Bronycon Original Characters Panel: The Five Adjectives Method · 6:27pm Jul 12th, 2016
Hey everypony! So, Bronycon happened. And it was amazing! Sadly, there was one small snag. Before the con, I heard about a great lifehack where you get one of those purple "Panelist" badges and it lets you cut all the lines and get front row seats in all the best events. But it turns out that there's a huge unadvertised downside: they expect you to actually do a panel at some point.
I know, right? Crazy.
So this year, I did the writing panel on Original Characters, full of practical advice on writing more compelling OCs. Each of our five panelists gave their advice on what methods and approaches they use to make their characters more effective, be they an OC protagonist, or just a minor background character. Our goal was to dispense the advice in a form that would be actually useful to new writers, since more common advice like "give your characters flaws" is only useful if you already understand how to use flaws to make a character compelling.
During my segment, I covered the "Five Adjectives Method," which is a great rule of thumb for outlining your OC. It is not an absolute rule, nor is it an excuse not to do your proper character design and research, but I find it's a great way to get started. It's particularly good if you're starting with a blank slate, or if you're having some trouble wrapping your mind around the character.
So, without further delay, the Five Adjectives Method is:
There's some nuance worth going over (and I have examples below), but that really is the core of it. To be complex and feel real, a character should have at least five primary and distinct character traits, and to be interesting enough that the audience wants to hear more about them, at least three should be easy to establish off the bat.
You can see the general idea behind this in all sorts of places, but to be more specific, let's walk through an example of a character we all know and love.
Clearly, she is overheating from all that fluff. So! You could argue about exactly what Twilight's five adjectives are (it's not a hard-and-fast rule, so multiple interpretations are valid), but if I had to describe Twilight's personality in five bullet points, I would say:
And just like the method describes, we establish three of these traits in Twilight's first scene. In a smooth, seamless intro, we see that she is:
And, boom. Just like that, she has an established character. We can read more nuance into her actions, see how she's pulled by different forces, and care about her enough to stick with her for the rest of the episode. Her other dominant traits take a little longer to establish, but are also flawlessly presented in context. For instance, after a long ride to Ponyville, where Twilight is insisting the whole way that making friends is a waste of time, all Spike has to say is: "Come on, Twilight! Give it a chance!" She hesitates, tries it, and just like that, Twilight is:
Her last trait we are informed of for the entire episode, but we don't actually see it until the end. Which is perfectly fine, and the payoff feels very rewarding. Because of course, Celestia's student could only be:
So, simple enough. But if you go back and look at the list of traits I gave Twilight earlier, I'd like you to notice something. Specifically the two at the end: Proud and Insecure. Please excuse the red arrows for being slightly off, something about my slides hates being exported to images.
Now, if you didn't know Twilight, you might say those traits are in conflict. Not contradictory exactly, but the sort of traits that might make someone struggle with themselves. And that is absolutely intentional, because there's an addendum to the Five Adjectives Rule:
Because, let's be honest: humans are crazy. We fight with ourselves all the time, and the fastest way to make a character feel fake is for them to never doubt themselves, argue with themselves, or struggle with some inner conflict. To use my own writing as another example, we could look at Siren Song...
...A DEEPLY UNDERAPPRECIATED EPIC...
...and again, see the conflicts. Siren's vanity conflicts with her self-loathing over how she views herself. We also see a less obvious but still important conflict in her approaches to problem solving, where her cold, analytical world view conflicts with her airy, artistic nature. Also, please excuse the messed up arrows.
As one last piece of advice I give to people who are struggling, try doing yourself. I assume you are all interesting, nuanced people who are the protagonists of your own stories, so apply the method to yourself. If you had to describe your personality with five simple adjectives, at least two of which had to conflict, what would they be? Doing myself, I got:
And again, you see the conflicts. Proud vs Depressed, and Social vs Introverted.
Finally, we asked a volunteer from the audience to do his OC. We had a bit of back and forth on this, and it's important to remember to keep your descriptors simple and neutral. For instance, one of the early descriptors for Storm Spark was "heroic." I pushed back on that one a bit, because heroism is complicated (it can mean a lot of things), and is far from neutral (it's unambiguously good). After a bit of talk, we settled on "hot headed" instead. He tends to rush into situations to "save the day," which can be good, but it can also get him in trouble.
Finally, we ended up with this list:
Which is a pretty good starting point for a character!
Then, we moved on to Captain Unstoppable, and his excellent advice on how to design and manage character flaws. His method (and those of Captain Chrysalid later) is much more detailed than mine, and I'd highly recommend you bug him about his talk as well, but I find the Five Adjectives Method to be an excellent starting point. It's simple, it's quick, and it makes you round out the character in your head.
Where as GaPJaxie is charming, funny, neurotic, insightful, and stubborn~
Huzzah, you posted it!
4086782
You are that girl. :D
Never change.
4086848
By your request, yes!
So according to this, I do write (at least Twilight) faithfully in Tales of Fillydelphia.
Where did you find the Five Adjectives Rule? I'd never heard of it.
4086985
No idea. I vaguely recall another writer giving it to me once, but it was years ago. Before I got into pony.
Remind me what I said. I did that all from the top of my head with a few notes lol. Kinda went off base a few times.
4087123
"Don't think of it as giving the character a flaw. Think of it as 'What situations is this guy absolutely the right guy for' and, 'What situations is this guy absolutely the wrong guy for'?"
Hm. Let me try this.
Ripple is:
Curious. Helpful. Positive. Clever. Playful.
Turpentine is:
Artistic. Curious. Lonely. Optimistic. Serious.
You know, I think that works pretty good.
I've never heard of this before and will have to keep it in mind. o.O
My favourite point of that panel. Will certainly keep that in mind as a rule of thumb when thinking of/about characters in the future.
Interesting character methodology If I ever do more than play around with the idea of writing, rather than reading, a story I'll have to experiment with it.
Well... Underappreciated epic, yes, but at least it's got 562 thumbs up, which is less than some of the really big stories on this site, but a lot if you picture all those people sitting in on space approving your work. Sure in a fair universe it would have more positive ratings than "Would it matter if I was" but I've seen quality work get less attention.
4087135 And research
I really like this approach and keep coming back to this post to understand it better.
For some reason, I can't see the images. Could you rehost them or repost them somehow?
4874595
Oh shoot. It looks like they've finally gone down.
Let me just send you my original bronycon slides.