Thread: How do you decide which characteristics to use to develop a character?

ALL people have literally thousands of characteristics. How do you decide which of these characteristics to use, when building up a character for a story?

I ask my character questions, and then I write the answers to the questions in my character's voice.

What is your name? ____

How would you describe yourself? ______

What is something you would do almost anything to have? ____________

What is something you would do almost anything to prevent? ___________

What was the a significantly good moment in your past? ____________

What was a significantly bad moment in your past? ____________

etc.. etc..

I vary with the questions, because sometimes the questions suck. But I usually end up with a sort of character that begins to define him/herself, and my creativity kicks in and takes it from there.

I've been coming here for a long time OX but I'm still never quite sure when you're actually being serious...

Originally Posted by Bad Craziness

I've been coming here for a long time OX but I'm still never quite sure when you're actually being serious...

I’m deadly serious.

I’ve nearly finished a novel. It contains cardboard characters.

A rewrite is coming up.

I need to bring these characters to life.

So, for example, how do I decide whether to make the female lead a straight-laced spinster or a flirt? Is the villain rotten to the core or does he have a hidden streak of kindness? Is the male MC dumb or clever? The ways in which I choose to see these characters in my mind will to a large degree determine how the rewrite pans out.

At least, that's how I see the problem.

I try to use the exercises a lot of actors do when they're trying to bring a character to life. I imagine what they look like, what they're wearing, from the underwear up. How do they walk, or take their coffee? *How do they make money and how do they spend it?*And what drives them to make these seemingly small decisions?*All these common, but very personal behaviours are what we base our impressions on when it comes to people in our own lives.

For instance, it's one thing to say that a woman is a flirt, but does she flirt because she is super confident, or because she has painfully low self esteem and has to constantly validate herself with the attention of men? Both these women might flirt a similar way, but there are a hundred little differences between them that you would pick up on in real life. Maybe stop yourself while you're sitting in traffic, or going about your average day and think to yourself, what would 'character X' *be doing now?*

Well, any, that's just how I think about it.*

Originally Posted by BabaYaga

For instance, it's one thing to say that a woman is a flirt, but does she flirt because she is super confident, or because she has painfully low self esteem and has to constantly validate herself with the attention of men? Both these women might flirt a similar way, but there are a hundred little differences between them that you would pick up on in real life.

This is a tremendously insightful comment and is the type of thing with which I may need to concern myself if I am to make my characters seem real. Thank you.

Even though I am aware that there is a distinct possibility that you're just taking the p***, you are most welcome *

Jeez, what do I need to do to be taken seriously around here? In fact, it's funny, as this is what I meant about the fact that people are multi-faceted. We all have many sides to our characters, the intellectually-challenged perhaps excepted.

Well in this instance I "think" your being serious

ALL people have literally thousands of characteristics. How do you decide which of these characteristics to use, when building up a character for a story?

Pick the ones I like and go for it. Characteristics are like making up rules for a game and then deciding that I'm going to stick to those rules.

I start with the surface and work my way in. In other words, I determine how the character would come across in real life, then figure out WHY they're like that.

For example, one of the characters in my story is spunky and energetic, always trying to get on peoples' good sides and always trying to meet as many new people as possible. It wasn't until I did some digging that I decided that those emotions were simply a false front. Deep down, she had some severe guilt issues from an earlier tragedy. She feels that no one can love her as she is, which makes her all the more eager to appear cheerful and friendly, which makes her feel even more guilty for furthering that fake persona.

Why did I pick those characteristics? I suppose the main reason is that I'm terrible to my characters and I can't stand it when they're happy (and that's not as tongue-in-cheek as I'd like it to be, either). The lighter perspective is simply that the outer appearance appealed to me in general, and the inner truth paved the way for character development.

The key thing to determine is, what is a character's motivation? Honestly, it could be anything as long as it makes sense. Explore various options in your mind and pick the one that you like best. That motivation doesn't even have to work well with those of your other characters; in fact, it might be better if some characters were in conflict with each other.

Characteristics don't matter as long as they're deep enough. Questions like "is the main character a prude or a flirt" mean very little, as long as (like Babayaga said) you've determined why the character is like that. KNOW your characters, and the rest takes care of itself.

Originally Posted by Gamer_2k4

Characteristics don't matter as long as they're deep enough. Questions like "is the main character a prude or a flirt" mean very little, as long as (like Babayaga said) you've determined why the character is like that. KNOW your characters, and the rest takes care of itself.

I agree. I think that people are far more complex than a random handful of characteristics and labels. We all share the same emotional spectrum and all have the same characteristics. We can all get scared, be happy and sad, be cynical or depressed. I believe that the art of creating realistic characters is to ask to what extent they have each of the characteristics. We could say that one particular characteristic is to speak ones mind. But does an outspoken person always speak their mind in every possible situation they find themselves in? Do they speak their mind equally to their partner, children, boss? How about with a gun pointed at their head? Or if they were called in to address the President?

I can clearly see every one of the characters that I've created for the book I'm currently writing and I know exactly how each one would react in a particular situation. But if anyone asked me to define them by their characteristics then I don't think I would be able to.