How to Make Your OC Interesting Part 2: Universe Integration · 2:28pm Oct 3rd, 2016
Last time we talked about the creation of original characters, I laid out a five-step set of guidelines meant to give people a broad look at how to make characters cool. To date it's been my second most-viewed blog post, eclipsed only by a really old one I wrote back in 2013 when I accurately predicted Attack on TItan crossovers. Today I bring you the no doubt hotly-anticipated follow up to that first post, discussing something almost as important as looking cool: making your character feel like part of an established universe.
You might say "but Scarlet, what if I'm writing for my own original setting and thus don't have to deal with things like the canon of a particular series?" Well, person with a theoretical objection, I'm glad you asked! I don't care. Because, you see, the key part of making your character feel like they're part of an established universe is to find ways to establish that universe. Even if the setting you're working in is entirely original, if you completely unmoor your character from their existence as part of the larger universe you might end up with, well...
Surely you saw this coming.
Let's discuss!
So let's get the basics out of the way first: not every character and not every universe requires the same amount of establishing, and not every bit of establishing you do should happen at once. Character-driven stories typically don't require you to make complex geopolitical maps of the current electorate of the protagonist's home city unless you plan for your characters to directly interact with that system. Likewise, you probably don't need to flesh out the 'rules' of a universe intended to closely mimic our real world in the way you would a fantasy setting with its own complex variations on magic. However, just about any conventional narrative benefits from thinking about the story as a series of events taking place involving the central characters set within a larger universe.
Here are a few questions you should find answers to in order to sell the idea that your character is part of a larger world or setting.
1. What relationships does your character have?
I'm starting here because this is probably the most universal thing any story about a character will need to deal with at some point. Unless you're writing some kind of one-mare tour-de-force set in an isolated environment that's about one-ness with nature or something, you have to eventually write your character interacting with other characters. If your character is a real person - and remember, you want to convince the audience that they could be - you need to eventually define their relationship with the people around them. Do they have acquaintances? Friends? Extended family? Boss? Co-workers? People they can't stand?
True, some characters are loners with few if any connections to others. But guess what? Having no connections is still a trait you have to establish! And just a bit of advice here - establishing it by having characters brood about how lame other people are and constantly grousing about how annoying it is to interact with them are not endearing traits. Remember the literal first episode of Friendship is Magic? Twilight might be annoyed by the ponies who eventually become her friends, but her annoyance isn't that they exist - it's that everyone's personality goes up to an extreme she doesn't enjoy dealing with, and she's still frustrated that Princess Celestia apparently blew off her warnings about potential world-ending cataclysms. I'd be pissed too!
Part of making your character feel like they exist as part of a larger setting is making sure there are people in their lives they have a defined, consistent relationship with.
2. How does your character make their living?
Odd question, right? But it's important. Where does your character get money from? There's no such thing as a free lunch after all - or are they part of a setting where there is such a thing? That's important to establish, then. Are they too young to work? Also something that informs them as a character (plus you should probably explain where they go to school, or what kind of things they do around the house).
The thing about making a living is it also defines your character's economic means and status. If you're writing about an independently wealthy noble, they are going to be able to approach problems and challenges in ways that a broke college student just doesn't have the cash or prestige to. Economic status also usually defines the kind of life experience a character has. If your character grew up monied, they may be a bit sheltered as well. If they grew up poor, they may react differently to receiving simple luxuries that other characters are accustomed to.
Even more than fleshing out how your character fits into the class hierarchy of a setting, defining how they make money gives you a chance at establishing likely skillsets. Your character suddenly knowing how to take cover effectively during a firefight and respond to an active shooter situation in progress makes a bit more sense if they have a background in private security or law enforcement, for instance. And a character knowing how to cook the books for the mob makes a bit more sense if they have a background in mathematics or finance.
Lastly, establishing a defined means for the character to make money also establishes the kind of people they're in contact with on a daily basis. Independently wealthy dilettantes run in different social circles than farmers, and reflecting this in your writing will give the reader a sense of a larger universe with hardly any extra effort required on your part.
3. Where does your character come from?
Everyone comes from somewhere, and where you come from deeply affects how you interact with everyone around you. Is your character from out of town? Across the street? Another nation? Another world? If they are from somewhere else, where did they originally live? What was it like? What do people do there? Where are the popular spots to hang out - are there any? Where do most people work? Do people there work at all? Are people living in that neighborhood rich? Poor? Suburban middle-class? Farmers? Ascetics? Druids? Professional Elf-Spotters? What is the weather like? Is it near the ocean? What's the favorite local restaurant? Is the community ethnically homogenous or all mixed up?
You don't have to answer every single one of these questions in the story, but it's good to ask them to yourself, because every one of those details affects the kinds of things your character has encountered growing up, and will shape how they behave as a person. When they interact with new situations, they're going to feel more authentic and more like they came from a real place if you have a reasonably firm idea of what that place is.
4. What does your character like to eat?
Trivial question? Nonsense! As Brillat-Savarin once said, "Show me what you eat and I will show you who you are."
Or as Alton Brown said once in a short interview, "Food is primarily a statement of race and class."
Food is both a universal need for humans (and ponies), but also a status symbol. If your character doesn't have money, they aren't likely to be able to go out and buy a porterhouse steak every night of the week. Hell, they probably can't afford some farmer's market prices. But if your character grew up on a free-range farm with parents who raise their own chickens and had friendly relationships with a local butcher, they're going to be used to some mighty fine poultry in their life. If your character grew up near the ocean, chances are they have eaten a lot of fresh seafood. The answers to this question should probably arise naturally if you've answered questions two and three, but having an answer for this lets you work backwards or check against inconsistencies in your answers to those two questions. Plus, it's information you have about the character. Knowing what someone likes to eat is a trivial detail not usually shared about fictional characters outside of supplemental materials, but knowing it means when it comes up in your story you will have an answer and it will feel natural and you'll be selling the illusion of a person with an actual history instead of a collection of details you made up.
5) What's your character's religious background?
Big one here. Religion is inescapable, and in many cases even "no religious background" is itself a detail that tells you quite a bit about a character's religious experiences. Almost every culture and people group has developed some form of religion during its history, and the stories and values of that religion deeply influence people within that culture even if they don't actually believe. Growing up Presbyterian certainly frames many of the ways I think about the world and respond to things and I am very, very lapsed. It also affected the kind of people I grew up with, the books I was allowed to read, the shows I watched, what was and was not a rebellious act against my parents growing up, and even how my parents disciplined me. All of these details are salient points of a character's history. Take note - if you're inventing religions for a fantasy setting, the very first thing you should think about is how they would affect a worshiper. If you can sell the experiences of someone within this fake faith, you have sold that faith as a believable concept. Doubly so if that someone is your lead character.
6. Who does your character look up to?
Almost everyone has someone living or dead they admire. Who those people are say volumes about the admirer - not even who they were historically if they're dead, but how the admirer perceives them. This not only forces you in many cases to consider the history or relationships of your setting further, but also gives insight to the general personality of the character.
7. What everyday experiences does your character despise?
Answering this question provides you with three useful things:
-A source of potential conflict.
-Information about the character's daily routine, among other things establishing they have one (or do not if you wish to establish that instead).
-A way of highlighting your character's quirks or foibles without jamming them into something out of place.
These are just a few of the questions you can ask in order to build a more consistent and compelling character. The real point of these isn't even the specific questions. It's the fact that you are asking yourself questions at all. You don't ever need to have written all of these down, but knowing in the back of your head that you may have to answer them or that you have answers ready to go when the time comes leads to putting more thought into characters, more details into settings, and more effort into creating the impression that your character is not just a name on a page but an actual living and thinking being who just happens to inhabit an entirely fictional narrative.
Until next time, I anxiously await your feedback.
When I was gearing up to start my novel, I did a writing exercise for both of my protagonists where they answered a bunch of personal questions with their own voices, sometimes getting annoyed at the questions or refusing to answer them.
Its a good way to get a feel for who they are.
This is good shit. If I ever actually make myself go back to working on my projects that involve character building, I gotta run myself through these posts.
Excellent ways to root the character in the universe. Weakly interacting particles can be interesting in physics, but they make for poor protagonists.
I'm having Terry Eagleton 'nam flashbacks.
This is pretty solid stuff. One note--when I see fantasy novels have a religion in the setting they generally come across as lame or boring. Why? Because instead of actually thinking through--what is the appeal? What is the heart? Where, more to the point, is the emotional center?--they just make a lamer version of Catholicism
4238460 I think the weird thing here is the one novel I've seen really subvert that was Fires of the Faithful. Which literally just did Catholicism.
Except it didn't.
Because the entire running conflict of the book was that the larger established religion was a sect worshiping the Lord and Lady, with a number of established miracles and belief in evil spirits who the Lord and Lady safeguard followers from. But the older folk religion that people practice in secret is also Catholicism, except there is no Lord figure opposite the Lady (who simply becomes God) and her son, Gesu, is the other secondary focal point. And in that version there are no evil spirits or devil figures, God simply ordains all things.
(Did I mention that both of these religions have working miracles. As in none of them are fake.)
The book is hugely underrated because it has one of my favorite settings of... anything, and that exploration of heterodoxy and diversity within Christian thought throughout the ages is a big part of why. You can tell the author spent some time actually looking into the Renaissance and various religious conflicts from early Christianity instead of just replaying A Child's Version of the Martin Luther Story or Evil Patriarchal Religious Thing or even We Just Threw a Bishop On It.
4238478 that actually sounds fantastic! I love the smell of heresy in the morning, smells like heterodoxy
My only question is where's that first journal? :O That might have been from before I started watching you!
4238609 Um.
Actually that might be my fault - the original was called "how to make your OC cool". Awkward last minute title changes!
(It's the one with the GIANT Shadow the Hedgehog image)
4238641
You need a blog index... :)
4238641
Oh that one! (It's actually "How to make your OC Interesting" :V) I remember it now, herp.
This is actually amazing, I honestly wouldn't have thought to ask myself some of these questions like the food one and the religious background one. While I know what a huge effect religion has had on the populance, I never really thought about religion's effects on an individual believer. I'll be keeping all this in mind whenever I flesh out any characters in the future.
4238913 Yay, I helped!
(Praise me more, I'm insecure!)
This is really helpful, thank you!