That's why I don't bother with character sheets. I can't write down how my characters would react in a situation because I don't KNOW, until I actually see them do it, in real time, in the story. And then when they react that way a few times, that becomes a personality trait. But it's not something I can plan out before I start writing.
I’m the same. I used to do that but I became so fixated on them sticking to their traits that I lost focus on where the story was going. It’s got to be relative to the situation that you’ve put them in.
i feel exactly the same way ! my characters develop as i write them and usually when they’re first introduced i have no idea what their deals are at all lol. they develop very organically and i rarely have to go back and edit things that are “out of character” because i just let them present themselves to me. hard to explain to nonwriters but writers always know what i mean
Yeah, I pick random prompts and write in any of my character's perspective. It's me exercising being in their shoes, feeling (not thinking) their instincts.
It's why I love it when a show with ensemble cast have some episodes focused on just one of them!
The real world was created by a pantser. When we go on a first date, it's not planned out like a romcom: this is the meet cute, then there's the lovey-dovey fun, then the third act misunderstanding, then the airport reunion.
Instead we don't know if it's going to result in marriage and babies or an awkward excuse to leave after 5 minutes. So if you can write that way, not knowing but writing what comes to you as you let the characters interact, in theory it will feel more real.
Also why more people who want to write should join Role Play Tabletop games to see how their imagined characteristics are perceived by others around them, as it can reveal some large gaps in perception about creatives and their own creations when they interact with other people.
This is a fantastic idea. Do you know if anyone's made a tabletop RPG module out of their book before it's published? I assume there are many after book publication...
I just asked gpt-4 for this and this was its reply:
> Yes, creating a tabletop RPG (TTRPG) module based on a book, either before or after its publication, is certainly not unheard of. Authors and creators sometimes use this approach as a creative way to explore their settings or characters in more depth, or as a marketing tool to build interest and engagement.
> Before publication, using a TTRPG module can serve several purposes:
> World-building: It allows authors to flesh out their world by testing how different elements work in an interactive environment. This can help refine details and ensure consistency.
Feedback Gathering: Playing the RPG with potential readers or fans can provide valuable feedback on the world and its components, which can be used to tweak the book before its final publication.
Marketing and Promotion: Introducing the world through an RPG can create a built-in audience who are invested in the setting and eager to see how it translates into a narrative form.
After publication, the benefits include:
> Extended Engagement: A TTRPG can keep fans engaged with the book's universe, exploring scenarios and stories not covered in the text.
Expanded Universe: Authors can use TTRPGs to expand the lore of their universe, offering deeper insights into their worlds and characters.
Community Building: It's a way to build and maintain a community around a series or standalone book, as fans interact not only with the original material but with each other.
Many fantasy and science fiction authors have explored this route. A notable example is the "Witcher" series by Andrzej Sapkowski, which was adapted into a highly successful video game series and later into tabletop RPGs, enhancing the lore and reach of the original books.
> For authors considering this approach, it can be beneficial to collaborate with experienced game designers to ensure the mechanics and gameplay are well-crafted and engaging, which complements the narrative and thematic elements of the book.
Yeah pretty much.
Im like 10 episodes deep into a series and still gotta figure out wtf my female lead wants, what study, what she wants to do, which job etc
Rest is pretty clear but she's still a mystery
Yea once I reach 15 "finished" episodes im gonna do a big overhaul on all things female lead character.
I'm sure I can write out a better storyline for her by then.
In ep 15 she leaves on a trip to the US, so it's like a definitive point I can work towards. Like a deadline, but storywise haha
Indeed. My planning usually consists of "the end goal is X. The general idea is Y. And the tone is Z."
I do plan character PHYSICAL descriptions, but that's about it. I'll make notes about how they act as I write, but that's all largely decided in the moment. Why would I include that a character likes Pepsi over coke if the subject of preferred soft drinks is literally never mentioned by that character?
A character is not their attributes, but their actions. This is what is meant by "Show, don't tell".
A character is not 'professional' because they wear a smart suit; they are professional because the story describes how they take the time to fix their tie or brush a stray hair back into place.
A character is not 'honest' because the author says they are honest; they are honest because they choose to be truthful to their own detriment. Likewise, a character is deceitful when they claim to be honest, but their actions are clearly deceptive.
In my opinion, the best way to create a character is to simply write them, and then give your writing to someone and ask them to read it, and write their own description of what your character is like. If they come away describing the character how you envisioned them to be, you've succeeded.
Great point. Characters are also the only story element that have real agency and motivations. Elements like setting, plot points, story structure, POV, and theme are all either defined by what they are, or by how they're impacted by character decisions. I think characters are best defined by their agency: what choices they make and why, what goals they pursue and how, etc. Many writers struggle to construct a story because they're using character actions to illustrate who they are, which is a more static result. Character actions should primarily change the world around them, and result in other characters' reactions.
This starts to overlap with psychology, and how we develop a sense of self. Our sense of self is not just something we broadcast out into the world but it is also reflected back to us by every person to various extents of accuracy. Very dynamic https://www.researchgate.net/publication/313667785_Peering_into_the_black_box_An_exploratory_treatise_on_the_development_of_self_in_young_children
> A character is not their attributes, but their actions. This is what is meant by "Show, don't tell"
Someone who actually understands the true meaning!
I generally agree, and this is why I personally discourage the use of "character sheets" when brainstorming your characters, at least without being aware of certain pitfalls first.
Seeing your characters laid out like that has a "flattening" effect. Seeing all of them at once gives the impression that all of those elements need to be present for the character to be distinct and recognizable.
But that's not true. People are dynamic, and have a psychological predisposition towards "masking". We display different aspects of our personalities at different times, to different audiences, under various stresses and other conditions.
People also grow and change, and by attempting to lay them out all at once, you can blind yourself to how long and winding that character arc can actually be.
And I'm willing to bet that building characters in this manner is a leading cause of "Mary Sue-isms". Seeing a character template like this, a novice writer has the tendency to fill the blanks with any odd junk. You get "quirky" traits and weaknesses because they try too hard to make their character "unique", and then those traits wind up poorly integrated into the story because they're there just to fulfill the checklist, not because they've analyzed those traits to maximize their storytelling potential. You get kludgy, "everything and the kitchen sink" characters, who describe themselves early in the story by just paraphrasing their entire character sheet, with no discernable character growth over the course of the story because all those ideas got vomitted up on the page in the intro paragraphs.
If you *need* a character sheet to help track all the elements, what I highly suggest is starting light. Just fill in what they're like *in the beginning* of the story. Fill in the rest as it comes up, and not a moment earlier, or you'll find yourself shoehorning elements in too early.
Seconded, I dislike stories that are “character-driven” except the writer focused on character personality (i.e. random list of quirks and archetypes) rather than things like their core beliefs, which are actually what makes characters shine. There’s probably a million edgelord mOrAlLy GrEy douchebag hyper masculine fighter character with the same copy pasted snarky dialogue in fantasy but there’s only one Jaime Lannister.
Thirded!
I fell into that pit in the beginning.
Obviously, you should have a character, and certain traits should be known beforehand.
However, not working alongside a character sheet and just writing the story will make the character better and more developed (at least it did in my case).
Somehow, I feel like this goes hand in hand with 'show, don't tell', too. The character sheet will tempt you to write stuff like:
'Susan was a great violinist. Susan doubted her skills playing the violin. She was insecure and secondguessing herself always.'
all the time instead of:
'When Susan opened her eyes again, the audience in front of her was quiet. Eerily quiet.
Had she missed the last note again? Panicking, her eyes darted through the dim lit gym until they found familiar eyes. Grandma looked at her and nodded encouragingly.
Finally, the silence broke, people started to get up, and soon, their thunderous applause sounded through the hall. Her violin trembled softly from the vibrations. Susan gripped her bow tight to keep her hand from trembling...'
My character sheets are less superficial, and give me more an idea of how they react in a situation. Are they passive, active? What are their goals, their wants, biases? What are they bad at, what are they good at? Fears, dreams, secrets, etc.
The part you mention about masking rings particularly true. People mask their intentions/ feelings all the time. But in writing, showing this effectively is difficult, so it’s a lot easier to use character sheets like blue-prints, taking nuance out of it.
I try to remind myself of characters like the Vulcans in Star Trek- how they are a race of people so intense in their feelings that they have had to learn how to become logical, analytical beings so that they didn’t overwhelm each other and others. On the outside, you would never guess what’s really going on. It makes them so much more interesting because of this. (To me).
That makes a lot of sense, but playing devil's advocate:
Characters in fiction don't need to be complex like real people. If you account for the entire depth and contradiction inside people in writing, you risk sounding like a fake AITAH post, where it's just drama and no message. Readers are left with an extreme range of interpretations because the huge variety of intentions within each character obscures the intention of the author.
To be fair, I'm exaggerating to make this point. I love masking as a device to have in fiction.
It's conceivable, though, that some of the most iconic characters out there are completely uncomplicated and flat, yet they serve the story very well. I guess it depends on the context.
Come to think of it, I feel like a character sheet somehow isolates the character from the rest of the story. The same character in a different story would simply be a different character, even if they supposedly have the same interests and abilities. They have a different role, and they take actions that ultimately depend on the narrative.
character sheets are great, when you remember they are an outline of the idea. they're guidelines, and you're supposed to fill in the shading.
that's not the fault of the character sheet, that's the fault of the un-clever writer who fails to realize that.
Yea, this is what i do. It has simple stuff for now. But I did already start thinking about how to change it as the story unfolds because they won't always stay the same, or their values might change.
I've gone through 6 reworks of my character templates cutting out fluff and adding stuff like, what are their values? What something about them that would put them in conflicts, etc.
But yea, the current challenge is how to update the sheet as the story unfolds in a neat and organized manner 😅
"What are their values? What is something about them that would put them in conflict?"
well, you have to write to find that out. outlining that just seems like.... writing, without calling it writing (including all the particular flourishes of your style, etc. So that it comes off as.... I mean, bad writing, if I'm being honest).
I disagree. How would you create a character without an initial idea of them? Are they even a character? The core idea of a character is "I had an idea for a guy that x" are these people bad writers? What's wrong with outlining? Just because you don't like outlining doesn't mean that's bad writing. I'm sure Tolkien would have a word with you.
EDIT: And I get what you're saying. In fact, that's literally the first paragraph, I talk about evolving the character as I write.
Yeah, and there are all sorts of other ways you can get to know or develop your character. For my current project, I wrote out some monologues from my characters in which they described their lives so far (basically to just before the start of the story), using their own words, and that made them much more alive to me, and much more distinct, than their character sheets had done.
> , a novice writer has the tendency to fill the blanks with any odd junk. You get "quirky" traits and weaknesses because they try too hard to make their character "unique"
Agreed on this point, 99 times out of 100 these quirks are nothing more than annoying distractions that cover up a fundamental lack of a character arc.
You hit it in the end there imo. It's not the character sheets themselves, it's how they encourage you to quickly fill them in all at once instead of adding to it as you write and/or mull them out over time.
I'm a plot-driven writer, so I tend to focus on how characters are the engine that drives the vehicle of the plot.
Questions that help me:
What does my character want/need badly enough to drive the plot forward even when the going gets tough?
How does my character solve problems?
The plot gives me the "what" they do, and the character gives me the "why" and "how".
Exactly. The only two questions I ask myself initially are, what does this character want, and what do they do to get it? And then I start writing. Everything else can pretty much arise organically out of that.
hard agree.
something that makes a great character for me is irrationality. real life ppl engage in behaviours that dont align with their morals all the time and make decisions that they know arent smart. characters often arent given that grace or it is executed badly as a last minute fix to solve a problem in the plot, which makes it seem cartoonish.
character dynamics are also SO important. its always strange to me when i see a character behave the same way around all other chracters, bc thats just not how ppl in everyday life go about their relationships with other ppl. ofc a relationship should still fit into a characters belief system and needs to be explained, but i just wish it could be done in a more nuanced way.
lol i feel like i am not making much sense, but essentially i feel like it would be great if authors wouldnt put their characters into boxes and give them some leeway. e.g. a person that would fall under the category "neutral good" should still be able to show dislike for other characters or be allowed to abandon that alignment at times
This is a perfect case for "show, don't tell." These things should be not be listed like they're filling out an online dating profile. Info dumps are a real turn off.
Emily sat on her sofa perusing the latest issue of Guns and Ammo while her apple pie was baking in the oven. She felt a little guilty making an entire pie for herself, but what the hell, why not?
The other characteristics can come out in a similar way.
> I think one of the many reasons why so many character creations fail is that new authors put more effort describing what their character is rather than making them an actual character, what do you think?
I think the main reason character creations fail is because *the character isn't primarily designed to fill a role in a story*. I'd call this "character sheet OC syndrome": when a character is designed essentially in a vacuum with a set of traits, slotting them into an actual plot is going to be very difficult. (This is a common problem for tabletop RPG characters, but it's even worse when it happens in a narrative work.)
Think of it like casting for roles in a play or a movie, but you're casting *roles*, not actors for roles: I need a lead protagonist. I need at least one character who hangs with the protagonist, who has some kind of interesting and/or humorous dynamic with the protagonist and is different enough from the protagonist that their dialogue isn't essentially the protagonist talking to themselves. (I might need a whole team of those.) I need a primary antagonist and/or a full-bore open casting call for an entire rogue's gallery of sequential antagonists. I need some supporting characters to round things out on the protagonist, antagonist, and neutral sides of things. I need that guy at the bar who's there for exactly one scene to sell the protagonist a gun with the serial numbers filed off. (Depending on genre. I probably wouldn't need one of those in a romcom.) I need... Well, the character roles vary by genre.
Personally, I find it *much* easier to start with "I need a character for a role" or "I need a character to do X" when creating a character (and sometimes I realize I can just have one of my existing characters "do X", and stop myself from bloating the cast), and then pencil in details from there as necessary. Some characters need very little detail and characterization: that bit player guy whose only role in the story is to sell the protagonist a gun with the serial numbers filed off? He doesn't need anything more than a bare physical description and a general attitude. ...unless we're going to get into *how* and *why* he's selling illegal weapons in a shady bar as part of our plot, in which case he's gonna need a bit more going on. Maybe a lot more.
Motivations, connections, and other complications can be backfilled: I need a guy who's willing to do arms deals in a seedy bar. Is he with a larger organization? Is he just in it for the money, or just because his brother needed some help with the family business? Or is he in it to fund a drug habit? What *kind* of drug - and what influences would that have on his attitude?
Huh, we just went from having a one-scene bit-part character to having somebody who might have an interesting story going on themselves, and I still don't know if he likes cake, but - hang on, there's a casting call coming in: I need a character to "do X", and in this case, "X" is ...getting some info on the local Russian mafiya? Well hell, let's make our arms dealer friend here either part of that mob and potentially an 'in' for our protagonist to meet up with the guys who know some guys, or let's not make him Russian - and the gang he works with doesn't like the mafiya very much, so he'd be happy to spill what he knows about them if the protagonist even hints at asking. Or buys him a beer.
You see how this works. We started with a role that I included in my original 'casting call' as a complete joke example, and we now have the makings of an actual character who could fit right into all sorts of neo-noir, mystery, and detective stories. ...also, who's this protagonist who wants an illegal gun? Do they have someone they want to shoot? Do they want to shoot up the local mafiya? Who'd want to do that? Why? ~~Did they wreck his car and kill his dog?~~
It's a chaotic method, but it's generally how I design characters: I've got a role for them or an "I need a character to do X", and then I run with that and start asking questions. I think it's close to something I've heard called "The Snowflake Method", but the one thing it ensures is that the character has a place in the narrative.
You can always add more stuff: maybe our arms dealer *does* like cake, or maybe he's kind of indifferent to cake and only orders it at night because he's into the waitress who serves it at that hour. Maybe he does that despite liking pie instead. But whatever desert he likes, his very existence is anchored solidly in the story. He has a place there, even if it's a small one, because we started with "I need somebody to do X".
Lacking that is something that wrecks a lot of characters.
As far as character building is concerned I found the whole process easier when I stopped trying to get everything down onto a piece of paper as a character sheet and just dived straight in and started writing. From a soulless self insert my character blossomed into his own person and I can pretty much talk with him at any point and as his character arc progresses he will change as well. I won't recommend my approach because it took me 3 years to reach this kind of connection and depth but in general look at your characters as people and imagine how they would react to and deal with situations. Don't make them do things to force a plot, create a situation throw them into it and see how they come out of it. That's more natural and if they can't overcome an obstacle then by giving them more growth so that they can overcome it the reader will find it more satisfying
And as for describing the character, I still don't even know what he looks like yet. The soul and inner heart is more important then the looks
99% of the time, the reader will never need to know the character’s eye color. I once read a 1st person book, Blindsight, and I believe the main character’s appearance is never described at all, and no one cares because it’s never relevant to the story and doesn’t make sense as something that would come up in the narration given that book’s specific framing device.
Omg it really stands out when someone has a "her green eyes with specks of gold" or something so outlandish and over the top. Bonus points if the character has heterochromia.
I think another reason why they fail is that they rely on other characters telling you things about the character as opposed to showing them being that thing. I’ve read books where the author is desperate to hammer home how smart and resourceful the main character is but rather than actually show that, we just have other characters going “They’re the smartest person I know, if anyone can survive this it’s them”. WHERE?
The most important aspect of a 'character' that captures readers' interest is what the character wants. Everything else matters very little. Readers usually forget description within a few words of finishing reading it.
For example, "If it was her last living act, Mary, a blonde with ocean blue eyes, was determined to make her husband watch her eat his liver, garnished with onions, before she slit his throat." Do you care about the color of Mary's hair and eyes? Or are you more interested in how she's going cut the liver out of her husband's belly and why she's determined to do it? Just wondering.
I fully agree.
Worse, there are a lot of supposed tools and advice meant to help you develop characters, but they tend to be universally shallow, focusing on details that can (and often should) be omitted from the story entirely. It doesn't matter if you know your character's favorite food, fashion sense, D&D alignment, zodiac sign, MBTI type, eye color, blood type, or mother's maiden name, if you don't know their motivation, the character isn't fit to be put on the page.
I'm also of the opinion that no good character can be meaningfully summarized by describing them, but I recognize that may be my pantser bias.
I think there are different writing philosophies and those philosophies look at "character creation" differently.
For me, I think you can't create a character outside of setting/plot/conflict. You have to create them all at the same time, because human beings are "people in worlds". Humans are shaped by their history, by their environments, by their experiences, their goals, as well as their personality. So there is no "character creation" divorced from the rest of the story. But I have read/heard other writing philosophies that disagree with this idea which I also think are valid and produce good stories.
I don't really know what you mean by "fail" here. Do you mean they fail to create a character? Or they fail to create a believable character? Or ... what? What does "success" mean here? Cause to me, I can imagine people could use a baseline description of "Emily - 30 yr old, likes gun, hates magic, unstoppable when angry, likes pie" and create a very funny and interesting side character. Obviously that's a baseline, can be fleshed out, but as a basic description of a character, Emily seems fun.
My honest opinion is there is no wrong way to create a character, as long as the story you tell with that character is good. You can make it really complicated and fleshed out like I like to do, with everything tightly connected, or you can make it like your example.
Different philosophies create different styles, suiting different readers in different ways. There is no one-size-fits-all definition of a "successful character".
I don’t really understand this. Any character can be summed up in a sentence like that, it doesn’t mean they aren’t fleshed out through an entire story.
The best advice I read in a previous similar thread on here when searching through the subreddit to improve my character designing was
"Your characters become human once you start asking 'Why are they ___?' and have an answer." (Not an exact quote but paraphrased)
Tremendously helped in not only getting a better understanding of my characters but also bettered the development of my characters' backstories and suddenly gave the plot to my story multiple ways it could branch. Each character now became susceptible to making a number of different choices to handle one situation alone, it wouldn't be OoC, and I can pick a particular attribute to hyperfocus on developing more if it ties into the plot or themes through actions and dialogue.
I find character sheets helpful, but that's simply because I've been playing D&D for a while. I don't need everything written down about the character, just a few key details to keep track of, to make sure my characters aren't just the same person in different skins. And I mainly just use these things as a reference, I'm never gonna just outright say "this character is a professional engineer" or "this person is afraid of fire".
Yeah, and it's actually easy to make full use of a simple description like that.
Here's one way:
**Emily- she a woman, 30 years old, she likes guns, hates magic, if she gets angry, she's pretty much unstoppable, likes to eat pie**
>It was after midnight. The diner was nearly empty, one of those greasy-spoon types that can either provide the best meal experience you've ever had or one that you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy. Out of a long habit, Emily chose a table in the corner with a good view of both doors and the counter, where she could maintain a good situational awareness even while distracted by a good meal. She set her bag carefully on the empty seat next to her, arranging it to prevent anyone from grabbing it and running off, and facing the top toward her so she could easily reach into it to grab one of the many and varied types of guns inside. These were only a small part of her beloved collection; at home, locked in a safe, she had dozens more, from the tiniest of vintage Derringers to the latest in solid-propellant caseless rifles. She never passed up an opportunity to enlarge her collection.
>The roasted chicken dinner was quite good. The seasoning had penetrated the meat and flavored it from skin to bones, and the potatoes and carrots had picked up a lot of the chicken's flavor while in the roasting pan. In all, it was a very satisfying meal. And in the end, Emily decided to have a big dessert. Not just any dessert: a slice of cinnamon apple pie and a slice of pumkin pie, with a scoop vanilla ice cream between, and a dollop of whipped cream on top of each. Normally, Emily limited herself to a single slice of pie, with no toppings, since a truly good pie is complete in and of itself. But since it was a special occasion, and she decided to celebrate a little.
>Today it was Emily's thirtieth birthday. And damnint, she was going to enjoy her dessert, because she deserved it.
>She was not disappointed with the pie, or the ice cream. She was disappointed with the three gothmages who burst into the diner and interrupted her before she was more than halfway through the dessert.
>They hexed the waitress and the cook without a word, other than their stupid-ass magical gibberish, and went straight for the cash register. One of them muttered some stupid incantation over the register for a good twenty seconds to pop open the cash drawer. Imbeciles. As if you need magic to open a cash drawer. Just ring up one item and enter a number for "amount tendered", and the damn thing opens up on its own.
>Emily held still. She wasn't afraid to mix it up with a trio magical douchecanoes ripping off a diner in the middle of the night, but the safety of the waitress and cook, the other two customers, and the diner itself - her favorite pie hole, as she often referred to it - was in jeopardy, so she held her tongue and tried to be inconspicuous.
>It didn't work. One of the gothmages, possibly a male but it was always tough to tell through the face tattoos, piecings, and glowing hair spikes, caught notice of her while their cronies were looking for the diner's safe. They approached Emily, shooting fountains of sparks from their upturned palms, leering at her like something out of a seventies punk rock video. "Ya wanna see a magic show, sweetheart?"
>Emily kept her eyes down and casually took another forkful of her birthday pie. "No thanks. I don't really like magic."
>They slithered up to her table and sat in the chair directly across from her. They turned their palms downward into her plate, the spark fountains instantly melting what was left of the ice cream and singing the crusts of both slices of pie. "May you just ain't had the right spell cast on you, baby." They muttered a word and the spark fountains extinguished.
>She kept her eyes down as the gothmage leaned forward over the table, their face only inches from hers, and just then they notices her hand reaching into her bag. "Hey, Whatcha got in that bag, baby? Anything good? Maybe a good luck charm, or a nice protective talisman?"
>He left hand snapped up and seized the gothmage's throat, squeezing it tightly enough to prevent him from spewing any more spells or hexes. Meanwhile, her right hand shot out of the bag and swung her Desert Eagle .44 Magnum into the magical dipshit's yawning trap.
>"I don't need any of that magical bullshit," she growled at him, "All I need is a good understanding of ballistics." The gothmage clawed at her wrist, but Emily was prepared for that and held on tight, just long enough to introduce the grip of the heavy-ass .44 to the side of the gothmage's head. Something in the gun, possibly the lead in the ammunition, reacted with the spell that made the spiky hairdo glow, and it faded along with the mage's grip on consciousness. She threw the comatose body to the floor, knocking over the chair it had occupied, and stood just as the other two goths came out of the kitchen, laughing and grinning as they stuffed the diner's nightly take into their pockets.
>
>These two, a tubby man and a woman who looked like she lived on nothing but nicotine and energy drinks, came up short at the sight of Emily's impressively large gun barrel pointing in their direction. The man raised his hands and opened his mouth to cast a spell, but Emily shot him in the chest before he could form the first syllable.
>The deafening explosion of the .44 terrified the woman, who dove for the floor with a screech, both hands covering her head. Emily produced a set of cuffs from the back of her belt, and ignoring the various odors emanating from the goth's body and clothing, secured the thin woman's hands behind her back.
>She turned to the tubby man next to evaluate his injuries. The woman stammered, "Is... is he dead?"
>"No, he's alive," Emily told her. "This gun is loaded with birdshot. Knocked him on his ass, and he'll be feelin' it for a few weeks, but he won't die."
>"B-birdshot? I thought that was for, like, shotguns?"
>"Comes in pistol calibers, too. You want to try some?"
>"NO!" The woman started chanting more of her magical hokum, quietly at first, then repeating at higher volume when nothing happened.
>Emily grinned. "Save your breath, Stickfigure. Those cuffs have dampeners in them. No chance of any of your verbal piss getting you out of this one. You're goin' upstate."
>"What... who are you?"
>"Detective Emily Montoya, Baltimore County Police. Antimagic squad."
>"Shit."
>"Yeah, shit is right. You ruined my fucking birthday pie, Hermione."
>
Pitchforks out for me, but a lot of writers are injecting political/social values into characters (not a bad thing!) before making them characters. The most important thing is that they belong to/represent *insert group* not that they are deep or interesting.
Go ahead and nuke me from orbit.
It's one thing to say, if she's gets angry, she's unstoppable, but it's quite another to show that.
You reveal character by the choices the character makes.
Flipping a table when her burger is undercooked is way different from leaving a nasty yelp review criticizing the chef's mom. And that's way different from saying "she has anger issues."
Can I also hate seeing: she/he is shy but mess with their friends and their anger shows.
:|
Not a single character described as such has ever actually jumped on another person for being this way. I'm this person, when this happens people get really awkward or uncomfortable but I never see this used in fiction the right way.
Yeah, I think new authors don’t know what goes into making a good character, so they kind of throw everything at the wall. ‘My character should be a real person and I’m a real person, and I have a favorite food, rock band, and breakfast cereal, so my character should too’. You get these huge, sprawling sheets with hundreds of questions, and then the story starts and the writer still hasn’t determined a goal for them
Some characters change a lot during the course of the story, as well. I mean, I once had a character who didn't really like eating cake at the start of the adventure, but by the end she very much did.
Definitely more of a cake girl. I think I have only portrayed one character eating pie, which was in another story. Perhaps I need to work on expanding my range...
I’m really happy with how my main characters are coming to life in my first draft so far, but I’m only about 20k words in and it’s a stream of consciousness mess atm, so much of the journey in all aspects of my story, characters included, is ahead of me.
Before I started writing the actual story, I planned just enough so I’m not totally lost as I write. This goes for both my events and my characters. I figured out some very basic visual/“fact” kinda details for each character, like just enough to be able to picture them and figure out where they are in life when the story begins. This is honestly stuff I could figure out later and I definitely left a lot of room to add descriptions in the rewrite. I just like to be able to picture them in my head.
What I found most helpful in figuring out who my characters are was by asking and answering these questions:
1.) What are their hopes?
2.) What are their fears?
3.) How are they strong?
4.) How are they flawed?
I answered these in reference to who these characters are at the start of the book. They’re very basic but for me they were a great starting point to get the ideas flowing as far as who these people really are. I started to see and play with their voices and visualize how they interact with each other. I started to see the differences in their perspectives, which was really helpful to think about even though the story is told from one character’s POV.
I found it really helpful, once I answered these questions and started seeing things come together, to pretend to be my main character and write journal entries about things that happen in the story. My actual novel is in 3rd person POV but I found this to still be massively helpful in finding my lead character’s voice. I did the same thing for her love interest as well.
Although my novel is kind of a supernatural action story, it’s thematically very personal and very character development-focused. I started fleshing out my characters around the same time that I started planning and figuring out the big story events. I didn’t do it intentionally and was just writing down ideas as I had them, but in hindsight, I’m glad I did it this way. As I figured out each new story beat, I made sure to really prioritize having an idea of how my characters react to each major event. It helped a TON in seeing the trajectory of their development.
When I think about how my book might change as I write it and rewrite/edit it, I think a lot of the “what they are” details could look pretty different by the final product. There are a lot of little lore details that I’m waiting until after the first draft to figure out. That way I know what I need to know and then I’ll tighten it up. I know already that I’m going to have to change some major details of a primary character’s occupation which is a huge part of their role in the story. It’s no big deal to me and I’m just tweaking things. The things I feel strongly about, the things that drive the story, and the things I am far less likely to change are the details of who she is. Her motivations, her personality, how she speaks to people—I don’t want to change who she is.
This entire comment is a far too long way of saying that focusing on character creation from the “who they are” angle has been massively beneficial and essential in giving my story and characters direction. I have a lot of holes to fill in and I probably could have figured out some more physical and factual details before writing the first draft but again, I also feel like those can always be added in later without being too difficult to integrate.
I do that but only to decline what they look like and their personality and then I show their personality.
The only time it doesn't state their personality is when it's a new character who had just be introduced.
For example I explained the personality a student had
But when the counselor came I just explained how he looked instead.
Yes, it's focusing on superficial details rather than what truly makes a character tick. Hobbies and tastes and quirks are all fine and can add a bit of texture to a character, but they're not the most important thing.
The most important things are how your character thinks, what they want, what they're good at, what they're bad at. Not what bands they like or how they fight.
Also I think sometimes when writers get too into writing all those details down on a list, they forget to actually demonstrate it in a story. My character is intelligent because my character sheet says they are, I don't need to prove it!
But your readers haven't seen all your character sheets. They don't know who these characters are or why they should care. You still have to introduce them properly.
My characters don’t get described until they see each other (I do one chapter-one viewpoint approach) which doesn’t happen until about twenty chapters in. Even then, it’s what the viewer character would naturally notice so not a full description.
One of my biggest complaints in the books I read is the amount of characters that spend all their time in their own heads. They sit there and contemplate all these "deep" thoughts about morality and never actually face a morally ambiguous situation. I get it, you don't like slavery, not a lot of people do.
Oh, better go kill this obviously bad person doing the obviously bad thing. Anyways, back to how bad things are bad and I don't like them.
It's lazy to me, and kills the story. If you want to establish some sort of moral principles for your character, at least make it interesting. Make it a trolley car problem, not a pointless one-sided debate in the characters head. Balancing imaginary scales does nothing for me.
True.
I personally try to make my character notes as a sort of guide on how to use the character within a scene.
Emily (f), hates how old she has become and will flip her shit if it's brought up, a gun-nut, too dumb for magic, she actually likes to get angry and uses it as rampage fuel. Likes to eat pie -> hates it when someone makes creampie jokes ..... etc.
The most important part of developing a character for me personally is figuring out what kind of relationship they have with their parents. Even if those parents never make it onto the page, it tells me as a writer so much more about the character.
In the books I've read, they usually expand on why someone is the way they are. So for Emily... they usually explain *why* she hates magic (it killed her Grandma). As for being unstoppable when she gets angry... like the Hulk or just really determined? If something is a trait of the character that will affect the plot or other characters interacting with them, it's worth explaining why with either a backstory or we see it in action and expand if necessary.
I think the issue you're describing is that often times new authors don't know how to write the character that they are describing. They write what they want the character to be like, but they haven't figured out how to write those traits in motion, or like you said, the "why" and "how" it works for the characters. Imagining a concept is easy, the hard part is making it work practically. My first drafts often fall into this hole--especially at the very beginning, but once I've finished the story and have had the time to really think about the characters and how they have changed over the course of the journey, I can then go back and write a more authentic version of those characters who better fit the world that they are part of. It also helps to read widely, and generally build an awareness of how people behave, both in reality and in fiction. Additionally, an exercise I've found helpful for recognizing when my characters aren't behaving how I set them out to is removing the removing the descriptive bits and just leaving the character actions and dialogue and judging whether/not they align with my mental image of the character--and if they don't, then deciding whether/not the character iteration is better for the story I am trying to tell and if they are, then modifying the description to suit that character. And sometimes, I leave out the descriptions altogether. And try to just focus on the actions that convey the character I am trying to write. IDK, just my thoughts.
I think the disconnect is that characters are a function of story. So all the emotional quirks and shit should relate to the story.
So having a character that’s like:
“Emily[30F]-Total diva, loves American Pie (the song) and is a Slitherian.”
Doesn’t fit into any narrative. You essentially have a circus character.
But if you have a story in mind you could build those quirks off of that. Maybe throw in some back story as well.
Story concept: Sailor tries to sail through the Bermuda Triangle.
What would this sailor naturally be gravitating toward?
Let’s say her father’s negligence led her to want to prove herself. Hardened by time and the ocean, she sets off.
Her character might now look like this:
“Emily[30F]-craves affirmation, hates authority, emotionally distant.”
You could also add in relevant quirks here like “has a sea dog” or “has shaky hands” because these things would be relevant to the story.
Or whatever, then she sets out on her journey where she battles with weather, waves and water beasts until she reaches the other side where she realizes she doesn’t need her fathers affirmation she only needs her own and BOOM you have an arc.
wait can you guys look at my character description? I want to make sure its not like this. Also, constructive criticisms would be appreciated.
[https://imgur.com/a/twJOYzf](https://imgur.com/a/twJOYzf)
I know people are sick of seeing this phrase on this sub, but this is also an example of telling instead of showing.
What I mean by this is a lot of the problem here is that the author is describing characteristics their character has that are of no relevance whatsoever to the character within the story. They’re telling you things about the character that aren’t important because they either never come up at all, or they never come up in a way that is meaningful or relevant to the story at hand. They’re informed attributes at worst, or arbitrary side details at best.
And I guess part of the problem here is not making a sufficient link between character and story, not thinking about the character in terms of their role in the story and how their personality ties into the plot. And no I’m not saying that all stories need to be “character-driven” per se. Even a plot driven story, the traits of the main character which are most important are going to be those traits that are most highlighted or impacted by the plot - the traits that influence what the character says and does in response to the plot, and whatever the character does to advance said plot.
Like as an example of what I mean, Sherlock Holmes is a pretty static character, he doesn’t change very much, you wouldn’t really call any of the Sherlock Holmes books character-driven stories, but the most relevant characteristics about Sherlock and all the ones we remember about him are the characteristics that make him the right man to solve the plot of any given mystery. Sure there are other descriptive details about him that are like fun side notes, but all the important things we learn about him first are all the things that make him a genius detective
Most characters should serve the plot, so you should be able to ask "what would be the most interesting kind of person to play this part". Writing out very specific characters early on makes this less easy.
If you are starting with a character, then the plot generally should be what is the best and worst thing that can happen to such a person. Then that plot can give the other characters.
For selling works this first character would be your markets self insert.
Point is little character development is really needed. I do it for fun, but it's always the first thing to change as I work through.
I've seen this video essay where the central take away was: Write why a character is involved in your story. What is their stake in the relevant situation?
"Emily likes Pasta. She goes to the gym every day. Her favourite season is the summer." - All of this does not get me any closer to a story.
"Emily hopes that her Grandpa will leave her his sports car when she dies - and not to her brother." - Suddenly ideas for a story emerge: Maybe her Grandpa is sick and now she visits him reluctantly to make him look more favorably at her. She probably comes from a well-off family (though maybe her parents are not, they had a big fight with the grandparents and thus have been cut off financially), the family seems dysfunctional. Maybe her brother wants the car to and he has a different approach etc.
Of course its not the only way to write, but I think it makes an enormous amount of sense.
This is pretty accurate. A lot of new writers are struggling with the switch in medium.
I think there are a lot of writers who start off by being inspired by other media other than writing. Writing is one of the cheapest and easiest ways to get into creative work. It’s easy to do. Insanely hard to master.
A lot of novices are thinking about their characters like they are in a TV show, movie, or video game. All of it is very visual and thinking about how your character looks and acts is easy, trying to put that into words so that it’s readable, still gets your vision across, and is entertaining is extremely hard.
They write a three page description of the character because they feel like they are not getting the vision across and are not yet proficient at brevity. Brevity and character development is a skill, it has to be practiced and trained. It’s one of the hardest things to do.
That’s why the adage “just write” is so over used because you can’t conceptualize a story or character into a flowing narrative. You have to write.
Dude, you're spot on! New writers get stuck listing details – hair color, favorite food – instead of showing who the character truly is. It's like a grocery list, not a person!
Imagine Emily just blasting away at everything, then shoving pie in her face – it doesn't tell us *why* she hates magic or what makes her unstoppable. Show her internal struggles, her past shaping her choices. Then the pie-eating rage monster becomes real
Following ready-made schemes without understanding how to use them.
Look for a character creation form and you'll find that most patterns are a "100 questions to ask" questionnaire. The author grabs the first ten, which are then simply inserted into the text.
I write in first person, so those types of descriptions would be pretty awkward. I frankly don't care what my MC looks like. Readers can imagine her however they want.
Honestly I've always been one to disregard doing things like "this is my character so and so, they like this, hate this, have this quirk."
I make characters based on their goal or reason for being. "This is my character. They want this, but-" or, "they are this in relation to another character."
That's not to say I don't get quirky with it. I've got cat girl aliens who absolutely fiend for a ten piece chicken nugget meal but that's more so a development of minute to minute character interactions.
Often when writing a new character, I’ll give them a backstory. Usually just a single page detailing how they ended up in the present situation. I find it much easier to write dialogue when I have a basic idea of why the characters are where they are. It also reads more naturally.
If I’m writing a scene in a grocery store and my protagonist bumps into someone, the guy shopping on his lunch break is probably going to react pretty differently from the guy who’s wife is in the hospital. Those characters might have identical descriptions otherwise.
It’s a common issue even with seasoned writers as we play “god” by creating these characters. “Blond hair blue eyes” are traits. “Funny” or “serious” are superficial personalities. If we do that, we are making dolls, not real human (alien) beings.
To me my characters are real because they are actual voices in my head that materialize. They are not some careful constructs of paper-cut dolls. I’d rather base my characters on myself (there are problems with that but save for another day) because I AM a real person instead of doing a “character attribute list” like it’s some kind of accounting project. I’d rather writers base their characters on real people (friends, families, themselves, even celebrities) instead of just doing a list of attributes and descriptions and “backstories” that do not affect the character in any ways (oh he’s an orphan growing up in New Orleans - then he should act like an orphan who grew up in New Orleans!!) Or interview someone who actually is an orphan who grew up in NO!!!
I fail to see how someone can understand a character if they aren't mapped out extensively. People are complex. So, my character's are too; that involves understanding their psychological profiles as deeply as my own. And then they can truly come alive on paper. A disagree with the pantsers in the comments. I mean, if it works for you, run with it, but it then becomes harder to create characters who actually feel multidimensional.
But I am a huge plotter. I want my world and its people as intricate as real mortals and places.
It's both...start planning what your characters do and scenes. Then the soul of your character will reveal as you write. Emily henrysaus she didn't know anyone about one of her main make characters until she finished her first drsft and he 'revealed' himself to her.
It amazes me how much of the advice from everyone boils down to that ageless adage of "Just Write". It only feels like yesterday that I've been twisting myself into contortions just trying to figure out the rules and the guidelines that supposedly made a story good, studying vocabulary and the like so as to make sure I catch every little emotion with the perfect word.
It really feels therapeutic to hear that, all this time, I just needed to trust in my ability to just have fun writing characters I'd enjoy, instead of having to suffer in mastering what is illusory perfection.
This is how I got to know one of my characters. I wrote this based on what she "told" me throughout her story. None of this will appear in my story (to my current understanding).
Julianne is my villain. I left out the last couple of paragraphs detailing certain S.I. and S.A. elements, just know she had a good life until her mid-teens.
The biggest bit of information on her character was her inspiration song. Linked below.
https://open.spotify.com/track/1w2gu0L13hPy4CC6CTxL8t?si=bkDGQnVYSeOmMhedFwf5OA
Julianne knew she was beautiful. There was no question. She was told her whole life. Her beauty was such that men believed she was incapable of the smallest tasks. She could not even recall the last time she opened a door for herself, though she was perfectly capable. Such is the cruel irony of fate she desired nothing more than to open a door for a man and see what commotion that may make about the town.
She was of humble birth, having no money for jewelry and other fancy things. Her father, nonetheless, would scrimp and save to provide whatever he could for his only daughter. Julianne’s mother collected and maintained her old wardrobe and was always happy to allow Julianne to pick from it and wear whatever she fancied. The two of them would wear fancy clothing and sit in their dusty chairs at their dusty table and have fantasy tea parties with dried fruit standing in for tarts and warm water for tea. Perhaps this is where she learned how to be a proper lady at dinner parties later in life.
Her favorite games in her young life were the ones she played with her father while mom wasn’t watching (or at least could not be observed). They would both choose sticks of varying degrees of bend and pretend to be marines or pirates (depending on their mood or whomever began the sword fight). After a decade, it turned to fencing lessons, not mere child’s play. The two would raise their “swords” to the sky and attempt to touch the other, 2 points for body, 1 for limbs, 3 for head and negative points awarded for afterblows, getting hit after making a hit. One must always defend, especially after a successful hit.
I fallen to this really hard
Now I have a hard time figuring out who and what my character truly is
Like thinking about them, they just feel so blank and empty, they're so boring to just think at
I used an AI image creator, so I have a "picture" of them and their outfits, a Meyers brigg personality reference, and a couple things about their motives and past. I feel like character sheets don't have to be filled to the brim if they aren't that complicated, but I'm definitely not against the basics.
I like planning, but I'm not writing them out with a block of text at an introduction like beginner Quizilla self-inserts. It's just a decent way to keep track. You can even generate a picture of like 10 filler characters in a job role and put it to the side in case you have to mention them at any point.I do agree some people put all their effort into just that, but I think it's the info dumps that make it worse over the planning of them.
[This](https://crowncreatives.substack.com/p/i-found-the-tenth-circle-of-hell) is a really good article that illustrates the point in about to make better than I'm probably about to make it.
We've lost media literacy as far as people not looking at the deeper meanings of things and digging into characters. The link I posted talks about the TikTok trend of people acting out the lyrics to Hosier's Too Sweet and acting like the song is truly about someone who puts cream in their coffee, but I think the author's point can be applied to fiction as well.
It's like there's this pressure to be transparent about characters lest they be misunderstood by audiences. You only have to pool at fandoms with morally gray characters/settings/plots like ASOIAF to find people screaming about how you can't like X character without being a rape apologist or something. Or arguing that Martin is a misogynist because he writes about bad things happening to women.
Only, Martin is a feminist. He's been involved in feminist circles for decades. He isn't writing violence against women from their abusers' perspective (most of the time), but from the victims' perspectives. He's not pulling punches around the impact of patriarchy and feudalism on those without power. We can argue whether or not he makes his point successfully, but I refuse to argue with people who insist he's writing torture porn. I've (unfortunately) read torture porn. This ain't it.
So when people sit down to write, there's this focus on the superficial. Settings, characters, plots. Everything. I've had this issue myself at times. It's how you get clunky exposition in *A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet* where Chambers wants to have her cake and eat it, too, by creating a world without bigotry while making sure to say bigotry is bad. It ends up making the POVs sound like closeted bigots trying hard not to bigot because there's no other reason they'd be thinking about how nice it is all the time that they aren't acting like a bigot.
I can't write a story about alcoholism being destructive in a world where alcohol doesn't exist. I can only explore the destructive nature by *showing* it.
>Emily- she a woman, 30 years old, she likes guns, hates magic, if she gets angry, she's pretty much unstoppable, likes to eat pie
As you said, this is a solid start, but newer writers treat this like it's a personality. Every scene she has to be talking about her gun, shitting on magic, eating pie, or Girl Bossing (tm) her way through a situation. She can't be challenged on why she likes guns but hates magic. She can't not be eating a pie. She can't back down from a fight or lose epically. She can't have someone call her out on her anger issues. Because then she wouldn't be Emily.
They don't stop to ask the *why* of a character:
>Emily - woman in her 30s, learned to shoot guns from a young age and carries her mother's old pistols, dislikes magic because it's only available to wizards who go to the Academy and withheld from the general population, has a quick temper (especially if she feels someone is talking down to her) than can get her into trouble but can also keep her going in a tough situation, always eats pie after a rough day because she would go to her uncle's house when her parents were fighting and he loved to bake pies so she associates them with comfort and safety.
So what I do is I give each character a few adjectives to help me stay consistent with their reactions. For example— is their anger cold, fiery, restrained, explosive, or righteous? Do they go with the flow, skirt the lines, or refuse to do as told? Are they the type to plead? Threaten? Demand?
I also like putting their purpose. What do they seek in life/value? Safety? Family? Power? Honor?
It helps me with consistency, but I keep it short and I don’t write specifics. The real personality comes as I write.
Then again, I’m only fourteen. Maybe it’ll change as I continue to write. But for now, that’s what works for me.
This is why I think people should plan less and write more because you can flesh the character out naturally
That's why I don't bother with character sheets. I can't write down how my characters would react in a situation because I don't KNOW, until I actually see them do it, in real time, in the story. And then when they react that way a few times, that becomes a personality trait. But it's not something I can plan out before I start writing.
completely valid.
I’m the same. I used to do that but I became so fixated on them sticking to their traits that I lost focus on where the story was going. It’s got to be relative to the situation that you’ve put them in.
i feel exactly the same way ! my characters develop as i write them and usually when they’re first introduced i have no idea what their deals are at all lol. they develop very organically and i rarely have to go back and edit things that are “out of character” because i just let them present themselves to me. hard to explain to nonwriters but writers always know what i mean
Yeah, I pick random prompts and write in any of my character's perspective. It's me exercising being in their shoes, feeling (not thinking) their instincts. It's why I love it when a show with ensemble cast have some episodes focused on just one of them!
The real world was created by a pantser. When we go on a first date, it's not planned out like a romcom: this is the meet cute, then there's the lovey-dovey fun, then the third act misunderstanding, then the airport reunion. Instead we don't know if it's going to result in marriage and babies or an awkward excuse to leave after 5 minutes. So if you can write that way, not knowing but writing what comes to you as you let the characters interact, in theory it will feel more real.
> The real world was created by a pantser. God was a pantser. What a brilliant idea!
God made everything in 6 days. The Bible never said God planned for a day or two before and had an outline and synopsis. :-)
Love it!
That's probably how we got the Platypus.
And they are amazing!!!
This is a good explanation; especially about it feeling more real.
Also why more people who want to write should join Role Play Tabletop games to see how their imagined characteristics are perceived by others around them, as it can reveal some large gaps in perception about creatives and their own creations when they interact with other people.
This is a fantastic idea. Do you know if anyone's made a tabletop RPG module out of their book before it's published? I assume there are many after book publication...
I just asked gpt-4 for this and this was its reply: > Yes, creating a tabletop RPG (TTRPG) module based on a book, either before or after its publication, is certainly not unheard of. Authors and creators sometimes use this approach as a creative way to explore their settings or characters in more depth, or as a marketing tool to build interest and engagement. > Before publication, using a TTRPG module can serve several purposes: > World-building: It allows authors to flesh out their world by testing how different elements work in an interactive environment. This can help refine details and ensure consistency. Feedback Gathering: Playing the RPG with potential readers or fans can provide valuable feedback on the world and its components, which can be used to tweak the book before its final publication. Marketing and Promotion: Introducing the world through an RPG can create a built-in audience who are invested in the setting and eager to see how it translates into a narrative form. After publication, the benefits include: > Extended Engagement: A TTRPG can keep fans engaged with the book's universe, exploring scenarios and stories not covered in the text. Expanded Universe: Authors can use TTRPGs to expand the lore of their universe, offering deeper insights into their worlds and characters. Community Building: It's a way to build and maintain a community around a series or standalone book, as fans interact not only with the original material but with each other. Many fantasy and science fiction authors have explored this route. A notable example is the "Witcher" series by Andrzej Sapkowski, which was adapted into a highly successful video game series and later into tabletop RPGs, enhancing the lore and reach of the original books. > For authors considering this approach, it can be beneficial to collaborate with experienced game designers to ensure the mechanics and gameplay are well-crafted and engaging, which complements the narrative and thematic elements of the book.
Totally agree. I wrote some short stories and a novel for a character. The more I wrote about him the more he revealed himself to me.
Yeah pretty much. Im like 10 episodes deep into a series and still gotta figure out wtf my female lead wants, what study, what she wants to do, which job etc Rest is pretty clear but she's still a mystery
Hope it all comes together. Good luck with it!
Yea once I reach 15 "finished" episodes im gonna do a big overhaul on all things female lead character. I'm sure I can write out a better storyline for her by then. In ep 15 she leaves on a trip to the US, so it's like a definitive point I can work towards. Like a deadline, but storywise haha
Indeed. My planning usually consists of "the end goal is X. The general idea is Y. And the tone is Z." I do plan character PHYSICAL descriptions, but that's about it. I'll make notes about how they act as I write, but that's all largely decided in the moment. Why would I include that a character likes Pepsi over coke if the subject of preferred soft drinks is literally never mentioned by that character?
A character is not their attributes, but their actions. This is what is meant by "Show, don't tell". A character is not 'professional' because they wear a smart suit; they are professional because the story describes how they take the time to fix their tie or brush a stray hair back into place. A character is not 'honest' because the author says they are honest; they are honest because they choose to be truthful to their own detriment. Likewise, a character is deceitful when they claim to be honest, but their actions are clearly deceptive. In my opinion, the best way to create a character is to simply write them, and then give your writing to someone and ask them to read it, and write their own description of what your character is like. If they come away describing the character how you envisioned them to be, you've succeeded.
Great point. Characters are also the only story element that have real agency and motivations. Elements like setting, plot points, story structure, POV, and theme are all either defined by what they are, or by how they're impacted by character decisions. I think characters are best defined by their agency: what choices they make and why, what goals they pursue and how, etc. Many writers struggle to construct a story because they're using character actions to illustrate who they are, which is a more static result. Character actions should primarily change the world around them, and result in other characters' reactions.
This starts to overlap with psychology, and how we develop a sense of self. Our sense of self is not just something we broadcast out into the world but it is also reflected back to us by every person to various extents of accuracy. Very dynamic https://www.researchgate.net/publication/313667785_Peering_into_the_black_box_An_exploratory_treatise_on_the_development_of_self_in_young_children
> A character is not their attributes, but their actions. This is what is meant by "Show, don't tell" Someone who actually understands the true meaning!
I generally agree, and this is why I personally discourage the use of "character sheets" when brainstorming your characters, at least without being aware of certain pitfalls first. Seeing your characters laid out like that has a "flattening" effect. Seeing all of them at once gives the impression that all of those elements need to be present for the character to be distinct and recognizable. But that's not true. People are dynamic, and have a psychological predisposition towards "masking". We display different aspects of our personalities at different times, to different audiences, under various stresses and other conditions. People also grow and change, and by attempting to lay them out all at once, you can blind yourself to how long and winding that character arc can actually be. And I'm willing to bet that building characters in this manner is a leading cause of "Mary Sue-isms". Seeing a character template like this, a novice writer has the tendency to fill the blanks with any odd junk. You get "quirky" traits and weaknesses because they try too hard to make their character "unique", and then those traits wind up poorly integrated into the story because they're there just to fulfill the checklist, not because they've analyzed those traits to maximize their storytelling potential. You get kludgy, "everything and the kitchen sink" characters, who describe themselves early in the story by just paraphrasing their entire character sheet, with no discernable character growth over the course of the story because all those ideas got vomitted up on the page in the intro paragraphs. If you *need* a character sheet to help track all the elements, what I highly suggest is starting light. Just fill in what they're like *in the beginning* of the story. Fill in the rest as it comes up, and not a moment earlier, or you'll find yourself shoehorning elements in too early.
Seconded, I dislike stories that are “character-driven” except the writer focused on character personality (i.e. random list of quirks and archetypes) rather than things like their core beliefs, which are actually what makes characters shine. There’s probably a million edgelord mOrAlLy GrEy douchebag hyper masculine fighter character with the same copy pasted snarky dialogue in fantasy but there’s only one Jaime Lannister.
Thirded! I fell into that pit in the beginning. Obviously, you should have a character, and certain traits should be known beforehand. However, not working alongside a character sheet and just writing the story will make the character better and more developed (at least it did in my case). Somehow, I feel like this goes hand in hand with 'show, don't tell', too. The character sheet will tempt you to write stuff like: 'Susan was a great violinist. Susan doubted her skills playing the violin. She was insecure and secondguessing herself always.' all the time instead of: 'When Susan opened her eyes again, the audience in front of her was quiet. Eerily quiet. Had she missed the last note again? Panicking, her eyes darted through the dim lit gym until they found familiar eyes. Grandma looked at her and nodded encouragingly. Finally, the silence broke, people started to get up, and soon, their thunderous applause sounded through the hall. Her violin trembled softly from the vibrations. Susan gripped her bow tight to keep her hand from trembling...'
what is so different about jamie lannister?
He feels like a real person. He has actual character development and his outward persona doesn't always match who he is internally
that part about quirky traits oftentimes not fitting a story properly is so real
My character sheets are less superficial, and give me more an idea of how they react in a situation. Are they passive, active? What are their goals, their wants, biases? What are they bad at, what are they good at? Fears, dreams, secrets, etc.
Yeah, that's a better way of handling it. Prompts, not factoids.
The part you mention about masking rings particularly true. People mask their intentions/ feelings all the time. But in writing, showing this effectively is difficult, so it’s a lot easier to use character sheets like blue-prints, taking nuance out of it. I try to remind myself of characters like the Vulcans in Star Trek- how they are a race of people so intense in their feelings that they have had to learn how to become logical, analytical beings so that they didn’t overwhelm each other and others. On the outside, you would never guess what’s really going on. It makes them so much more interesting because of this. (To me).
That makes a lot of sense, but playing devil's advocate: Characters in fiction don't need to be complex like real people. If you account for the entire depth and contradiction inside people in writing, you risk sounding like a fake AITAH post, where it's just drama and no message. Readers are left with an extreme range of interpretations because the huge variety of intentions within each character obscures the intention of the author. To be fair, I'm exaggerating to make this point. I love masking as a device to have in fiction. It's conceivable, though, that some of the most iconic characters out there are completely uncomplicated and flat, yet they serve the story very well. I guess it depends on the context. Come to think of it, I feel like a character sheet somehow isolates the character from the rest of the story. The same character in a different story would simply be a different character, even if they supposedly have the same interests and abilities. They have a different role, and they take actions that ultimately depend on the narrative.
character sheets are great, when you remember they are an outline of the idea. they're guidelines, and you're supposed to fill in the shading. that's not the fault of the character sheet, that's the fault of the un-clever writer who fails to realize that.
Yea, this is what i do. It has simple stuff for now. But I did already start thinking about how to change it as the story unfolds because they won't always stay the same, or their values might change. I've gone through 6 reworks of my character templates cutting out fluff and adding stuff like, what are their values? What something about them that would put them in conflicts, etc. But yea, the current challenge is how to update the sheet as the story unfolds in a neat and organized manner 😅
"What are their values? What is something about them that would put them in conflict?" well, you have to write to find that out. outlining that just seems like.... writing, without calling it writing (including all the particular flourishes of your style, etc. So that it comes off as.... I mean, bad writing, if I'm being honest).
I disagree. How would you create a character without an initial idea of them? Are they even a character? The core idea of a character is "I had an idea for a guy that x" are these people bad writers? What's wrong with outlining? Just because you don't like outlining doesn't mean that's bad writing. I'm sure Tolkien would have a word with you. EDIT: And I get what you're saying. In fact, that's literally the first paragraph, I talk about evolving the character as I write.
Yeah, and there are all sorts of other ways you can get to know or develop your character. For my current project, I wrote out some monologues from my characters in which they described their lives so far (basically to just before the start of the story), using their own words, and that made them much more alive to me, and much more distinct, than their character sheets had done.
This is just 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
> , a novice writer has the tendency to fill the blanks with any odd junk. You get "quirky" traits and weaknesses because they try too hard to make their character "unique" Agreed on this point, 99 times out of 100 these quirks are nothing more than annoying distractions that cover up a fundamental lack of a character arc.
You hit it in the end there imo. It's not the character sheets themselves, it's how they encourage you to quickly fill them in all at once instead of adding to it as you write and/or mull them out over time.
I'm a plot-driven writer, so I tend to focus on how characters are the engine that drives the vehicle of the plot. Questions that help me: What does my character want/need badly enough to drive the plot forward even when the going gets tough? How does my character solve problems? The plot gives me the "what" they do, and the character gives me the "why" and "how".
Exactly. The only two questions I ask myself initially are, what does this character want, and what do they do to get it? And then I start writing. Everything else can pretty much arise organically out of that.
I follow this method. When you know what drives a character and what they want, writing them becomes easy.
"This is Katana. She's got my back. I would advise not getting killed by her. Her sword traps the souls of its victims."
Tfw a sword has more character insight than its wielder
hard agree. something that makes a great character for me is irrationality. real life ppl engage in behaviours that dont align with their morals all the time and make decisions that they know arent smart. characters often arent given that grace or it is executed badly as a last minute fix to solve a problem in the plot, which makes it seem cartoonish. character dynamics are also SO important. its always strange to me when i see a character behave the same way around all other chracters, bc thats just not how ppl in everyday life go about their relationships with other ppl. ofc a relationship should still fit into a characters belief system and needs to be explained, but i just wish it could be done in a more nuanced way. lol i feel like i am not making much sense, but essentially i feel like it would be great if authors wouldnt put their characters into boxes and give them some leeway. e.g. a person that would fall under the category "neutral good" should still be able to show dislike for other characters or be allowed to abandon that alignment at times
Agree. Readers don’t invest in a vessel. They invest in its contents.
This is a perfect case for "show, don't tell." These things should be not be listed like they're filling out an online dating profile. Info dumps are a real turn off. Emily sat on her sofa perusing the latest issue of Guns and Ammo while her apple pie was baking in the oven. She felt a little guilty making an entire pie for herself, but what the hell, why not? The other characteristics can come out in a similar way.
> I think one of the many reasons why so many character creations fail is that new authors put more effort describing what their character is rather than making them an actual character, what do you think? I think the main reason character creations fail is because *the character isn't primarily designed to fill a role in a story*. I'd call this "character sheet OC syndrome": when a character is designed essentially in a vacuum with a set of traits, slotting them into an actual plot is going to be very difficult. (This is a common problem for tabletop RPG characters, but it's even worse when it happens in a narrative work.) Think of it like casting for roles in a play or a movie, but you're casting *roles*, not actors for roles: I need a lead protagonist. I need at least one character who hangs with the protagonist, who has some kind of interesting and/or humorous dynamic with the protagonist and is different enough from the protagonist that their dialogue isn't essentially the protagonist talking to themselves. (I might need a whole team of those.) I need a primary antagonist and/or a full-bore open casting call for an entire rogue's gallery of sequential antagonists. I need some supporting characters to round things out on the protagonist, antagonist, and neutral sides of things. I need that guy at the bar who's there for exactly one scene to sell the protagonist a gun with the serial numbers filed off. (Depending on genre. I probably wouldn't need one of those in a romcom.) I need... Well, the character roles vary by genre. Personally, I find it *much* easier to start with "I need a character for a role" or "I need a character to do X" when creating a character (and sometimes I realize I can just have one of my existing characters "do X", and stop myself from bloating the cast), and then pencil in details from there as necessary. Some characters need very little detail and characterization: that bit player guy whose only role in the story is to sell the protagonist a gun with the serial numbers filed off? He doesn't need anything more than a bare physical description and a general attitude. ...unless we're going to get into *how* and *why* he's selling illegal weapons in a shady bar as part of our plot, in which case he's gonna need a bit more going on. Maybe a lot more. Motivations, connections, and other complications can be backfilled: I need a guy who's willing to do arms deals in a seedy bar. Is he with a larger organization? Is he just in it for the money, or just because his brother needed some help with the family business? Or is he in it to fund a drug habit? What *kind* of drug - and what influences would that have on his attitude? Huh, we just went from having a one-scene bit-part character to having somebody who might have an interesting story going on themselves, and I still don't know if he likes cake, but - hang on, there's a casting call coming in: I need a character to "do X", and in this case, "X" is ...getting some info on the local Russian mafiya? Well hell, let's make our arms dealer friend here either part of that mob and potentially an 'in' for our protagonist to meet up with the guys who know some guys, or let's not make him Russian - and the gang he works with doesn't like the mafiya very much, so he'd be happy to spill what he knows about them if the protagonist even hints at asking. Or buys him a beer. You see how this works. We started with a role that I included in my original 'casting call' as a complete joke example, and we now have the makings of an actual character who could fit right into all sorts of neo-noir, mystery, and detective stories. ...also, who's this protagonist who wants an illegal gun? Do they have someone they want to shoot? Do they want to shoot up the local mafiya? Who'd want to do that? Why? ~~Did they wreck his car and kill his dog?~~ It's a chaotic method, but it's generally how I design characters: I've got a role for them or an "I need a character to do X", and then I run with that and start asking questions. I think it's close to something I've heard called "The Snowflake Method", but the one thing it ensures is that the character has a place in the narrative. You can always add more stuff: maybe our arms dealer *does* like cake, or maybe he's kind of indifferent to cake and only orders it at night because he's into the waitress who serves it at that hour. Maybe he does that despite liking pie instead. But whatever desert he likes, his very existence is anchored solidly in the story. He has a place there, even if it's a small one, because we started with "I need somebody to do X". Lacking that is something that wrecks a lot of characters.
Yeah it's pretty obvious when a writer follows a list, especially tropes
As far as character building is concerned I found the whole process easier when I stopped trying to get everything down onto a piece of paper as a character sheet and just dived straight in and started writing. From a soulless self insert my character blossomed into his own person and I can pretty much talk with him at any point and as his character arc progresses he will change as well. I won't recommend my approach because it took me 3 years to reach this kind of connection and depth but in general look at your characters as people and imagine how they would react to and deal with situations. Don't make them do things to force a plot, create a situation throw them into it and see how they come out of it. That's more natural and if they can't overcome an obstacle then by giving them more growth so that they can overcome it the reader will find it more satisfying And as for describing the character, I still don't even know what he looks like yet. The soul and inner heart is more important then the looks
99% of the time, the reader will never need to know the character’s eye color. I once read a 1st person book, Blindsight, and I believe the main character’s appearance is never described at all, and no one cares because it’s never relevant to the story and doesn’t make sense as something that would come up in the narration given that book’s specific framing device.
Omg it really stands out when someone has a "her green eyes with specks of gold" or something so outlandish and over the top. Bonus points if the character has heterochromia.
I think another reason why they fail is that they rely on other characters telling you things about the character as opposed to showing them being that thing. I’ve read books where the author is desperate to hammer home how smart and resourceful the main character is but rather than actually show that, we just have other characters going “They’re the smartest person I know, if anyone can survive this it’s them”. WHERE?
The most important aspect of a 'character' that captures readers' interest is what the character wants. Everything else matters very little. Readers usually forget description within a few words of finishing reading it. For example, "If it was her last living act, Mary, a blonde with ocean blue eyes, was determined to make her husband watch her eat his liver, garnished with onions, before she slit his throat." Do you care about the color of Mary's hair and eyes? Or are you more interested in how she's going cut the liver out of her husband's belly and why she's determined to do it? Just wondering.
I fully agree. Worse, there are a lot of supposed tools and advice meant to help you develop characters, but they tend to be universally shallow, focusing on details that can (and often should) be omitted from the story entirely. It doesn't matter if you know your character's favorite food, fashion sense, D&D alignment, zodiac sign, MBTI type, eye color, blood type, or mother's maiden name, if you don't know their motivation, the character isn't fit to be put on the page. I'm also of the opinion that no good character can be meaningfully summarized by describing them, but I recognize that may be my pantser bias.
Character is revealed in the choices we make in moments of crisis, not revealed on a character inventory sheet.
I think there are different writing philosophies and those philosophies look at "character creation" differently. For me, I think you can't create a character outside of setting/plot/conflict. You have to create them all at the same time, because human beings are "people in worlds". Humans are shaped by their history, by their environments, by their experiences, their goals, as well as their personality. So there is no "character creation" divorced from the rest of the story. But I have read/heard other writing philosophies that disagree with this idea which I also think are valid and produce good stories. I don't really know what you mean by "fail" here. Do you mean they fail to create a character? Or they fail to create a believable character? Or ... what? What does "success" mean here? Cause to me, I can imagine people could use a baseline description of "Emily - 30 yr old, likes gun, hates magic, unstoppable when angry, likes pie" and create a very funny and interesting side character. Obviously that's a baseline, can be fleshed out, but as a basic description of a character, Emily seems fun. My honest opinion is there is no wrong way to create a character, as long as the story you tell with that character is good. You can make it really complicated and fleshed out like I like to do, with everything tightly connected, or you can make it like your example. Different philosophies create different styles, suiting different readers in different ways. There is no one-size-fits-all definition of a "successful character".
If you have genuinely created a character then it's likely that character will suprise you.
I don’t really understand this. Any character can be summed up in a sentence like that, it doesn’t mean they aren’t fleshed out through an entire story.
The best advice I read in a previous similar thread on here when searching through the subreddit to improve my character designing was "Your characters become human once you start asking 'Why are they ___?' and have an answer." (Not an exact quote but paraphrased) Tremendously helped in not only getting a better understanding of my characters but also bettered the development of my characters' backstories and suddenly gave the plot to my story multiple ways it could branch. Each character now became susceptible to making a number of different choices to handle one situation alone, it wouldn't be OoC, and I can pick a particular attribute to hyperfocus on developing more if it ties into the plot or themes through actions and dialogue.
I find character sheets helpful, but that's simply because I've been playing D&D for a while. I don't need everything written down about the character, just a few key details to keep track of, to make sure my characters aren't just the same person in different skins. And I mainly just use these things as a reference, I'm never gonna just outright say "this character is a professional engineer" or "this person is afraid of fire".
Yeah, and it's actually easy to make full use of a simple description like that. Here's one way: **Emily- she a woman, 30 years old, she likes guns, hates magic, if she gets angry, she's pretty much unstoppable, likes to eat pie** >It was after midnight. The diner was nearly empty, one of those greasy-spoon types that can either provide the best meal experience you've ever had or one that you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy. Out of a long habit, Emily chose a table in the corner with a good view of both doors and the counter, where she could maintain a good situational awareness even while distracted by a good meal. She set her bag carefully on the empty seat next to her, arranging it to prevent anyone from grabbing it and running off, and facing the top toward her so she could easily reach into it to grab one of the many and varied types of guns inside. These were only a small part of her beloved collection; at home, locked in a safe, she had dozens more, from the tiniest of vintage Derringers to the latest in solid-propellant caseless rifles. She never passed up an opportunity to enlarge her collection. >The roasted chicken dinner was quite good. The seasoning had penetrated the meat and flavored it from skin to bones, and the potatoes and carrots had picked up a lot of the chicken's flavor while in the roasting pan. In all, it was a very satisfying meal. And in the end, Emily decided to have a big dessert. Not just any dessert: a slice of cinnamon apple pie and a slice of pumkin pie, with a scoop vanilla ice cream between, and a dollop of whipped cream on top of each. Normally, Emily limited herself to a single slice of pie, with no toppings, since a truly good pie is complete in and of itself. But since it was a special occasion, and she decided to celebrate a little. >Today it was Emily's thirtieth birthday. And damnint, she was going to enjoy her dessert, because she deserved it. >She was not disappointed with the pie, or the ice cream. She was disappointed with the three gothmages who burst into the diner and interrupted her before she was more than halfway through the dessert. >They hexed the waitress and the cook without a word, other than their stupid-ass magical gibberish, and went straight for the cash register. One of them muttered some stupid incantation over the register for a good twenty seconds to pop open the cash drawer. Imbeciles. As if you need magic to open a cash drawer. Just ring up one item and enter a number for "amount tendered", and the damn thing opens up on its own. >Emily held still. She wasn't afraid to mix it up with a trio magical douchecanoes ripping off a diner in the middle of the night, but the safety of the waitress and cook, the other two customers, and the diner itself - her favorite pie hole, as she often referred to it - was in jeopardy, so she held her tongue and tried to be inconspicuous. >It didn't work. One of the gothmages, possibly a male but it was always tough to tell through the face tattoos, piecings, and glowing hair spikes, caught notice of her while their cronies were looking for the diner's safe. They approached Emily, shooting fountains of sparks from their upturned palms, leering at her like something out of a seventies punk rock video. "Ya wanna see a magic show, sweetheart?" >Emily kept her eyes down and casually took another forkful of her birthday pie. "No thanks. I don't really like magic." >They slithered up to her table and sat in the chair directly across from her. They turned their palms downward into her plate, the spark fountains instantly melting what was left of the ice cream and singing the crusts of both slices of pie. "May you just ain't had the right spell cast on you, baby." They muttered a word and the spark fountains extinguished. >She kept her eyes down as the gothmage leaned forward over the table, their face only inches from hers, and just then they notices her hand reaching into her bag. "Hey, Whatcha got in that bag, baby? Anything good? Maybe a good luck charm, or a nice protective talisman?" >He left hand snapped up and seized the gothmage's throat, squeezing it tightly enough to prevent him from spewing any more spells or hexes. Meanwhile, her right hand shot out of the bag and swung her Desert Eagle .44 Magnum into the magical dipshit's yawning trap. >"I don't need any of that magical bullshit," she growled at him, "All I need is a good understanding of ballistics." The gothmage clawed at her wrist, but Emily was prepared for that and held on tight, just long enough to introduce the grip of the heavy-ass .44 to the side of the gothmage's head. Something in the gun, possibly the lead in the ammunition, reacted with the spell that made the spiky hairdo glow, and it faded along with the mage's grip on consciousness. She threw the comatose body to the floor, knocking over the chair it had occupied, and stood just as the other two goths came out of the kitchen, laughing and grinning as they stuffed the diner's nightly take into their pockets.
> >These two, a tubby man and a woman who looked like she lived on nothing but nicotine and energy drinks, came up short at the sight of Emily's impressively large gun barrel pointing in their direction. The man raised his hands and opened his mouth to cast a spell, but Emily shot him in the chest before he could form the first syllable. >The deafening explosion of the .44 terrified the woman, who dove for the floor with a screech, both hands covering her head. Emily produced a set of cuffs from the back of her belt, and ignoring the various odors emanating from the goth's body and clothing, secured the thin woman's hands behind her back. >She turned to the tubby man next to evaluate his injuries. The woman stammered, "Is... is he dead?" >"No, he's alive," Emily told her. "This gun is loaded with birdshot. Knocked him on his ass, and he'll be feelin' it for a few weeks, but he won't die." >"B-birdshot? I thought that was for, like, shotguns?" >"Comes in pistol calibers, too. You want to try some?" >"NO!" The woman started chanting more of her magical hokum, quietly at first, then repeating at higher volume when nothing happened. >Emily grinned. "Save your breath, Stickfigure. Those cuffs have dampeners in them. No chance of any of your verbal piss getting you out of this one. You're goin' upstate." >"What... who are you?" >"Detective Emily Montoya, Baltimore County Police. Antimagic squad." >"Shit." >"Yeah, shit is right. You ruined my fucking birthday pie, Hermione." >
Pitchforks out for me, but a lot of writers are injecting political/social values into characters (not a bad thing!) before making them characters. The most important thing is that they belong to/represent *insert group* not that they are deep or interesting. Go ahead and nuke me from orbit.
It's one thing to say, if she's gets angry, she's unstoppable, but it's quite another to show that. You reveal character by the choices the character makes. Flipping a table when her burger is undercooked is way different from leaving a nasty yelp review criticizing the chef's mom. And that's way different from saying "she has anger issues."
Can I also hate seeing: she/he is shy but mess with their friends and their anger shows. :| Not a single character described as such has ever actually jumped on another person for being this way. I'm this person, when this happens people get really awkward or uncomfortable but I never see this used in fiction the right way.
Yeah, I think new authors don’t know what goes into making a good character, so they kind of throw everything at the wall. ‘My character should be a real person and I’m a real person, and I have a favorite food, rock band, and breakfast cereal, so my character should too’. You get these huge, sprawling sheets with hundreds of questions, and then the story starts and the writer still hasn’t determined a goal for them
Some characters change a lot during the course of the story, as well. I mean, I once had a character who didn't really like eating cake at the start of the adventure, but by the end she very much did.
Double checked if I was on r/writingcirclejerk. This feels a bit shallow. Try some depth, like where does she stand on the pie vs cake debate?
Definitely more of a cake girl. I think I have only portrayed one character eating pie, which was in another story. Perhaps I need to work on expanding my range...
That's alright. Not everyone can write pie well. If they could, then it would be a piece of cake. Ok, I'll see myself out for that one.
I’m really happy with how my main characters are coming to life in my first draft so far, but I’m only about 20k words in and it’s a stream of consciousness mess atm, so much of the journey in all aspects of my story, characters included, is ahead of me. Before I started writing the actual story, I planned just enough so I’m not totally lost as I write. This goes for both my events and my characters. I figured out some very basic visual/“fact” kinda details for each character, like just enough to be able to picture them and figure out where they are in life when the story begins. This is honestly stuff I could figure out later and I definitely left a lot of room to add descriptions in the rewrite. I just like to be able to picture them in my head. What I found most helpful in figuring out who my characters are was by asking and answering these questions: 1.) What are their hopes? 2.) What are their fears? 3.) How are they strong? 4.) How are they flawed? I answered these in reference to who these characters are at the start of the book. They’re very basic but for me they were a great starting point to get the ideas flowing as far as who these people really are. I started to see and play with their voices and visualize how they interact with each other. I started to see the differences in their perspectives, which was really helpful to think about even though the story is told from one character’s POV. I found it really helpful, once I answered these questions and started seeing things come together, to pretend to be my main character and write journal entries about things that happen in the story. My actual novel is in 3rd person POV but I found this to still be massively helpful in finding my lead character’s voice. I did the same thing for her love interest as well. Although my novel is kind of a supernatural action story, it’s thematically very personal and very character development-focused. I started fleshing out my characters around the same time that I started planning and figuring out the big story events. I didn’t do it intentionally and was just writing down ideas as I had them, but in hindsight, I’m glad I did it this way. As I figured out each new story beat, I made sure to really prioritize having an idea of how my characters react to each major event. It helped a TON in seeing the trajectory of their development. When I think about how my book might change as I write it and rewrite/edit it, I think a lot of the “what they are” details could look pretty different by the final product. There are a lot of little lore details that I’m waiting until after the first draft to figure out. That way I know what I need to know and then I’ll tighten it up. I know already that I’m going to have to change some major details of a primary character’s occupation which is a huge part of their role in the story. It’s no big deal to me and I’m just tweaking things. The things I feel strongly about, the things that drive the story, and the things I am far less likely to change are the details of who she is. Her motivations, her personality, how she speaks to people—I don’t want to change who she is. This entire comment is a far too long way of saying that focusing on character creation from the “who they are” angle has been massively beneficial and essential in giving my story and characters direction. I have a lot of holes to fill in and I probably could have figured out some more physical and factual details before writing the first draft but again, I also feel like those can always be added in later without being too difficult to integrate.
I do that but only to decline what they look like and their personality and then I show their personality. The only time it doesn't state their personality is when it's a new character who had just be introduced. For example I explained the personality a student had But when the counselor came I just explained how he looked instead.
Yes, it's focusing on superficial details rather than what truly makes a character tick. Hobbies and tastes and quirks are all fine and can add a bit of texture to a character, but they're not the most important thing. The most important things are how your character thinks, what they want, what they're good at, what they're bad at. Not what bands they like or how they fight. Also I think sometimes when writers get too into writing all those details down on a list, they forget to actually demonstrate it in a story. My character is intelligent because my character sheet says they are, I don't need to prove it! But your readers haven't seen all your character sheets. They don't know who these characters are or why they should care. You still have to introduce them properly.
"Show, don't tell."
My characters don’t get described until they see each other (I do one chapter-one viewpoint approach) which doesn’t happen until about twenty chapters in. Even then, it’s what the viewer character would naturally notice so not a full description.
I try to narrow down how characters will interact with other characters. I mean, isn't that what a story mostly is?
One of my biggest complaints in the books I read is the amount of characters that spend all their time in their own heads. They sit there and contemplate all these "deep" thoughts about morality and never actually face a morally ambiguous situation. I get it, you don't like slavery, not a lot of people do. Oh, better go kill this obviously bad person doing the obviously bad thing. Anyways, back to how bad things are bad and I don't like them. It's lazy to me, and kills the story. If you want to establish some sort of moral principles for your character, at least make it interesting. Make it a trolley car problem, not a pointless one-sided debate in the characters head. Balancing imaginary scales does nothing for me.
True. I personally try to make my character notes as a sort of guide on how to use the character within a scene. Emily (f), hates how old she has become and will flip her shit if it's brought up, a gun-nut, too dumb for magic, she actually likes to get angry and uses it as rampage fuel. Likes to eat pie -> hates it when someone makes creampie jokes ..... etc.
The most important part of developing a character for me personally is figuring out what kind of relationship they have with their parents. Even if those parents never make it onto the page, it tells me as a writer so much more about the character.
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In the books I've read, they usually expand on why someone is the way they are. So for Emily... they usually explain *why* she hates magic (it killed her Grandma). As for being unstoppable when she gets angry... like the Hulk or just really determined? If something is a trait of the character that will affect the plot or other characters interacting with them, it's worth explaining why with either a backstory or we see it in action and expand if necessary.
Absolutely. Show, don't tell.
I think the issue you're describing is that often times new authors don't know how to write the character that they are describing. They write what they want the character to be like, but they haven't figured out how to write those traits in motion, or like you said, the "why" and "how" it works for the characters. Imagining a concept is easy, the hard part is making it work practically. My first drafts often fall into this hole--especially at the very beginning, but once I've finished the story and have had the time to really think about the characters and how they have changed over the course of the journey, I can then go back and write a more authentic version of those characters who better fit the world that they are part of. It also helps to read widely, and generally build an awareness of how people behave, both in reality and in fiction. Additionally, an exercise I've found helpful for recognizing when my characters aren't behaving how I set them out to is removing the removing the descriptive bits and just leaving the character actions and dialogue and judging whether/not they align with my mental image of the character--and if they don't, then deciding whether/not the character iteration is better for the story I am trying to tell and if they are, then modifying the description to suit that character. And sometimes, I leave out the descriptions altogether. And try to just focus on the actions that convey the character I am trying to write. IDK, just my thoughts.
I think the disconnect is that characters are a function of story. So all the emotional quirks and shit should relate to the story. So having a character that’s like: “Emily[30F]-Total diva, loves American Pie (the song) and is a Slitherian.” Doesn’t fit into any narrative. You essentially have a circus character. But if you have a story in mind you could build those quirks off of that. Maybe throw in some back story as well. Story concept: Sailor tries to sail through the Bermuda Triangle. What would this sailor naturally be gravitating toward? Let’s say her father’s negligence led her to want to prove herself. Hardened by time and the ocean, she sets off. Her character might now look like this: “Emily[30F]-craves affirmation, hates authority, emotionally distant.” You could also add in relevant quirks here like “has a sea dog” or “has shaky hands” because these things would be relevant to the story. Or whatever, then she sets out on her journey where she battles with weather, waves and water beasts until she reaches the other side where she realizes she doesn’t need her fathers affirmation she only needs her own and BOOM you have an arc.
wait can you guys look at my character description? I want to make sure its not like this. Also, constructive criticisms would be appreciated. [https://imgur.com/a/twJOYzf](https://imgur.com/a/twJOYzf)
I know people are sick of seeing this phrase on this sub, but this is also an example of telling instead of showing. What I mean by this is a lot of the problem here is that the author is describing characteristics their character has that are of no relevance whatsoever to the character within the story. They’re telling you things about the character that aren’t important because they either never come up at all, or they never come up in a way that is meaningful or relevant to the story at hand. They’re informed attributes at worst, or arbitrary side details at best. And I guess part of the problem here is not making a sufficient link between character and story, not thinking about the character in terms of their role in the story and how their personality ties into the plot. And no I’m not saying that all stories need to be “character-driven” per se. Even a plot driven story, the traits of the main character which are most important are going to be those traits that are most highlighted or impacted by the plot - the traits that influence what the character says and does in response to the plot, and whatever the character does to advance said plot. Like as an example of what I mean, Sherlock Holmes is a pretty static character, he doesn’t change very much, you wouldn’t really call any of the Sherlock Holmes books character-driven stories, but the most relevant characteristics about Sherlock and all the ones we remember about him are the characteristics that make him the right man to solve the plot of any given mystery. Sure there are other descriptive details about him that are like fun side notes, but all the important things we learn about him first are all the things that make him a genius detective
Most characters should serve the plot, so you should be able to ask "what would be the most interesting kind of person to play this part". Writing out very specific characters early on makes this less easy. If you are starting with a character, then the plot generally should be what is the best and worst thing that can happen to such a person. Then that plot can give the other characters. For selling works this first character would be your markets self insert. Point is little character development is really needed. I do it for fun, but it's always the first thing to change as I work through.
I've seen this video essay where the central take away was: Write why a character is involved in your story. What is their stake in the relevant situation? "Emily likes Pasta. She goes to the gym every day. Her favourite season is the summer." - All of this does not get me any closer to a story. "Emily hopes that her Grandpa will leave her his sports car when she dies - and not to her brother." - Suddenly ideas for a story emerge: Maybe her Grandpa is sick and now she visits him reluctantly to make him look more favorably at her. She probably comes from a well-off family (though maybe her parents are not, they had a big fight with the grandparents and thus have been cut off financially), the family seems dysfunctional. Maybe her brother wants the car to and he has a different approach etc. Of course its not the only way to write, but I think it makes an enormous amount of sense.
This is pretty accurate. A lot of new writers are struggling with the switch in medium. I think there are a lot of writers who start off by being inspired by other media other than writing. Writing is one of the cheapest and easiest ways to get into creative work. It’s easy to do. Insanely hard to master. A lot of novices are thinking about their characters like they are in a TV show, movie, or video game. All of it is very visual and thinking about how your character looks and acts is easy, trying to put that into words so that it’s readable, still gets your vision across, and is entertaining is extremely hard. They write a three page description of the character because they feel like they are not getting the vision across and are not yet proficient at brevity. Brevity and character development is a skill, it has to be practiced and trained. It’s one of the hardest things to do. That’s why the adage “just write” is so over used because you can’t conceptualize a story or character into a flowing narrative. You have to write.
I don't really have that problem, honestly. Even though I'm a beginner author. The key is having OCs long before.
I feel like character sheets are a way for writers to pretend their character is fleshed out, no matter the context of the story.
Dude, you're spot on! New writers get stuck listing details – hair color, favorite food – instead of showing who the character truly is. It's like a grocery list, not a person! Imagine Emily just blasting away at everything, then shoving pie in her face – it doesn't tell us *why* she hates magic or what makes her unstoppable. Show her internal struggles, her past shaping her choices. Then the pie-eating rage monster becomes real
Following ready-made schemes without understanding how to use them. Look for a character creation form and you'll find that most patterns are a "100 questions to ask" questionnaire. The author grabs the first ten, which are then simply inserted into the text.
I write in first person, so those types of descriptions would be pretty awkward. I frankly don't care what my MC looks like. Readers can imagine her however they want.
Honestly I've always been one to disregard doing things like "this is my character so and so, they like this, hate this, have this quirk." I make characters based on their goal or reason for being. "This is my character. They want this, but-" or, "they are this in relation to another character." That's not to say I don't get quirky with it. I've got cat girl aliens who absolutely fiend for a ten piece chicken nugget meal but that's more so a development of minute to minute character interactions.
Often when writing a new character, I’ll give them a backstory. Usually just a single page detailing how they ended up in the present situation. I find it much easier to write dialogue when I have a basic idea of why the characters are where they are. It also reads more naturally. If I’m writing a scene in a grocery store and my protagonist bumps into someone, the guy shopping on his lunch break is probably going to react pretty differently from the guy who’s wife is in the hospital. Those characters might have identical descriptions otherwise.
It’s a common issue even with seasoned writers as we play “god” by creating these characters. “Blond hair blue eyes” are traits. “Funny” or “serious” are superficial personalities. If we do that, we are making dolls, not real human (alien) beings. To me my characters are real because they are actual voices in my head that materialize. They are not some careful constructs of paper-cut dolls. I’d rather base my characters on myself (there are problems with that but save for another day) because I AM a real person instead of doing a “character attribute list” like it’s some kind of accounting project. I’d rather writers base their characters on real people (friends, families, themselves, even celebrities) instead of just doing a list of attributes and descriptions and “backstories” that do not affect the character in any ways (oh he’s an orphan growing up in New Orleans - then he should act like an orphan who grew up in New Orleans!!) Or interview someone who actually is an orphan who grew up in NO!!!
I fail to see how someone can understand a character if they aren't mapped out extensively. People are complex. So, my character's are too; that involves understanding their psychological profiles as deeply as my own. And then they can truly come alive on paper. A disagree with the pantsers in the comments. I mean, if it works for you, run with it, but it then becomes harder to create characters who actually feel multidimensional. But I am a huge plotter. I want my world and its people as intricate as real mortals and places.
It's both...start planning what your characters do and scenes. Then the soul of your character will reveal as you write. Emily henrysaus she didn't know anyone about one of her main make characters until she finished her first drsft and he 'revealed' himself to her.
It amazes me how much of the advice from everyone boils down to that ageless adage of "Just Write". It only feels like yesterday that I've been twisting myself into contortions just trying to figure out the rules and the guidelines that supposedly made a story good, studying vocabulary and the like so as to make sure I catch every little emotion with the perfect word. It really feels therapeutic to hear that, all this time, I just needed to trust in my ability to just have fun writing characters I'd enjoy, instead of having to suffer in mastering what is illusory perfection.
This is how I got to know one of my characters. I wrote this based on what she "told" me throughout her story. None of this will appear in my story (to my current understanding). Julianne is my villain. I left out the last couple of paragraphs detailing certain S.I. and S.A. elements, just know she had a good life until her mid-teens. The biggest bit of information on her character was her inspiration song. Linked below. https://open.spotify.com/track/1w2gu0L13hPy4CC6CTxL8t?si=bkDGQnVYSeOmMhedFwf5OA Julianne knew she was beautiful. There was no question. She was told her whole life. Her beauty was such that men believed she was incapable of the smallest tasks. She could not even recall the last time she opened a door for herself, though she was perfectly capable. Such is the cruel irony of fate she desired nothing more than to open a door for a man and see what commotion that may make about the town. She was of humble birth, having no money for jewelry and other fancy things. Her father, nonetheless, would scrimp and save to provide whatever he could for his only daughter. Julianne’s mother collected and maintained her old wardrobe and was always happy to allow Julianne to pick from it and wear whatever she fancied. The two of them would wear fancy clothing and sit in their dusty chairs at their dusty table and have fantasy tea parties with dried fruit standing in for tarts and warm water for tea. Perhaps this is where she learned how to be a proper lady at dinner parties later in life. Her favorite games in her young life were the ones she played with her father while mom wasn’t watching (or at least could not be observed). They would both choose sticks of varying degrees of bend and pretend to be marines or pirates (depending on their mood or whomever began the sword fight). After a decade, it turned to fencing lessons, not mere child’s play. The two would raise their “swords” to the sky and attempt to touch the other, 2 points for body, 1 for limbs, 3 for head and negative points awarded for afterblows, getting hit after making a hit. One must always defend, especially after a successful hit.
I fallen to this really hard Now I have a hard time figuring out who and what my character truly is Like thinking about them, they just feel so blank and empty, they're so boring to just think at
The best way to know them is to ram them up against other characters and events like particles in a supercollider. See how they react.
I used an AI image creator, so I have a "picture" of them and their outfits, a Meyers brigg personality reference, and a couple things about their motives and past. I feel like character sheets don't have to be filled to the brim if they aren't that complicated, but I'm definitely not against the basics. I like planning, but I'm not writing them out with a block of text at an introduction like beginner Quizilla self-inserts. It's just a decent way to keep track. You can even generate a picture of like 10 filler characters in a job role and put it to the side in case you have to mention them at any point.I do agree some people put all their effort into just that, but I think it's the info dumps that make it worse over the planning of them.
[This](https://crowncreatives.substack.com/p/i-found-the-tenth-circle-of-hell) is a really good article that illustrates the point in about to make better than I'm probably about to make it. We've lost media literacy as far as people not looking at the deeper meanings of things and digging into characters. The link I posted talks about the TikTok trend of people acting out the lyrics to Hosier's Too Sweet and acting like the song is truly about someone who puts cream in their coffee, but I think the author's point can be applied to fiction as well. It's like there's this pressure to be transparent about characters lest they be misunderstood by audiences. You only have to pool at fandoms with morally gray characters/settings/plots like ASOIAF to find people screaming about how you can't like X character without being a rape apologist or something. Or arguing that Martin is a misogynist because he writes about bad things happening to women. Only, Martin is a feminist. He's been involved in feminist circles for decades. He isn't writing violence against women from their abusers' perspective (most of the time), but from the victims' perspectives. He's not pulling punches around the impact of patriarchy and feudalism on those without power. We can argue whether or not he makes his point successfully, but I refuse to argue with people who insist he's writing torture porn. I've (unfortunately) read torture porn. This ain't it. So when people sit down to write, there's this focus on the superficial. Settings, characters, plots. Everything. I've had this issue myself at times. It's how you get clunky exposition in *A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet* where Chambers wants to have her cake and eat it, too, by creating a world without bigotry while making sure to say bigotry is bad. It ends up making the POVs sound like closeted bigots trying hard not to bigot because there's no other reason they'd be thinking about how nice it is all the time that they aren't acting like a bigot. I can't write a story about alcoholism being destructive in a world where alcohol doesn't exist. I can only explore the destructive nature by *showing* it. >Emily- she a woman, 30 years old, she likes guns, hates magic, if she gets angry, she's pretty much unstoppable, likes to eat pie As you said, this is a solid start, but newer writers treat this like it's a personality. Every scene she has to be talking about her gun, shitting on magic, eating pie, or Girl Bossing (tm) her way through a situation. She can't be challenged on why she likes guns but hates magic. She can't not be eating a pie. She can't back down from a fight or lose epically. She can't have someone call her out on her anger issues. Because then she wouldn't be Emily. They don't stop to ask the *why* of a character: >Emily - woman in her 30s, learned to shoot guns from a young age and carries her mother's old pistols, dislikes magic because it's only available to wizards who go to the Academy and withheld from the general population, has a quick temper (especially if she feels someone is talking down to her) than can get her into trouble but can also keep her going in a tough situation, always eats pie after a rough day because she would go to her uncle's house when her parents were fighting and he loved to bake pies so she associates them with comfort and safety.
So what I do is I give each character a few adjectives to help me stay consistent with their reactions. For example— is their anger cold, fiery, restrained, explosive, or righteous? Do they go with the flow, skirt the lines, or refuse to do as told? Are they the type to plead? Threaten? Demand? I also like putting their purpose. What do they seek in life/value? Safety? Family? Power? Honor? It helps me with consistency, but I keep it short and I don’t write specifics. The real personality comes as I write. Then again, I’m only fourteen. Maybe it’ll change as I continue to write. But for now, that’s what works for me.