Falling In Love With Your Characters - Page 2 - Writers Forum

Nazareth · 12-09-2003, 01:14 PM

MissDante- good advice- Also, if you want, think of someone you know weell, write down their attributes, weaknesses, likes, dislikes, think about a relative or close friend- use their attitudes and charecter traits to work into you characters-

Do they shop alot? do they like wild colorful clothes? do they work on Harleys, constantly tuning them, obsessed with performance? Are they always talkin politics or sports? Are they sassy? wise? meek? reserved?

Write the story, then go back and incorporate these characteristics into scenes- re-writing the whole scene if necessary (Though try to instill as much character while you write)

Read good books that describe their charecters, taking notes on how they accomplish the feat.

The more oomph Ya give your characters, the more you'll start to like them.

"Oh, last thought: don't make perfect people. This sounds a bit odd, but all characters really need to have some kind of flaw somewhere. A character who is absolutely wonderful in every way may be easy to fawn over at first, but sooner or later you'll want to put their head through a wall."

LOL exactly

DreamWalker · 12-10-2003, 11:03 PM

As long as you give motives, history, etc....the readers will know where the character is coming from, and will eventually grow to have feeling for the character, either good or bad ones, which will draw them into the plot and what not.
WOt WOT!

Lord Archimage Nykimbur · 12-19-2003, 05:11 PM

Just remember one thing: You're the only person who knows your character. Even they don't know everything you can know about them. This means that you are responsible for them. You need to have passion for your story, or you won't enjoy writing your character, and if you can get close enough to them you won't hold back their details and development. This is a good starting point, and later learn to get into the minds of villains to make them as three dimensional as possible, or characters that you don't like.

Farror · 12-19-2003, 06:03 PM

Actually, they should probably remember more than that about how to make a character in my opinion, or he will be so 2 dimensinel it's not funny!

Lord Archimage Nykimbur · 12-19-2003, 06:14 PM

Yeah, that too, that would be a prerequisite.

Farror · 12-19-2003, 08:23 PM

Yeah, I'm just teasing you! I just love to take advantgae of it when people unwittingly say something that makes no sense!

Lord Archimage Nykimbur · 12-20-2003, 06:20 AM

LOL, so do I, I'm a joker!

Farror · 12-20-2003, 09:06 AM

Yeah! Yeah! Me too! *franticly noding*

Vixen · 07-07-2004, 11:31 PM

At risk of sounding like Kate Chopin, I would tell you, allow yourself (if only for a few minutes every day) to treat your characters as though they were real, as real as you are.

1. Fun writing excercise, have a conversation with one of your characters. If you were to meet, where would it be? What would you have to say to eachother?

2. Method Acting- Go beyond finding something that relates to your own life. Try being that character to whatever extent you safely can.

3. Playfull analysis Interaction- Using the "I have this friend" anology, when trying to ask someone about how well crafted your character is can sometimes work better than bluntly saying, "I'm writing about this guy.' People tend to be harser, and more revealing about thier opinions of real people than speculative fiction characters...Of course, don't lie to your friends, the good ole hypothetical, followed by an explanation tends to work...and get laughs, in my experiance.

4. Analysis 2- The Internet holds thousands of online physcological evauluations, quizes, and so forth. Try taking a good quiz in the mindset (See Idea 2) Of your character, this can be done with multiple characters, and often loeads to questions (and analysis) you might not create on your own.

Personaly, I've had some very, very ill-fortune when it comes to taking characteristics from people I know.

In one case, I was accused of using someone in his entirety in one of my stories. After reading advice much like this, he presumed that the protagonist of my story was based on his personality. I never had the heart to tell him that what I had borrowed from him, in fact, went mostly to my villian.

In the second instance, I once created a character so simialar to the boy I admired at the time, that he underwent spontanious changes as soon as I strated to like someone else. Though this character's personality is cemented (and fairly origional, I met him in a particularly vivid dream, and he has dropped into my subconcious meanderings ever since) his physical description would change from draft to draft, depending on wich guy was in favour. This grew to be rediculous.

But I have a tendancy to carry things very far. May the ideas above be interesting... and best of character luck to all of you...

DawnMorningStar · 07-08-2004, 12:06 AM

I agree with those who said that putting a piece of yourself into the characters really helps you to care about them.

Another trick that I recently discovered (don't laugh) is role play. I would have never thought of this approach, but for the past year, I have been role playing with some friends and I created a few characters for it that I have really grown attached to. It's neat because the other people's characters do things that you wouldn't expect and your own characters then have the chance to react to those situations as they would in real life. I developed a whole background story for my characters, as well as their personalities--flaws, strengths, likes, dislikes, abilities, etc. simply through acting out scenes with other people. It sounds corny, but I have NEVER developed a character as thoroughly as I did while a part of that RP. And I have really fallen in love with my main character.

The book I'm currently working on incorporates all of those characters (and then some), and I'm finding that it's very easy to work on because I love the characters dearly and I'm completely surrounded by their world.

Perhaps if RPing isn't for you, you can sit down and think about all the ways in which your characters might react to certain situations and also to one another, and that might help you to grow more attached to them since you are bringing that element of realism into their personalities.

Hope that helps!

Talia_Brie · 07-08-2004, 07:11 AM

I would tend to disagree with people saying you should 'consciously' place some of your own personality in your characters. Not everyone is saying this of course, but I just mean be careful.

You don't want to end up with a book filled with characters who are all like you. Not that I think you're not a nice person, but if you did that all your characters would be the same, and that would be boring.

Your characters will naturally have some of your characteristics and personality because you create them. It will happen naturally. Don't force it.

Samuel Delany (SF writer - check out Triton, Utopian SF, quite good) said if you want to make a character real, they need to do three things:

1. Something selfish
2. Something selfless
3. Something gratuitous.
(not necessarily in that order.)

because real people do these things.

Ray Feist (I don't need to tell you who he is, do I?) says he sometimes bases characters on actors, because their personality traits are visual. Adding visual habits etc can flesh out a character, and can be easy to do: "What would Brad Pitt say here?".

DawnMorningStar · 07-08-2004, 03:47 PM

Quote:

You don't want to end up with a book filled with characters who are all like you. Not that I think you're not a nice person, but if you did that all your characters would be the same, and that would be boring.

I agree with you there, Talia_Brie. And you definitely don't want to turn any of your characters into Mary Sue's, which unfortunately can happen without your knowing if you model them too much after yourself.

When I said it's a good idea to put a bit of yourself into your characters, I was referring more to "writing what you know". Think about how YOU might react to certain situations, etc, and that will help you to develop a realistic, likeable character. And using characteristics that are totally opposite of you can be really fun too.

Talia_Brie · 07-08-2004, 08:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DawnMorningStar

Quote:

You don't want to end up with a book filled with characters who are all like you. Not that I think you're not a nice person, but if you did that all your characters would be the same, and that would be boring.

I agree with you there, Talia_Brie. And you definitely don't want to turn any of your characters into Mary Sue's, which unfortunately can happen without your knowing if you model them too much after yourself.

When I said it's a good idea to put a bit of yourself into your characters, I was referring more to "writing what you know". Think about how YOU might react to certain situations, etc, and that will help you to develop a realistic, likeable character. And using characteristics that are totally opposite of you can be really fun too.

"Write what you know" is all the advice anyone should need. It's absolutely essential.

thelatemitchellwarren · 07-08-2004, 11:09 PM

Make them unlikable.

Then mix and stir.

Whende · 09-03-2005, 03:57 PM

Draw up an out line of what your character likes to do, what are they afraid of, how do they act in a certain situation etc. You don't have to put this all in the book. Just the important parts. If you know your character, you will love it. To make the reader love the character, don't make them like paper dolls. Just put their personalities through in their dialog.

Ex: One of my favorite characters is such a scardy cat it isn't even funny, but you can only tell because he acts scared, not because I delibrately say: Nyer is such a scardy cat it isn't even funny.