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Hello, everyone!
To be honest, I’m new to writing. I’m beginning a novel (I’m still in the planning stage), and I really need to develop my characters. Do you all have any characterization tips?
Thanks!
~ Greta
Ho yes. Lots of fun stuff to do with characters. *rubs hands together gleefully*
So, what have you done so far? Do you have the characters and need to develop them, or are we starting from scratch here?
Get down the basics to start out with. Name and/or nicknames. General appearance and personality. Likes and dislikes. That sorta stuff. Finding out the characters’ MBTI types is also really helpful for keeping them consistent (link here if you want: http://16personalities.com/). Just go through the test as your character or with your character in mind.
I could ramble on all day, really. I love characters. 😛
Give me some direction here on what you specifically need help with and I’ll probably be a little more helpful. 😉Love characterization! @writefury pretty much nailed it, especially with the bit about MBTI (it sounds as if we might have a lot in common there). 🙂
I also find it useful to sit down and write an array of short scenes in which the characters get to display their quirks, beliefs, and overall traits. Have them do silly things, like playing “Rock, Paper, Scissors”, or discuss/do serious things, like arguing about justice vs. mercy… anything like that. Get to know your characters in everyday life.
Talk to them. If your characters aren’t real enough to hold a conversation with, they won’t be real to the readers. So ask them questions— ask them how they feel about their life, how they feel about what you make them go through. Ask them what they would change about your story— ask them what they’re afraid of, and why they are afraid. Ask them what they love. Analyze what their answers say about their personalities.
No, that was not a joke. Do this— seriously. It’s loads of fun and incredibly helpful.
The general rules of characterization are impossibly broad to cover in one post, but there are some quick tips I like. One of them is the paradox— this one is fun, and maybe wouldn’t work for EVERY character, but I like it.
Basically, make them contradictory. For instance, I have a really tough, mature, commanding guy in one of my stories. He’s a very dominant character— drives everyone hard and himself harder. Has no mercy when it comes to mistakes. Holds everyone responsible to the same impossible standards he sets for himself.
And this same character has a thing for moths and woodmice.On the other extreme, I have a very quiet, discreet, introverted, compassionate guy who’s strong in an understated way. He’s not pushy, not bossy, not sharp or sarcastic.
And this guy has a thing for any and all reptiles— particularly poisonous reptiles with long fangs.So the point is, give them little contradictory quirks that make them complicated and interesting, maybe a little confusing in an intriguing way. That’s one of many little tricks you can use.
Hopefully that was helpful. 😛
You forced me to actually think through how I go about characterization. I discovered that I have a somewhat strange system. What it really comes down to is impulsive consistency. Most of the time I almost surprise myself when I introduce a new character. The idea generally pops into my mind shortly before I write them. I think though, that whenever I add in a new character, I subconsciously answer two questions. 1: Why do I need this character? 2: Why is the character going to do what I want them to do? The answer to the first question shows the purpose for the character’s existence, but the answer to the second show’s that person’s character itself. As soon as I come up with a new character, I get this mental image in my mind. It is not really a photograph, but it is a very rough painting, blurry, more of an outline. It is hard to explain. There is also a sort of emotion that I feel in each character. I can tell if that feeling is significantly different from the one I sense for another character. I do not want them to be too similar. It is that peculiar emotion that seems to naturally come out of the vagueness in my mind and express itself in unique speech, facial expressions, appearance, actions, and reactions. In my opinion, if you do not think you could pick out a song that is “your character” among ten, you do not have a very good idea of who your character is yet. For me, it is my own opinion that my subconscious thoughts define my characters enough that they appear real and visible, but I always seem to have a blindness to my own writing and its faults, so that is for others to say. It is why we have beta readers and editors. Perhaps my subconscious is unusually strong though. I wouldn’t be surprised. I’m very heavily intuitive. If you are having problems with conceptualizing your characters, you may want to actually ask and answer that second question I listed. “Why is the character going to do what I want them to do?” The answer is not because you want them to. They have their own reason and if they cannot have their own things that drive them, then they are not real.
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As soon as I come up with a new character, I get this mental image in my mind. It is not really a photograph, but it is a very rough painting, blurry, more of an outline. It is hard to explain. There is also a sort of emotion that I feel in each character. I can tell if that feeling is significantly different from the one I sense for another character. I do not want them to be too similar. It is that peculiar emotion that seems to naturally come out of the vagueness in my mind and express itself in unique speech, facial expressions, appearance, actions, and reactions.
My collective term for all that is that character’s ‘color’. 🙂
And thank you so much for that post @Daeus— I was absolutely clueless how to say that, but you laid it all out perfectly. That is exactly how I do my characters too. 😀
Hi everyone! Sorry I didn’t respond sooner. 🙂
Thank you all for your advise! @writefury, I haven’t done much of anything yet…I guess I didn’t know where to start (but I did come up with the MC’s name, which is a start 🙂 ).
@hannah-krynicki, that’s a great idea! I’ll have to try that.
@kate-flournoy and @daeus, I will have to refer back to your responses when I’m developing my characters! 😀@gretald Glad to be of help. 😛 I’d take into consideration one of @kate-flournoy’s points as well when your starting out. The bit about contradictions is definitely something to work with. Usually having a fish-out-of-water concept to work with starts off the inspiration quite a bit.
Cressida Cowell came up with Hiccup as “The Viking Who Was Seasick”. And it went from there.
I did the same thing with a lot of my characters. The cyborg who, instead of being super cool, is clumsy and silly. And the super cool spy who gets stuck with him. The grumpy old man who has kept in shape since his military days and can actually do quite a few things you wouldn’t expect. The department store santa who’s tall and skinny….
It goes on. 😛
So what is your characters story?@writefury, thanks for the ideas! I’ll have to think about the contradictions idea. 🙂
The story, so far, is about a girl (the MC) who lives in a small town in another land. It’s fantasy, so I’m probably going to set the story in another world (which I haven’t figured out the name of yet 🙂 ). An evil king rules the country in which she lives, and this king is trying to locate the Keeper of the 9 Powers (the 9 Powers are the elementary forces which make up the world and whoever can control them will have everlasting power). The Keeper of the 9 Powers holds the secret to unlock the 9 Powers. If the king can control the Keeper, he can control the Powers. For reasons I haven’t figured out yet, the MC is taken to the castle of the king, where the king finds that the MC is the Keeper. The MC escapes and goes into hiding. And she is declared an outlaw in her own land.
…That’s all I have so far. Do you have any ideas for making the plot better? 😀
I might— just a quick suggestion. Work with your villain a little. Why does he want to control the nine powers? Is it just because POWER and PRESTIGE? Is it just because he’s SOOOOOO EEEEEVIL?
You can make him more complicated and interesting than that, I know. 😉
@kate-flournoy, great suggestion! I’m definitely going to work with the plot…what I wrote is by no means set in stone. 😉 I’m definitely going to work out why the villain wants the 9 Powers; it actually drives me crazy in stories when the villain has no particular purpose for destroying things and terrorizing people…he just does because he’s the villain. 😛
@kate-flournoy Sorry to disagree, but the villains desire to control the 9 powers seems the most natural thing in the world. If I personally were offered control of the whole world, I hope and would guess I might deny it, but don’t think for a moment it wouldn’t tempt me. Of course he wants power and prestige. Everybody does to one degree or another (or at least I do).
What I am wondering is how this desire balances out with his other desires and why it wins. Obviously trying to take over all the power in the world is going to enrage his people. Maybe he does it secretly. Maybe there is something that he wants to do with that power so bad that he doesn’t care what the risks are. Maybe he is a gambler at heart. Maybe he thinks his life is only worth living if he can have absolute control.
Or maybe he is obsessed with marrying the MC and that is why he brought her to his castle, but she refused with vehement obstinance, so he sought the 9 powers so that he he control her to his will, and then found out that she controlled the 9 powers …
OK, that’s kinda morbid, but it was one of the first things that came to mind.
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No, I actually agree to some extent with that @Daeus. What I was asking is why he wanted to control them— why he wanted power, why he wanted prestige. It seems a little cheesy to me that he would want them simply for their own sake— simply because he’s wholeheartedly black and finds pleasure in them for the destruction he can wreak with them. What does he want to accomplish with them, and why?
What I was asking is why he wanted to control them— why he wanted power, why he wanted prestige. It seems a little cheesy to me that he would want them simply for their own sake— simply because he’s wholeheartedly black and finds pleasure in them for the destruction he can wreak with them. What does he want to accomplish with them, and why?
@kate-flournoy, that’s the part I’m still trying to figure out. 🙂 I do agree that there needs to be some sort of reason.Or maybe he is obsessed with marrying the MC and that is why he brought her to his castle, but she refused with vehement obstinance, so he sought the 9 powers so that he he control her to his will, and then found out that she controlled the 9 powers …
xD @Daeus
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