? Sadly, I think all of my characters are Mary Sues.

The sad part is they're mostly male. >>;;

I agree on your points, though. Guess this is why I stick to drawing them and roleplaying the bare minimum. ::nods::[/i]

[DragonicFlames]

Excellent. I never creat a charrie with out first know some kind of a history to it. Then I wait around and give it personalities and then a form and then a name. (Aren't I cool, No I am insane... get it right..........)



Now I get to make a couple points on the so called

"Perfect Imperfect Charrie"

I hate to read a story and find some person loathing in self pity. "Why me?" and the like bothers me. It's as if you are try to creat a person who is completely one polar personality. There are ALWAYS two sides to a story.

Let's take Computer Keys, Or Keys (my charrie, it's a nick name i have yet to give her a full real name yet). She is an outcast yes, but not because she is a goth or because she is a punk or because she is an outcast because she wants to be an outcast.

She's an outcast because everyone doesn't understand the fact that she has a mental problem.

Her faults: (here's a few)
Flames
Trys too hard to cover up the fact she has abused herself
Will never believe she has a problem
Some what closed minded

Her Goods: (here's 3)
Honest
Thinks in a rational manner (even though she has a mental problem)
Trys her best to finish whatever she starts.

Which is why she doesn't believe anything she hears or reads. In her mind she doesn't call herself Keys, she calls her self Spark. ( I mean come on peope, we know that you don't really call your selves in your mind by your name. You got some twisted verson of it.) And this is what I like to call my double coin image or my completely polar charrie.

I am seeing a lot of people having charries that just have too many faults. They don't even show any that could be picked up as a good (sane) quality. Which has me to believe that a lot of people are giving their charries way too many problems. And that is a polar charrie. And I find it rather stereotyping to goths when people play them as self absorbed cry babies who live in a broken down apartment where their parents beat them and they cut themselves to make them feel better and the call themselves gothic because of that.

No, I mean have you people not read the book [u]A child called it?[/u] There is little or no self pity in what david has to go through. More it's a stance to go and fight his mother. Which comes to my point that not all people beaten and abused are self pitiers and not all gothic people are depressed. I know a couple of very... ahem.... overly happy gothic, they are really really happy, but they live in a goth life style. (Which brings me off the subject right here when I say Goth is not depression or a way people dress, goth is a lifestyle)

So please, if your going to do a person who's got problems give them some good qualities as well. We need some balance in our lives.
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[img]http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b362/Dragonicflamesfac/DFsig2.jpg[/img]
[u]Thank You, Layz :heart:[/u]

[amerowolf]

sadly alot of the people i have met have a thing for making large muscley guys that can blow up universes and can't be defeated.
one refuses to admit that his character can be beaten...it's dumb and childish