User blog:Corbierr/Character Creation Do's and Don'ts

'Because my brain likes to torment me by constantly getting ideas for new blogs, here's another new blog! This one is about...well, how to create good characters.  A lot of us here like to write stories and character creation is a big part of that. Even for people who stick to making fanfiction, knowing how to write the characters well is a very big part. In this blog, I hope to explore some of the dos and don'ts of creating and writing believable characters. I’m not a character creating genius, but in the past few years of creating and developing OCs, I’ve learned some things that I’d like to share with you all. Enjoy :D'

Do: Portray them having both virtues and flaws, and let those traits influence their storyline
Nobody is perfect, so your characters shouldn’t be either. They should all be given flaws. However, that’s a common suggestion that everyone who has been involved in storytelling has been told before. Thing is, you don’t want to go too far in the opposite direction either. Don’t give them too many flaws to where they come off as unsympathetic or worse, tacked on just so you can claim you’re making a rounded character. Here’s my advice. Start off by giving them virtues- maybe your character is really funny, smart and brave. Okay, but then what?

Well, what I like to do is make their flaws be natural extensions of their virtues. Perhaps because the guy is really smart, he’s also a bit of an insufferable genius and a lot of his humor is directed at those who aren’t as smart as they are. Or maybe her bravery makes her think she’s fearless, so when she really does get scared she can’t handle it and she believes herself to be more capable than she really is. While I know that real life people don’t only have flaws that are an extension of our virtues, this is one good way to make the flaws realistic and honestly hindering. Add other flaws as well that you think could enhance them, but make them realistic, natural and not too over or under exaggerated. Treat them like a real person with a normal balance of good and bad traits, and use those traits to further the story and their relationships rather than having the plot dictate everything. Let them react in their own unique way.

Don’t: Treat one character like the center of the world
Of course it’s natural to have your protagonist be in the center of everything going on in the story, or at least very involved. But remember, in real life, everyone is living their own life and while we may have stories overlapping, everyone has their own story to tell, and so do the characters in your stories. Don’t think of each character in terms of their relation to the hero, because that’s when it gets unrealistic and makes the whole universe seem completely focused around this one random person. That’s not how life works, so unless there’s a really good reason for it (like your protagonist has the power to brainwash people or something), remember this one rule.

Everyone is living their own lives and has their own unique experiences and a unique view point. HOA, in a way, can be told as the story of a man trying to become immortal to finish his dead father’s mission while being hindered by students who are too curious for their own good. With that in mind, it becomes easier to develop each character and see them as their own person with their own little story, and you just choose to focus on one of them. This prevents things like your character being pointlessly targeted by the entire world for no reason, them being treated like an infallible superstar for no good reason, and everything happening to them, again, for no good reason. Just let them all have their own personal motivations, opinions, and reasons for why they do things, and then good characterization is sure to follow.

Do: Try and explore each character to their full potential
This was originally going to be the subject of an Anubis blog I’ve already lost interest in making :P. Basically, one way to make interesting, rounded and developed characters is to take an element of their life and play it out to the full extent it can go as much as needed. If a character is pushed into a leader position but might not be ready, you can show them truly struggling to be a leader, like constantly asking people for advice, trying to think of good decisions on the spot, and blaming everything on themselves. If a character is being abused by their parents, show the full extent of their problems and have them be scared, or insecure, or even convinced that what’s going on is their own fault. Don’t tack issues onto a character or give them a random role without making it matter. It might not change the plot, but it will make the character sympathetic, interesting, and more rounded than they could have been. Of course, not everything needs to be made into a big deal. But picking one or two things each character is going through and making it more important, examining the actual consequences and possibilities that could come from it….and then let the character deal with it. After all, it’s not always enough to just explore the result of what happened. It’s also important to see how the character tries and deal with it. Once you know how the topic affects them, think about the character themselves. What would they do about it, and how would it turn out? If you’ve figured that out, you’ve been able to create a good and strong character, who is now ready for a struggle or two.

Don’t: Use dark backstories and dramatic issues to make your character seem more rounded One of my pet peeves is when people give their characters a bunch of huge, dark and genuinely bad issues just because they think it’ll add drama and make the character seem deeper than they really are. Yes, I know a lot of people go through a lot of troubling issues and it’s tempting to give them to your characters. And in many cases, they can work. But for the love of god, unless you know what you’re writing about or it’s a genuine attempt to make your character legitimately more rounded and explain a reason for their behavior (such as an abuse victim being really insecure or really defensive), don’t do it!

All stories need some element of drama and suspense. I know that. And I myself am guilty of putting my characters through hell for drama. But if it won’t really change the story, if you don’t know what you’re discussing, if you’re just doing it to make things seem more mature or edgier, please rethink it. Or at least don’t go too overboard. While we may sympathize for the abuse victim who was bullied, tortured and molested all their life, we also feel upset at the writer for putting the character through so much hell and it’s also a turnoff for some readers when the story is made so pointlessly dark and depressing unless there is some sort of reason, some sort of legitimate point behind it and an actual effect on the character involved. Besides, sometimes it’s used at the expense of actual characterization. We may feel forced into caring for them because they go through hell, but we may not know them enough to truly like, root for, or understand them if the emphasis is on the bad things they’ve been through and not their reaction to them.

If you want to try and be dark and depressing, that’s fine. Just don’t do it at the expense of the characters involved or even the plot, because unless you honestly think you can pull it off, unless you are completely sure you know what you’re doing, you probably won’t make it work. Just one trauma is enough to add darkness and maturity to the story, and just please understand what you’re talking about, okay?

Do: Know how your character would respond in different situations.
Not everyone reacts the same way to things. The way I’d react to drama on the wiki (or do react) is different than the way, say, Haley would react. So why wouldn’t your character have a unique reaction as well? Don’t make everyone have the same response to a situation, or worse, none at all.

What you really should do is just think about the personality, background and position of that character. A war hardened soldier would react to a death much differently than a young and inexperienced detective, and they would react differently than an old lady would. Try some character exercises online or write some non-canon short pieces where they come into contact with things they wouldn’t otherwise. Be creative and see what you come up with. Once you have a good idea for how your character would react in different situations in comparison or contrast to other characters in the story, then it’ll be that much easier to make them unique and realistic in the story. And if you have two or more characters who would have contrasting reactions to a certain situation, that’s a very good way to ensure possible future conflict between them. Someone who wants to run away and get help when in danger might get into fight with someone who would rather stay and fight and protect the people back home rather than drag them into the problem. It’ll stir up unique interactions and possible development scenes! So play around with the characters and their reactions- you may never know what gem you might uncover by doing so.

Dont: Make a character “bad” just for disagreeing with the protagonist
As tempting as it may be to make your star always be correct, just don’t do it. Even if the hero is right, why should another character be villainized for a different opinion? And for that matter, who said your hero has to be right? There’s a lot of dramatic potential to be had with your main character deciding something and then later being proven wrong. Either way, though, don’t make the complainer be seen as a bad guy for it. Maybe they have a genuine reason to believe something else. Maybe the hero is going into morally gray territory and the other character thinks there is a better option. Maybe the other character knows something the hero doesn’t. Maybe it’s just difference of opinion. There are a lot of reasons to disagree with a person, and while the two characters may have a falling out and see each-other as being “bad guys” for it, the narrative shouldn’t take one side over the other unless one character is genuinely a villain and their disagreement is just a factor of that. (Like a mole trying to convince the protagonists not to go to the place where all the answers are or the villain trying to trick them into something.) Not everyone has to agree, and a lot of times, people may end up sympathizing for the “bad guy” in the situation. And if you don’t do a good job of explaining why they are wrong, many people may end up seeing them as in the right and the protagonist in the wrong. So just be sure not to make a character automatically be portrayed negatively for having a different opinion. It’s not fair to that character, and can make the reader themselves wonder how they were wrong at all. '

That’s it! I sure hope this helped, and if anyone has any other things to add, please do! The more advice the merrier. Thanks for reading, and happy writing.'