Deveolping Characters

[Morena Darkling]

I'm curious. I know the way I develop my characters might be considered a little odd, but I'm wondering how other people develop theirs. So, say you have a plot line for a story you want to write, and you know that one character has to be a mage, or a cop, or whatever. How do you go about deciding what that person will be like, what his personality is like, how he'd respond to things?

[kitten]

Personally, I do it partly based on how I've seen real people behave who have personalities who are similar to the character in my story. Bearing that in mind, I then think like an actor and put myself in the position of that character. Whereas an actor would then express the character with voice and physical actions, I express the character using written words.

 

This is easier (at least for me) if the character is a relatively ordinary human in a culture with which I'm familiar, but more difficult if it's a mage, elf, vampire etc. And if it's a complete alien from a totally different planet, culture, and eveolutionary background, then it would be impossible without making the totally outrageous assumption that the alien would behave like a human.

 

Kit

[Graeme]

I work similar to Kit, but I find the characters develop their own personality as I write. I quickly learn what's 'in character' and what's not. I might give them an overall feel at the start, but the fine details isn't discovered until the story gets written. As an example, Rhys in Heart of The Tree was intended to be the quintessential Australian larrikan, but he quickly developed depths far beyond that stereotype. Sometimes it's an adventure for the author, too

[kitten]

I work similar to Kit, but I find the characters develop their own personality as I write.

... Sometimes it's an adventure for the author, too

 

Yes, I find that too - if you create a realistic character at the start, it has to develop and behave in a realistic way as the story develops. That character development (or revelation) might not be the way you originally envisaged it. It's a bit like doing computer modelling in your head - given the starting conditions, the environment, and the character's personality, the mind-computer model follows its own sort of logical development.

 

So the story becomes a little different from how it was envisioned originally. Then it is, indeed, an adventure for the author, and for me that is one of the many pleasures of writing!

 

Kit

[Phantom]

With me, I develop an idea with my characters based on people I know and have dealt with on a personal basis. Also, as the story progresses, I tend to develop their background and personality more to what I think would be best for the story.

 

For example, I would base a character on my friend Jake. I would use his personality and his quirks and use that for the first few chapters. Then, as the plot progressed, I would change some attributes about him but still keep the same basic principals for him.

 

Also, to add some more advice, I generally write down the specifics of a character in a notebook and write down what I think is important and what changes I made that way when I write another chapter or if I decide to do a sequel, I can finish up always look up the info on him, rather then reread the chapters that I wrote previously (which is a big help because if your chapters run on the average of 5,000 words, it's time consuming especially if you have eight of them :wacko: )

 

Well, that's my two cents

 

Eric

[Morena Darkling]

... I then think like an actor and put myself in the position of that character. Whereas an actor would then express the character with voice and physical actions, I express the character using written words.

 

Kit

 

I get that bit. That's part of what I do, depending on how well I see/understand the character in my head.

[Morena Darkling]

I work similar to Kit, but I find the characters develop their own personality as I write. I quickly learn what's 'in character' and what's not. I might give them an overall feel at the start, but the fine details isn't discovered until the story gets written. As an example, Rhys in Heart of The Tree was intended to be the quintessential Australian larrikan, but he quickly developed depths far beyond that stereotype. Sometimes it's an adventure for the author, too

 

Oh yes. As I say to Rose all the time, gotta love the muses. It's never boring.

[Morena Darkling]

With me, I develop an idea with my characters based on people I know and have dealt with on a personal basis. Also, as the story progresses, I tend to develop their background and personality more to what I think would be best for the story.

 

For example, I would base a character on my friend Jake. I would use his personality and his quirks and use that for the first few chapters. Then, as the plot progressed, I would change some attributes about him but still keep the same basic principals for him.

 

Also, to add some more advice, I generally write down the specifics of a character in a notebook and write down what I think is important and what changes I made that way when I write another chapter or if I decide to do a sequel, I can finish up always look up the info on him, rather then reread the chapters that I wrote previously (which is a big help because if your chapters run on the average of 5,000 words, it's time consuming especially if you have eight of them :wacko: )

 

Well, that's my two cents

 

Eric

 

Oh I absolutely keep dossiers on my characters. Every time something changes, or I figure out something new, it goes in their file.

[Morena Darkling]

So the story becomes a little different from how it was envisioned originally. Then it is, indeed, an adventure for the author, and for me that is one of the many pleasures of writing!

 

Kit

 

Oh yes! The journey... so much fun that part.

[Tiger]

I happen to develop characters who are troubled in some way. I like the quintessential anti-hero. However, each individual character has his or her own personality. With me, their personalities do tend to develop as I write. I didn't initially intend for Julian from Dark Earth to be quite as wild as he is, but the story lines made it so.

Edited October 8, 2008 by Tiger

[S.L. Lewis]

Well, you've seen how I develop my characters, dearest.

 

I usually have a general idea of what the character is, how they act, ect and then start to write. Various things start to come me as I write and I fix and adjust as I write. I find it to be easier on me then you would think.

[David McLeod]

I'm curious. I know the way I develop my characters might be considered a little odd, but I'm wondering how other people develop theirs. So, say you have a plot line for a story you want to write, and you know that one character has to be a mage, or a cop, or whatever. How do you go about deciding what that person will be like, what his personality is like, how he'd respond to things?

 

 

Good question, and to my mind, one of the hardest to answer. I use people I know as the basis for each character (changing names as appropriate). Of course, I don't know any mages (for example), so I decide initially (and write in a separate file) what their powers will be and how they will develop. Then, I try gradually to work their personalities and abilities into the story. (That's perhaps the hardest part: making them live without having to write a couple of pages of explanatory notes...which usually turns out to be crap.) Like many plans, this seldom survives contact with reality, and the character often changes to fit the story line. The hardest thing I find is remembering to update the character information in the separate file, so that I don't create contradictions! (Actually, I use real names until the final document...in order to keep things straight in my mind.) I'd be interested in hearing how you do this. David M.

[Cynical Romantic]

Moderators: Might not this thread be more appropriately moved to the Writers' forum?

 

My answer to this question is that most of my stories start off with a single scene in my head. It's usually not the intro, either. Generally it's an exchange of dialogue, or a single image, or an action scene. I'll jot that down in a notebook or on my computer, and with those scenes, the early seeds of the characters in them start getting sketched out. I have literally hundreds if not thousands of those scenes. Occasionally I'll choose to develop one into a story, and that's when I'll look at who I think the people in the scene really are, and start giving them histories and personalities and descriptions and baggage. But I never start with that part; it comes later.

[jovian_w2002]

Sometimes, a writer shoot himself on his foot, but that's to be expected when your characters emulate people in real life (especially people you don't like). But hey, that is something virtually all writers do. We envision someone we like and dislike and hurl their personalities into our characters. I usually "interview" my characters (usually about a page or so). I'd pretend to be the interviewer and ask them questions about themselves, and when I type their replies, I usually put myself in their shoes.

 

Here are some tips that I think you might find useful:

 

DIMENSION:

 

There are two kinds of characters you can create: 2 dimensional or 3 dimensional.

 

2 dimensional: black and white.

3 dimensional: all colors.

 

2 dimensional characters are boring, seriously. Their job is to stereotype your work, nothing else.

Flesh out your characters by giving him/her equal flaws and strengths. A cop has weakness etc.

There is no one single fully "evil" person out there, neither is there a "saint". Even the most honest person could tell a lie once in a while. You have to make a contrast in your character's personality.

 

DRIVEN:

 

Your story is either plot-driven or character-driven, depending on how the scenario is going to turn out. If your character has inner battles to solve that progresses in the story, then it's character-driven. If the story takes control of your characters' fate, then it's plot-driven. Consider "The Odyssey" ,"Oedipus Rex", and "The remains of the Day".

 

BELIEF SYSTEM:

 

Religion plays a vital role in your character. Is your character a hypocrite? Is he God-fearing? How does he or she view life? A nihilist? An idealist? Is your character pessimistic, optimistic?

 

VOICE:

 

Action speaks louder than words. Yep, but when you deal with characters' voices, you have to turn the table. Attitude is important in voice! Your character's diction is so important! Is it formal, refined, complex? Informal, lazy? A cheerleader is different than a geek. A lawyer has different view than a cop. Do your characters' sentences consist of similes and metaphors, or do their sentences consist mainly of clich

[Graeme]

Moderators: Might not this thread be more appropriately moved to the Writers' forum?

I've been thinking about it

 

Moving this thread to the Writer's forum

[Former Member]

my way of developing my characters is really weird i have all little notepads on my computer of my different characters or different scenes of them. theres days i'll write more from my main humans pov to see how things go othertimes im writing from the Vampires pov.

 

Today i started writing something totally different its nothing with the horror genre. Its actually quite sappy and kind of romantic.(hasnt got to the romance yet its still depression and such) But i'm writing in pink because my main character is female i've opened a notepad and wrote a whole bunch of things about her even if they mean nothing to the story so far her name is Carolyna she's in her late 20's and she had a goal to design beautiful clothes, she met a man when she was 19 he's a lawyer and was in his late 20s and is in his late 30s now and lost that goal and fell in love with him and he like broke her heart. Now shes all depressed eating ice cream and is allergic to it LOL. But i planned her whole life as much as i can where she is going and what is going to happen to her. Though im sure alot of these plans wont happen. My characters sometimes talk to me and say NO JUST NO!

 

It will be interesting to see where this little adventure of mine will go. It might just turn into crap and i'll have to abandon it

[J_Ross]

My characters write themselves.

 

Ha. Wouldn't that make things easier.

 

I create characters in so many different ways, I'm always trying something new, but there are a couple I keep going back to.

 

I like giving my characters backgrounds - Giving them real life experiences and such, because I think that how a person reacts to a certain situation really depends on what they've already seen/experienced in their life. For instance, my small town best friend about had a heart attack when we drove down to Atlanta and he screamed 'the speed limit's sixty!' to just about every car that passed us on the interstate when we got close and the interstate switched from three lanes to six. He about messed his pants when one car crossed five at once and pulled out in front of us. I, on the other hand, wasn't bothered at all. So, giving the characters a background helps me better understand how that character will react to any given event of the story. This technique is time consuming.

 

Another way I go about it is to just start writing. I'll start writing about a boy/girl, putting them into some kind of everday situations, and ask myself 'why' questions for everything the character does/says. Like, why isn't she saying anything, or why won't he stop moving, or why is he getting so nervous. I get to know the character a little bit in this 'initial scene' and the scene never makes it into the story but I've got enough to start with. It's kind of an easier, quicker way of giving the characters a background. The answers to the 'why' questions let me know a little bit about what my characters already been through.

 

I can never base a character on someone I already know. I've tried and it doesn't work for me. When I'm 'creating' characters, I don't really think of it as 'creating' as much as 'getting to know' them. Which isn't to say certain qualities of people I know and love don't make it into the characters. I might choose a quality that I like from one person and a quality I hate from another and mix and mash into a different character, make this stronger and that weaker and add in something new altogether. But I HAVE to know WHY the character has that weakness or strength or habit, so I give them backgrounds and it may be time consuming but it's fun for me. And I almost always know more about my characters than ever makes it into the story. The information is 'there' though and it makes writing the characters easier.

 

The way I write has little to do with what's 'correct' and more to do with the way my mind works. I could never use one of those character building sheets that come with almost every book you can find on characterization. I overthink and I build characters every day. Actually, not too long ago, I wrote a short story about a little girl I saw at the cemetery while visiting a friend that had passed away. She was visiting her fathers grave, and putting mail into a mailbox that was placed on the fence around the grave site. The mailbox had writing on it that read 'letter's for daddy'. I broke down crying. In just a couple of seconds I'd envisioned this little girl's relationship with her father, who moved away or was deployed or something, but told her she could always write to him and then...*sniffs* Yeah, I wrote a story about that. This is the way my mind works. I do backgrounds, starting either from the beginning (or near the beginning) or starting at the end and working back with they 'why' questions. I'm not even sure I can really explain it, but it works for me. Or...I hope it works 0_o I never know whether or not I've done a good job creating them until I try to 'force' them to react a certain way and it just won't work. Like, the character looks at me and says "Yeah right. I'm NOT doing that." I get all frustrated when I have to delete the scene and start over, but in a good accomplished way.

 

And I don't know about y'all but a lot of me makes it into each one of my characters. I'll NEVER write a character that's actually based on me (God, can you say disaster?) but a lot of me goes into each of my characters. Small pieces and they're different pieces in each character, but...you write what you know, right? Or maybe that's just me...

 

but I find the characters develop their own personality as I write.

I agree. Characters change and grow with the experiences and challenges they face during the story, just like real people change with the things that they face each day. We learn and grow and all that good stuff. It's a great lot of fun to watch it happen to characters you've created.

 

Oh I absolutely keep dossiers on my characters. Every time something changes, or I figure out something new, it goes in their file.

 

This made me chuckle and I'm going to have to share it with a friend of mine that told me I was anal for keeping a 'deleted scenes' file for all the cuts I make in a story, just in case I can use it somewhere else. I'm glad I'm not the only one that keeps track of things.

 

 

 

EDIT:

But i'm writing in pink because my main character is female i've opened a notepad and wrote a whole bunch of things about her even if they mean nothing to the story so far her name is Carolyna she's in her late 20's and she had a goal to design beautiful clothes, she met a man when she was 19 he's a lawyer and was in his late 20s and is in his late 30s now and lost that goal and fell in love with him and he like broke her heart. Now shes all depressed eating ice cream and is allergic to it LOL. But i planned her whole life as much as i can where she is going and what is going to happen to her. Though im sure alot of these plans wont happen. My characters sometimes talk to me and say NO JUST NO!

Lmfao, I was replying to this thread when you wrote this reply. Obviously I agree with you. Lol. Though, I don't actually write my characters backgrounds down. Anywhere. Too much information for that. And I definitely don't go into details like allergies and ice cream favorites, just big things for me. Still, though, I was beginning to wonder if it was just me...

[David McLeod]

Sometimes, a writer shoot himself on his foot, but that's to be expected when your characters emulate people in real life (especially people you don't like). But hey, that is something virtually all writers do. We envision someone we like and dislike and hurl their personalities into our characters. I usually "interview" my characters (usually about a page or so). I'd pretend to be the interviewer and ask them questions about themselves, and when I type their replies, I usually put myself in their shoes.

 

Here are some tips that I think you might find useful:

 

DIMENSION:

 

There are two kinds of characters you can create: 2 dimensional or 3 dimensional.

 

2 dimensional: black and white.

3 dimensional: all colors.

 

2 dimensional characters are boring, seriously. Their job is to stereotype your work, nothing else.

Flesh out your characters by giving him/her equal flaws and strengths. A cop has weakness etc.

There is no one single fully "evil" person out there, neither is there a "saint". Even the most honest person could tell a lie once in a while. You have to make a contrast in your character's personality.

 

DRIVEN:

 

Your story is either plot-driven or character-driven, depending on how the scenario is going to turn out. If your character has inner battles to solve that progresses in the story, then it's character-driven. If the story takes control of your characters' fate, then it's plot-driven. Consider "The Odyssey" ,"Oedipus Rex", and "The remains of the Day".

 

BELIEF SYSTEM:

 

Religion plays a vital role in your character. Is your character a hypocrite? Is he God-fearing? How does he or she view life? A nihilist? An idealist? Is your character pessimistic, optimistic?

 

VOICE:

 

Action speaks louder than words. Yep, but when you deal with characters' voices, you have to turn the table. Attitude is important in voice! Your character's diction is so important! Is it formal, refined, complex? Informal, lazy? A cheerleader is different than a geek. A lawyer has different view than a cop. Do your characters' sentences consist of similes and metaphors, or do their sentences consist mainly of clich

[Libby Drew]

The distinction you raised between two- and three-dimensional characters is an important one. Key characters must have greater depth (motivation, beliefs, preferences, goals, as you listed). I've found myself spending too much time developing characters who move out of a narrative as quickly as they move in. Further, the temptation is great to create such a character through narration rather than develop him through action and dialogue.

 

Over-developing two-dimensional characters can be problematic. Some characters should remain as "fillers" -- created simply to move the plot forward or help the main character through his growth/transformation. The danger in giving these types of characters too much depth is that readers begin to care about them. They want to know more of their story. You [the author] oblige. Before you know it, your once tight and focused plot-line is going in directions you never imagined. Suddenly, character C has a subplot, and it's detracting attention from your protagonist.

 

Yet another reason why an outline, even very loosely sketched, can help the writer keep a longer story moving in the direction originally intended.

[Graeme]

On the other hand, there's no need to have any characters that are really two dimensional. You don't have to go into great detail, but there is always something you can mention about a character, even if they only appear for one page:

 

The waitress stood with her weight on one leg and looked like there should be a cigarette hanging out of the corner of her mouth. "What'll ya have?"

[David McLeod]

On the other hand, there's no need to have any characters that are really two dimensional. You don't have to go into great detail, but there is always something you can mention about a character, even if they only appear for one page:

 

The waitress stood with her weight on one leg and looked like there should be a cigarette hanging out of the corner of her mouth. "What'll ya have?"

 

 

What a great line! As soon as I read it, I saw her. Frightening.

[David McLeod]

Over-developing two-dimensional characters can be problematic. Some characters should remain as "fillers" -- created simply to move the plot forward or help the main character through his growth/transformation. The danger in giving these types of characters too much depth is that readers begin to care about them. They want to know more of their story. You [the author] oblige. Before you know it, your once tight and focused plot-line is going in directions you never imagined. Suddenly, character C has a subplot, and it's detracting attention from your protagonist.

 

Yet another reason why an outline, even very loosely sketched, can help the writer keep a longer story moving in the direction originally intended.

 

At the risk of changing the subject, how long a story? Most of us aren't, I think, writing "War and Peace." I'm finding that 30--50,000 words usually exhausts my plots and characters. Rarely have I gone more than 100K words. What's a good target, do you think?

[Graeme]

At the risk of changing the subject, how long a story? Most of us aren't, I think, writing "War and Peace." I'm finding that 30--50,000 words usually exhausts my plots and characters. Rarely have I gone more than 100K words. What's a good target, do you think?

This is just a variation on the question of how long should a chapter be The answer is simply to write until the story is finished. That could be 100 words. That could be 100,000 words. The length of a story is no guide as to its quality, or how much it will be enjoyed. Only the contents of the story determine that. If you are writing because you want something that weighs a lot when printed, I would suggested writing a dictionary If you are writing to entertain readers, then just write the story and don't worry about the length.

Edited October 20, 2008 by Graeme

[Cynical Romantic]

Depends on whether you - like Charles Dickens - are getting paid by the word.

 

Seriously, though, a good story keeps readers engaged, doesn't drag, doesn't skimp, and is always "just right" no matter how long it is. Beta readers and editors are great for letting you know whether you could edit several chapters down to a paragraph, or milk a single scene for a chapter or two.