Writing Believable Characters: The Transcription Revision Method

Howdy, y'all.

Characterization above all else.

That is one of the cardinal rules I follow in writing fanfiction. It's a pretty solid rule in original fiction, too, but nowhere is this concept as important as in derivative work. The characters are already established, and it's vital to adhere to those characterizations if you want your story to be believable. If you want a character to act a certain way, is has to be within their character to do so. If it's not within them, you have to make the character develop to a point at which those actions are believable.

I like to think I'm decent at writing the characters of MLP accurately. Based on the feedback I've gotten on many of my stories, one of the things that I consistently manage to impress people with is my ability to write characters well. Even what I feel was my weakest attempt at characterization—Discord in A Draconequus' Guide to Immortality—has gone over unexpectedly well.

Seeing as this is one of my strong suits, and seeing as I've read a lot of stories that could've been much stronger with more believable characters, I've decided to share one of the techniques I use to help myself better understand the characters. For the lack of a catchier name, let's call it the Transcription Revision Method.

Note: I don't claim to be the best person in the world at writing these characters, nor can I promise that this method is the best way to understand the characters. Everyone learns in different ways, and everyone writes in different styles. I just want to share what works for me. No guarantees. No refunds.

To write a character well, you need to understand the character well. It's not enough to say, "Pinkie Pie is a happy-go-lucky pony who loves to party," or "Twilight is an anxious character who loves reading." If you really, seriously want to focus on a character and write them so that people have difficulty telling them apart from their show counterparts, you need to understand them on a granular level. Every nuance and every detail of everything that character's ever done should be somewhere in your mind. You should be able to write ten-page essays detailing these characters. Twelve-point font, single-spaced.

For me, it's not enough to watch an episode of the show four or five times. That doesn't let you get inside the characters' heads. Sure. you can see what they're doing and saying, and you get a pretty good feeling of their motivations, but you're still just watching them be themselves. You don't want that! You want to study them—understand each of their actions in their entirety. Find out how they found their motivation to do something. What parts of Rainbow Dash make her kick up dirt when Fluttershy runs away in Hurricane Fluttershy? To fully understand that, you can't just watch her do it. You need to get inside of the minds of the people who made her do that. Inhabit the show staff, because they know these characters best.

Basically, if you want to write the character, then you should write the character. This is the Transcription Revision Method.

First, take an episode that showcases important aspects of the character you want to write about. Then write out a one-line summary of what the episode is about—if you prefer, the Friendship is Magic wiki has excellent one-line summaries of each episode. They'll be the last sentence of the first paragraph on any given episode's page. Then write a similar one-liner which summarizes the moral of the episode. Once you have both of those, find a transcript for the episode.

Look at the first few lines of the transcript; take the whole opening scene if you like. Once you have that, compare those opening lines with the one-line summary of the episode and the one-line moral. Then do your best to put the entire episode out of your mind except for these little snippets you have. From there, try to write the rest of the transcript using your interpretations of the characters. Write it so that it fulfills the one-line summary in some way, and round it off with the corresponding moral. Beyond that, just write the characters in the way you think they would act throughout the episode. Refer to events in the actual episode as little as possible.

This should take you a good while to do. Don't try to rush it. Really consider what you're writing, and think about how you're going to make the story work as effectively as possible. Also, in addition to writing the characters' dialogue—the only thing you get in a transcript—write their actions too. Their actions are just as important as their dialogue. Don't worry too much about how well-written the actions are; just consider the actions themselves.

Here comes the tricky part.

Once you're done, compare the final product to the real episode. What's the same between them? What's different? Why is it the same or different? Contemplate these things to great length, because this is the part where you learn how your interpretations of the characters compare to their show counterparts—the real characters, if you will. Which aspects of the characters do you think you understand well, and did that result in you writing something similar to the real episode? Why or why not? Which aspects don't you understand well, and did that make your story different from the episode at all? Why or why not? Are there some things you think make more sense in your version compared to the episode, or vice versa? Why or why not?

Ask yourself as many questions like these as you can. Really have a firm grasp on how your characters are similar and different from the show counterparts, and consider whether that's good or bad. By doing this, you'll gain a very nuanced, very exact perception of how the characters are meant to behave. It'll really put you in their shoes. It's much more thorough than simply watching the episodes and making notes.

I know I've written quite a bit up there, and some of it was probably hard to follow. To help, let's run through an example of the Transcription Revision Method at work.

I'm currently working on a story that showcases Pinkie Pie more than any story I've previously written. I'm not entirely certain on her character, so I'll pick an episode that showcases her traits heavily. Let's go with Party of One. Now I'll get together the things I need to put the Method into practice.

One-line Summary: Pinkie Pie investigates her friends’ excuses for not attending Gummy's after-birthday party.
The Moral: Always expect the best from your friends and never assume the worst. Rest assured that a good friend always has your best interests at heart.

Transcript: Here. I'll take the whole opening scene as a jumping-off point—up until where the theme song starts.

Now that I have all of this, the hard part begins. I have to do my best to forget everything else about the episode and just write it to fulfill the summary and the moral to the best of my ability. Here's the first little bit of my version of the episode:

Main Six plus Gummy are celebrating Gummy's birthday at Sugarcube Corner. Rainbow Dash and Applejack are drinking/eating off to the side. Rarity and Twilight are dancing together with Fluttershy a little to their side. Pinkie is dancing rambunctiously with Gummy, who is just standing there staring at the wall. Pinkie Pie giggles and slides over to Twilight and Rarity.

Pinkie: "You girls having fun?"
Twilight: "Absolutely!"
Rarity: "Quite! You are quite the hostess, Pinkie Pie. Thank you ever so much for the invitation."
Pinkie beams.
Pinkie: "Don't thank me—thank Gummy! He's the one who wrote the guest list. Right, Gummy?" Gummy blinks. Pinkie smirks. "That's the spirit!"
Fluttershy grimaces.
Fluttershy: "Umm… Pinkie, I don't think he said—"
Pinkie sidles up close to Fluttershy.
Pinkie: "Fluttershy! Me and Gummy are soooo happy you could make it!" Pinkie pulls a cupcake from her mane. "Refreshment?"
Fluttershy: "No thank you. This party really is fun, though. But the music's a little loud."
Rainbow Dash (yelling): Not loud enough if you ask me! Crank it up, Pinkie Pie!"
Pinkie: "Woohoo!" Pinkie jumps over and kicks the boombox, raising the music volume. The punch bowl rattles, Fluttershy pins her ears back, and Gummy falls over.

The process of working your way through a whole transcript should take a few days—and you should edit it like a serious story. If you feel more comfortable, write it in a traditional story format instead. I like the transcript better because it distills the characters down to the basics, which is what we want to focus on.

But let's say that this is part of the final product. Let's compare it to the corresponding scene.

In the episode, Rainbow Dash and Applejack are stood together, but they're bobbing for apples instead of talking over refreshments. In my transcript there's no mention of party games of any kind. What does this say about my interpretations of the characters? Well, it could show that I think of Rainbow and Applejack as less competitive than they really are. It also shows that I might not consider Pinkie's party mindset very much when I write, instead focusing on her other traits. The party didn't seem as front-and-center in my version as it does in the episode.

Next, Rarity is dancing with Twilight in my version, and Fluttershy is sorta dancing with them off to the side. In the episode, Rarity is at the refreshment table drinking punch while Fluttershy and Twilight are dancing together. What does this suggest? Maybe I see Twilight and Rarity as closer friends than Twilight and Fluttershy. Maybe I think of Rarity as more of a free spirit than she was at this point in the show. Maybe I still think Fluttershy would be too meek to dance so freely in a social situation, but in reality she's comfortable enough around her friends to do that.

The next part lines up a bit more with the episode, as Pinkie makes the rounds to all her friends to see how they're liking the party. But in my version, she seems less hyper than in the episode, and she's more overtly focusing on Gummy than in the episode. What does this mean? Well…

You probably get the idea by now.

In practice, you probably wouldn't write all of these differences out and explain them—that would take far too long. You could just as easily think them through thoroughly and achieve the same result.

Based on my quick experiment there, I probably still have a good ways to go before I nail the intricacies Pinkie's personality. I tend to think of her as more tame than she usually would be, which may simply be a reflection of how she is later in the show. I have to remember where in the canon this episode takes place, though, and write accordingly so I can understand how she's evolved on a grander scale.

Once you think you've milked the episode you're working with for all it's worth, adapt your writing style accordingly and lather, rinse, repeat. One episode ain't gonna cut it if you want all the aspects of your character.

Sometimes this process might seem a little excessive—you might not want or need to rewrite all of Spike at Your Service to better understand Spike's character. So feel free to play with the Method to your liking. Instead of one episode, do one scene. Do one action. Do one line of dialogue. Go as big or as small as you think will work for you.

This is how I try to nail the characters in fanfiction. Clearly it's not a viable option for original fiction, but you have a lot more leeway with your characterizations there anyway. You're building the characters from the ground up, so you basically have to do this method by default. When it comes to fanfiction though, it's a less obvious strategy.

Any questions? Any thoughts? Does this seem like a viable trick to help you learn the characters, or is it just a huge waste of time to you? Do you have other character-writing exercises you want to share? If anything about this post made you think, let me know! Hopefully this'll help someone out there, as odd and out-of-left-field as it is.

Keep on keeping on,
—Argon

Comments

[SoulofLegend]

An interesting read for sure. Getting into a character's head is much easier said than done and I still need to make progress in that department. I for one found this helpful. Cheers!