Thoughts: On Characters: Design · 7:06pm Jan 28th, 2013
Opening words
Wow, it’s been quite a while since I wrote another Thoughts post. As I have mentioned in my last post, I’m starting on the very large topic of Characters, which I’m splitting into Design, Types, specific thorny subjects like Original Characters, Self-Inserts, Mary Sues and the very dreaded character type in this fandom: Alicorn OCs. Of course, as with the usual disclaimer: these are all my personal thoughts on an aspect of writing, it isn’t some Gospel Truth or some hard rule, and this is just how I did things when I planned my stories.
To start, Characters are an integral part of a story, whether they are fan interpretations of a Canon character or an Original Character. Without them, there is no story. Characters serve a variety of roles: they may drive the conflict of a story, be a plot device, be a macguffin – something/someone that every other character wants/needs, which drives the plot – and serve as key players in a plot or supporting players to the main characters.
Even though designing characters doesn’t seem to apply in the realm of fan fiction – who needs character design when all the characters you need is already designed for you!? I’m aware that this applies more to Original Characters (OCs) but an understanding of design would allow a better understanding of writing canon characters – at least, that is the case for me.
You may have noticed that I don’t seem to distinguish between canon characters and OCs. To me, they’re all just Characters (yes, with the capital C). This allows me to integrate OCs into my stories more smoothly than designating them as separate “creatures”. My philosophy with characters is very simple: All characters, canon or original, are equal. There are no favorites, they are all important.
Character Design
So, you are planning out a story and you suddenly realize that oh, you need additional characters other than the canon ones. Maybe you needed a villain and Nightmare Moon, Discord, Chrysalis and – gasp! – even Prince Blueblood has been done to the death! So, you look on dreadfully at the deep, dark pit that is original characters.
This is uncharted territory for you. How could you create a character out of your imagination without making it a mocking caricature of yourself? I have seen this plenty of times in poorly done stories and this is one of the reasons why good character design is important. No reader wants to read a character that simply reflects what a writer was actually thinking when he/she was typing/writing out each word, especially when it was all the time.
A character fundamentally is a simulated person. A person, as I define it, is basically someone/something you can talk, reason, argue and relate to. It doesn’t matter whether the character is an alien, a human or even a colorful talking miniature horse. Of course, this doesn’t fully apply to Eldritch Abominations as they fall into a gray area between a person and an unknowable entity. So, my focus is mainly on more relatable and more commonly found “normal” characters.
For me, character design is an intuitive process but for the purpose of the article (and since this is an organization of my thoughts on writing), I will try my best to break it down into different aspects. They are Appearance, Personality, Action-Reaction, Thoughts, Motives and Speech. The process kind of goes like this:
1. I know the premise and the general direction of where the plot is going.
2. From (1), I extrapolate what characters I need, whether they’re canon or not.
3. If they’re canon characters, I try to simulate them as close to canon as possible with my own interpretation thrown in, if applicable.
4. If they’re OCs, they kind of pop into my head fully animated and realized, with their personalities and decision making already in place.
5. From this initial starting point, I think up their names and background information.
6. I would throw them in a random and let them act and talk. If the personality doesn’t fit the story requirement, I would tweak it.
7. If the result is still unsatisfactory, I discard the character and start from (3) again. Thankfully, I don’t get to this step much, usually it iterates a lot in (6).
Sounds simple, right? Except it isn’t. This 7 step process encompasses uncountable amounts of data and its processing. Please don’t ask me how did I do that, it just comes to me.
So, what makes a good character? A good character, for me, is someone/something that passes as a person (see my definition of a person above). One good way of testing this is to throw your character into a place that is totally unrelated to your story, like your room with just the two of you in it. If your character acts and reacts in-character to your interaction with him/her/it, then you have made a good character (or at least a believable one).
Another way to check is if you can answer questions to your character’s background details, but this is a little iffy as less developed characters may not have such details and this pretty much forces you to always give certain background details to all your characters. This isn’t a bad thing to do, per se. Such details are actually handy when you’re doing crossovers and alternate histories/universes fics (where you have to keep track of loads and loads of characters and information) but for some characters, this is probably just unneeded extra work.
Of course, this method I outlined isn’t the only way in designing a character. In fact, this sort of design process is looked on in professional writing as an oddball approach, Or So I've Read. In professional writing, there are many camps in designing characters, the first camp is massive outlining and planning down to its finest details and that level of details is relative to the importance of the character to the story and the second camp is my way of thinking, through intuition. There are actually more than two camps but this is the two I am fully aware of.
There are a few simple rules I also follow when designing characters:
1. No character is above the universe. Meaning that a character, no matter how powerful, does not immediately know everything and everyone there is in the universe. This includes Self-Inserts, Author Avatars (this one is a little iffy) or OCs. Doing so is cheating and very likely leads to Mary Sues/Gary Stus.
2. Do not play favorites with your characters, even if it is your Self-Insert, Author Avatar or OC. Every character is equal, regardless of importance and screen time. Failing to do so may cause readers to yell Mary Sues/Gary Stus. Making your Self-Insert a plaything of the universe is more interesting to write than Wish Fulfillment anyway.
3. Rule of Cool is not enough. The character must still make sense in the context of the universe he/she/it lives in (We’ll see this popping up in many places in the article).
Appearance
Character appearance for me is kind of simple. I only have a few rules with regards to it (whether if it’s an original universe or an already established universe):
1. Keep as close to canon as possible.
2. Appearance must be logical and sensible to the universe. I’ve seen so many violations of this on this site that it’s not even funny, from ponies with improbable coloration to that and tattoos from the Pony Generator. On contrary, I do not believe red and black is [too] bad of a combination, especially if they follow the rules of canon coloring (namely, black solid coat with red solid mane/tail) but I can see why from all the Pony Generator pics (all the red/black triangular tattoos and stripes!)…
3. Rule of Cool is not enough (this ties to (2)).
Personality/Flaws
Personality is as from Wikipedia, the particular combination of emotional, attitudinal, and behavioral response patterns of an individual. The personality of a character is the most important out of all this, as it drives the actions-reactions, thoughts and motives of the character, which I will touch on later.
Personality design for me is one of the most abstract and intuitive part of the process, I don’t consciously think up a personality, it usually appears to me and I simply run it in my scenes and see if the personality works.
Traditional character design (or just what I’ve read of what others do) tends focus more on flaws but for me, I tend to focus more on personality. In fact, flaws, to me, aren’t that important. I don’t consciously decide that oh, Character A has Flaw A, B and C. Instead, I take the personality, his/her/its action, his/her/its reaction, his/her/its motive and his/her/its speech pattern together and let them run wild.
I prefer this method as this, to me, produces more realistic “flaws” than actively thinking about them.
Action and Reaction
Action refers to how a character acts. This defines how a character acts by default, which I usually extrapolate them based on their personality.
Reaction refers to how a character reacts. This defines how a character react to events, be it a sudden explosion or simply someone approaching, which I also extrapolate from their personality.
It is amazing how actions and reactions can drive characters and in turn, the entire scene. When I write, the direction of the scene can simply turn in ways I didn’t expect just because of the actions and reactions of two characters.
Of course, I also have a few simple rules with regards to this:
1. Characters never know the full information. If he/she/it does, the character is above the universe. Read (1) of my character design rules.
2. Characters react to what he/she/it thinks is the other person is try to do or saying.
3. When performing an action, Rule of Cool is not enough (I cannot stress this enough). It must have some basis in logic or sense. Of course, unless you’re doing Random or Crack fics then this rule becomes a little iffy.
4. Always ask yourself “What would <character> do (in response to <event>/<action>/<reaction>)?” Definitely not “Wouldn’t it be cool if <character> does <action>!?” The latter only works if your writing can back it up. Seriously, Rule of Cool is very hard to pull off unless you’re very skilled.
Thoughts
Thoughts are well, the thoughts a character may have in response to an event, an action or a reaction. This is basically an internal response to any information presented to the character, be it a comment, an observation or just some unspoken response, filtered through the personality. They are not privy to any other characters but the thinker himself/herself/itself, unless they get mind read or something, you know.
Motive
Motive refers to the long-term thinking of a character, whereas Action is the short-term thinking of the character. This may come in the form of The [Evil] Plan of a villain or the plan to stop said villain for the heroes. Or this may simply be something a character wants to do two or three chapters down the road. Very simply put, it means “This is what I want/would do and this is my plan to achieve it.”
Such thinking/planning usually happens during lull of actions where, obviously, a character has time to think longer and harder.
Mainly, the motive comes from or triggers the premise and drives the plot (in the case of a villain/antagonist); at least that is what I usually use Motives for.
Pattern of Speech
Speech pattern is the least important out of all these aspect but it still contributes to the definition of the character. What I could say about it is:
1. Pick a speech pattern most appropriate to the time period (careful research must be done in this regard, especially historical period pieces).
2. It is not necessary but you may have a quirk or two for the speech pattern. For example, Cassia, a character from my story Of Sunshine and Laughter pauses after every first or second word of the sentence and yes, I know her speech pattern is annoying (I’m… not.).
3. Please, for goodness sake, keep the accent light. Excessive accents slow down readers and make them frustrated. However, Your Mileage May Vary for each readers, obviously.
Conclusion
Whew, this is a rather long article. So to sum this up, personality plays a huge part in characters. It drives, on a huge part, all the actions, reactions, thoughts and motives of the characters. On top of that, to create convincing characters, you should consider every aspect of a character, namely Personality, Action, Reaction, Motive and Thoughts when writing them. Appearance and Speech Pattern are secondary to them but still important as they’re a presentation of the character, which is one of the first things the reader would see.
This breakdown don’t simply apply to OCs, this can be used to write any characters, even canon ones, as long as you keep their personalities straight (with the spin of personal/alternate character interpretation, of course).
Well, I’ll see you next time when I present my thoughts on Types of Characters.
Good info to keep in mind.
Thank yo IAH for leading me to this blog. Nicely put
Finally, someone who won't immediately dump the idea of Alicorn OC's!
when I started writing character for my stories, i didn't know what a Mary sue/ gary stu or whatever by definintion, or even that it was a character class, instead, when I started writing my story, I used the ter,/ thought process, "Pretty boy".
To use it with canon characters, think of Prince Blueblood, He's handsome, has every woman throwing themselves to his feet, and he is probably rich. WIth all that, would you want to be him? Yes!
but then we learn that he is a massive bitch, thus our unwilingness to want to be like him.
Now, with OC's especially, I took that into account, and also decided that, like the laws of physics, for every action we needed a reaction.
For how awesome you make your OC, for how much you would want to be him, you have to have a flaw to his person, to make your readers not think he is a pretty boy.
Here is an example for a character I am making for a comedic story.
His name is Knife dancer, and he is a massive klutz.
He joined the navy , but the only job they trusted him with was to mop the deck.
Becomes a royal guard, but He's also a pacifist.
Is named "Knife Dancer" a a name people naturally would make him a badass, His talent is juggling knives, not fighting with them.
His parents are famous, famous circus performers.
His mom send him baked goods every week, other guards eat them before he gets any.
I think you get the picture, even though this is one of my OC's that is more of a person one would want to be, i made some others that NOBODY in their right mind would want to be, and its not just a "Mom and dad were killed in a car accident, uncle was shot by a drug store robber blah blah blah"
So uh, explain Author Avatars?
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Author Avatars are basically fictional versions of the authors. As TVTropes itself put it:
Case in point is defender2222, who appeared in his own fic The Many Secret Origins of Scootaloo. He even acknowledges himself as the author in the story and proceeds to give an account of Scootaloo's origin, much to Twilight's chagrin. The defender2222 in the story is the avatar for the author himself.
This is in contrast to Self-Inserts, who are characters with the personality of the author but still acknowledged as an actual player in the story. The diference may seem subtle, but SIs are a more serious usage than Author Avatars.
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Ah, guess mine really is a self-insert. It's kinda sad. Author Avatars sounded way cooler.