Character Development Lessons: 01 The Uniqueness Of Characters · 8:42am Nov 24th, 2013
Character Development
01 The uniqueness of Characters
Attention, attention! Put your cellphones away, stop chewing gum, dammit!
Ahem, welcome one and all to today's lesson on Character Development!
To start things off, we are going to look at some prime examples of good and unique characters before we go into how to make our own. If we follow good examples and learn from others mistakes, them our own work will be all the better!
For awhile now, I've been playing a romance visual novel called 'Katawa Shoujo', so as I've come to poorly nickname it, 'Cripple kids'. It is based in Japan in a school for the disabled; no, not mentally. The students range from all over the board, from what you would expect with things like blindness, deafness, and lack of limbs, to extremer things like the brain stopping developing at a certain time, so that person is stuck in that mind-set forever.
We follow our main character, Hisao, as he transfers to the school after suffering a heart attack because he got all excited when a girl asked him out. Wow, call about a heart breaker. *Ba dum tish* Along his travels, he meets six girls, each with their own disability and social problem. One in particular that I've been drawn to as the most unique of the characters is Rin.
To an outsider, Rin appears as a complete mystery, or an anomaly to the norm, if you will. She says too much to say what could be said with three words, and rarely says what is truly on her mind, making her completely unpredictable in a conversation, with a deadpan voice that betrays not emotions to top it off. Another off-putting aspect of her is her strange calmness, never being bothered by many things that would be disturbing to others, as well as being very straight forward at things that are best left unsaid.
In short, she is terrible with saying what is on her mind but gets something out with such calm that it is disturbing.
Hisao first meets up with Rin in the art room as he is sent to gather supplies. We see her sitting on a table eating a happy lunch. With her feet. Now might be the time to note her disability, no arms. Despite this extreme handicap, Rin has managed to learn to by-pass most of the obstacles with her feet along; using them to eat, paint, and masturbate. Yea, that was one awkward scene...
Moving on. That is that outside view in to Rin's life, difficult and very odd to outside people. To prove my point, or to help better understand what the hell it is I'm saying, I've taken a few of her lines for examples.
Hisao: "Umm... hello. I was told to pick up supplies from here. For the festival stalls I think. I didn't think there would be anyone here."
Rin: "There isn't. That's why I came here, too."
Hisao: "Doesn't that mean you're here, then?"
Rin: "You are pretty observant. I guess it does. But who are you?"Rin: "I won't shake hands with you, but at least we know who we are now."
Rin: "What word would you use then? There is no word for a meal you eat after lunch but before dinner, right? It bothers me very much too, but I don't really know what I should say."
Okay, let me try to get what I'm saying into some key points since I feel I'm failing to explain, then we'll get to my next point.
To an outside person, Rin is:
-- Very forward with any subject
-- Hard to understand her apparent mindless dribble
-- Practically emotionless
-- Extremely artsy
These are the points most focused on when they introduce her character, but play a key part in how they reveal her. Take note: First impression of a character should not be their base emotions, simply the output those emotions cause. That is one of the most important things when making any character.
Now you (hopefully) have an outline of Rin, let us delve deeper into the soul to learn the true Rin, and what makes her so brilliantly unique.
As the story progresses, Rin attempts to tell how she feels, about herself and the situation around her. To most, she is still bubbling squat. But that is important, because one thing or idea she keeps repeating is: "I don't have the words to say what I mean." Despite her repeated plea of this line, although it is said in a less understandable way, the characters around her don't get the message.
Another thing she says that involve her actions and decisions, is: "I just go with the flow." Now, many would say that is a un-unique trait in a character, as many characters could say the same, but none could really do it the same as Rin does. Mostly because she just doesn't go with the flow, she's apart of the flow. If the flow were to come across an obstacle, instead of getting out of the river for a bit to jump over it like most people do, she breaks it down with a fierce determination. Like in a damn, if she doesn't break though, no matter how hard she tries, she'll overflow and burst; such as the story goes.
The point I'm making with this part of Rin, is that you can take a character trait many have, and turn it into something no one else can hope to grasp. It is a hard and difficult process to pull this off, but the character created from your hard work will never be duplicated. Unless some dick copies you.
Back to the other part of Rin, "I don't have the words to say what I mean", points to one of the greatest feats of character development. Not using words to explain the change or thought. Sometimes, words just can't cut it, especially with well made characters. There can be no words to tell how they feel, the maddening sorrow, or the calm joy that can be birthed from an event. This is a very tricky thing to do, but if done well can bring your character off the page and into the heart of the reader, because that's what you're toying with.
You must pass on the emotions with stating what they are. You can do this by playing with the readers emotions to twist whatever they are feeling to what the character is feeling so they can understand their decisions and actions better, making them alive.
What Katawa did with Rin that no one else had, is take an aspect of great character development, and turned it into a character trait.
That's how you make a character unique. Take what would normally be far from the path of a trait, and turn it into one, playing on the readers emotions to get them to understand the character other than explaining it through words that don't exist.
That is what I've found from the character Rin, one of the most unique characters I have ever found who has made me laugh, cry, get mad, and fall in love with.
Class is Dismissed
Wow this was really interesting, you know what, you now have a teaching job in the Writer's Workshop. Welcome to the Rodeo.
*Put away a notepad*
Ah a nice read it is. Great VN are pure win.
Hehe A drug that makes you dream~
And my gum is pinkie pie flavored.
It came with the party.
Why woul I put my cellphone away?
Thats how i'm reading this class lesson.