This is a discussion of character building. Stories are based around characters. Without a character, there is no plot, there is no story, there is no life.
So what makes a good character? What do you want to know before you get started with a story? How do you build a good character, and what does a character do to the rest of your story?
If you have questions about character building to start off, feel free to ask me. I'm talking about both characters for stories and characters for role-playing games, because the central point is the same. (and characters can easily transfer from one to the other if they're built well - and not at all if they're built poorly).
Please join in the discussion!
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Well? I know I can't be the only one here, can I? :) Maybe if someone kicks off the posting... ;)
What makes a good character? I've got two answers. I think, actually, that for really minor background characters it's better not to try to get into any kind of detail. "Hans the footman" is fine. You don't have to go into how Hans came to be the footman or what his dreams and ambitions are or who his family is or what he likes to do in his spare time. To draw Hans too fully will only distract from your main character and from your story.
More major characters, though, whether main or "supporting", need to live. They need to have personalities, interests, quirks, identifying features both physically and otherwise. They need to have depth. And they need to be consistent with themselves. If something about their character changes, there has to be something that prompts that. And not some magic cure-all that makes them perfect all of the sudden, either! (I say this because I recently got frustrated with a certain author for being completely arbitrary about changes in character and instituting such a cure-all. Argh. It's worse, somehow, when you KNOW they can do better.) The key thing, I think, is to be a person (or whatever sort of presumably-sentient being your character is) and not a cardboard cutout or a puppet.
What do I want to know before I get started? I want a general idea of who they are. I like discovering my characters as I go, though. It's part of the fun of writing. I think it's particularly fun when you write something, then realize your character's done something unexpected but that seems totally like something they'd do, and then go back and figure out why.
How do I build a good character? That's what I'm here to figure out, isn't it? ;) I honestly don't know. I have a horrible tendency to just pick a name and a few traits arbitrarily and see if I can prod the poor character into developing from there. I have some trouble with it, unless I have, like, a couple of decades to work on it. (I've got one character I feel like is very well-developed! But she's been living in my head for the past 18 years or so.)
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