How to create compelling fleshed out characters, Part 2

Enough self-indulgent stream of consciousness. Let us get down to tacks of brass.

I've already said before that, when building a great story, good characters aren't the most important thing... they're the only thing. I believe characters are the foundation on which everything else rests. It should come as no surprise that my character-building habits are closely woven in with the rest of the planning process: whenever I make up plot events, scenes, props, timelines and so on, the characters are always hovering in the back of my head.

In any case, I will do my best to keep this post focused on on the topic of characters and how to do them proper justice.

How To Design a Relational Database

When I was in college learning how to be a programmer (or rather, a better programmer), the first year included classes from all four branches of Information Technology. These branches were programming, web design, network engineering, and database design. It turns out that every single one of those fields requires a working knowledge of each of the others, so all the students were given basic classes in all four subjects. This also gave us a chance to change our minds about what we wanted to do for a living: you might only realize that you hate programming after you've been forced to tinker with real code for awhile. A surprisingly large number of my fellow classmates dropped out of the trendy, stylish webdesign class and decided to become database experts instead.

Why? Because relational databases are awesome. And here's why.

So here's what a regular, NON-relational database looks like:

The left one is a list of all the unique types of widgets you have for sale. The middle one is a list of every individual sale you've ever made. The right one is a list of every customer you've interacted with. Not very interesting, because it's just a bunch of lists. No big deal. Because apparently we're living in the stone age of information technology.

Whee. Now here's what a relational database looks like:

Holy Jesus Santa Christmas! What happened here!? There's motherbuckin' arrows all over the place! Well calm down, take a deep breath, and I'll explain. Each arrow shows a relationship between two lists. That's the "relational" part of the relational database.

See that arrow? See it? That, right there... riiiiiight there.

The arrow.

THIS PART HERE GODDAMNIT

That's the important part. Seriously.

Notice which way the arrows are pointing: this tells us which lists depend on other lists. You can have a product that hasn't been sold yet, and you can have a customer that hasn't bought anything yet, but an actual transaction cannot exist without a product and a customer. The "Transactions" list exists only to bridge the gap between Customers and Products. It is purely a derivative.

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So, uh, what does this have t--

Shut up for a second. We can easily apply the same line of reasoning to character development. Observe the following two characters, both with distinct personalities and backstories and capabilities. They have all sorts of qualities and properties and such, but they're pretty boring on their own.

The thing is, an individual character all by itself isn't very interesting. But if we throw them together, like so...

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Huzzah! Magic occurs. And by Magic, of course, I mean story. That's an important tenant of good character design:
No character exists in a vacuum. Remember to plan out their relationships with other characters, and think about what purpose these relationships must serve for the story to succeed.

That's part of what makes the show itself so brilliant. It's not about individual characters at all but their relationships. How they interact with each other. Look through an episode list and you'll see all the different combinations of characters that are explored.

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The episodes are either about one character taking center stage and interacting with all the rest...

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...or two specific characters interacting with each other.

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There's often an additional character who acts as a catalyst to disturb the status quo. Gilda certainly has a personality, but we know nothing of her backstory or motives. We don't need to. She's not a fully fleshed out character in any way, but she serves her purpose admirably: she exists only to shake things up a bit and give us an opportunity to see other characters in new circumstances, forcing them to re-think their relationships.

Think about it: Gilda features very prominently throughout the entire episode, and yet we know nothing substantial about her. That's because she isn't the focus of the story: she's the catalyst.

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Character's roles can change depending on the needs of the story. You can take a character who IS fleshed out to the point of being a main protagonist, and include her in a brief cameo to serve a very specific purpose. To us, Fluttershy is a main character with a complex and subtle nature. But in this episode she doesn't even do anything proactive... she just bumbles into something by accident and gets yelled at. For the purposes of this story, she's a catalyst. We learn nothing new or interesting about Fluttershy and she doesn't change or evolve in any significant way, but her fleeting appearance allows us to learn something interesting about one or more other characters.

A side note: Fluttershy's brief appearance in this episode also lends her realism and continuity. It makes it easy for the viewer to believe that, while two characters are running through Ponyville and having a wacky adventure, you might see one of the other characters in the background buying groceries or going for a walk. It makes them real, because those are things real people do. it tells us that these characters have a life outside of the episode. It's a nice touch. Just thought I'd mention.

That leads us to another very important tenant of character design:
The character has to be/do what the story requires them to be/do. The trick is making it seem believable and consistent.

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In the end, the character who acts as the catalyst isn't the focus of the story. She features heavily, but her true purpose is to force another character to undergo change or growth. Not only do we learn more about this particular character...

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...but we also witness her relationship with another character evolve and grow stronger.

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Many of these "Catalyst" characters are portrayed as antagonists. They're often hostile, threatening, disruptive, or downright evil, but that doesn't have to be the case.

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Just decide which kind of relationship you want to explore...

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...and come up with a believable excuse to put that relationship square in the spotlight.

The catalyst doesn't nessecarily have to be a character. There are all kinds of plot devices out there, and some of them are props, scenes, events, and so on. I have noticed that the show shows a strong preference for living, breathing characters. But as long as you bridge the gap in a believable way, you're good to go.

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~~~ To be continued ~~~