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OK, I know that I posted a topic about this before, but I have another question about characterization. So what are some questions that I could ask to help develop a character? I thought of one–what would the character do if he/she won a million dollars–but do you all have any other questions that would help to develop characters?
Allow me to redirect you. 🙂 To that place in the link right there. 🙂
Honestly, I don’t develop my character’s that way. Don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad. If you like to ask questions though, try these:
Does this character keep tend to keep their thought to themselves, or express them openly?
How do their general life circumstances affect their disposition?
How do they respond to praise?
How do they respond to criticism?
How do they tend to spend their time?
What can make them angry?
What do they really love?
How do they talk?🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢
@gretald
Maybe…
Pet peeves
Where they like to spend their time
Who they like to hang out with (or whether they like to be alone)Yeah, my brilliant ideas…lol. 🙂
A dreamer who believes in the impossible...and dragons. (INFJ-T)
@kate-flournoy: Hehe, I was looking for that topic, but I couldn’t remember where it was. 🙂
@Daeus: Thanks! So how do you develop characters?Hehe, thanks @ingridrd
Yep, well there it is! 😉 And I’ll be happy to answer any further questions you have, of course, provided I KNOW the answers. 😉 😀
I just figured you should see if any of your questions had already been answered before we went over it again. 😛@gretald
Mostly intuition and mostly as I go. When I first make a character, I get a feel for them. It’s not really a set definition of who they are, it’s more about how they make me feel. When I’m writing them in a scene, I try to bring out that feeling in concrete character qualities. Sometimes I emphasise character qualities I have already pointed out. Sometimes I bring out new character qualities. Often these latter will surprise me a bit. For instance, I had this one girl who so far had been a little too – I don’t know – maybe flat, idealistic, too subjected to the plot. Anyway, she ended up getting in this rather interesting situation and she turned out having this neat combination of uncertainty, bravery, and really really good sense. It kinda surprised me at first, but then I was like, “Yes, this is so her.”I guess if there is one thing I like to get down about my character, it is their ideologies. Do they worship money? Are they Christians? Are they agnostics? Do they hope to cleanse their sins by perpetual self-denial and service? In my current (main) WIP, my MC is a fatalist. This has a large effect on his personality. It places at the forefront of his being the inner struggle between destiny, his passions, and the struggle between the two. As a man thinketh, so is he.
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@Daeus
Amen to that last statement!A dreamer who believes in the impossible...and dragons. (INFJ-T)
Oh, okay. Thanks for the ideas and help @Daeus! 🙂
@gretald I generally develope as I go, but some thing I did a while back for fun was take all my main characters from my novel and write out facts about them the reader probably won’t find out in the course of the story. It seems pointless at first, but it’s actually help a lot. Cos it’s the little things that make up a person. Just because a character doesn’t encounter heights throughout the course of their story doesn’t mean they aren’t afraid of heights. Or just because you never meet their uncle doesn’t mean they can’t look up to him.
Or it could be something that happens in the story. For example, one of my characters, Millenia, finds it necessary to hunt in order to survive. I don’t specifically tell readers where she learned to hunt as a child, but I know that she learned to hunt from her older brothers best friend, Eli. Believe it or not that actually does effect how I write Millenia’s character and the relationship between her and Eli.
I just rambled on a lot for a simple question… but characterization is my favorite part of writing… 🙂Thanks! @kate-flournoy
@adry_grace, thanks for the tips! 🙂I’m not sure if I recommended MBTI before, but that’s a good starting place.
Are they introverted or extroverted?
What makes them laugh?
What’s there pet peeve?
What random things do they like/dislike?
Any gestures or particular phrases they tend to use?
Etc.
Generally, my characters sort of begin with one defining idea and grow from there. And situation determines a lot. 🙂@writefury MBIT is awesome. Thing is, I wouldn’t recommend taking the test from how you think your character would. I tried that for my MC once and when I saw the results I was like, “No, that’s not him.” Well, at least if it was him, the stuff they told me about his personality didn’t relate much to how he acted in the story so I think they/I got it wrong.
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@writefury: Ohhh, yes! MBTI is helpful. 😉
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