How to Create Good Personalities for Your Characters
Edit Article Sample Character DescriptionsCreating Personalities for Your Own Characters Edited by Secretive, Julia Maureen, Flickety, Ben Rubenstein and 19 others You're on a plane to a distant country to visit some weird old relatives you are somehow related to. Ad Steps Sample Character Descriptions Creating Personalities for Your Own Characters 1Start with a simple profile including these categories: Name, Age, Gender, and Occupation. 6Continue developing characters until your story is finished. Tips Keep the characters true to themselves. Warnings Don't copy off other characters in different, already well known books, such as Harry Potter.
Creating an Original Character
By Maisha Foster-O'Neal You've heard the old maxim before... 'a character can make or break your story.' Okay, okay, so you want to write an interesting character. Ah yes, such is the desire of all writers. Enough already! Before we dive into Creating Original Characters, I'd like to offer a disclaimer. Disclaimer: I don't claim to know everything about writing. Note: There is already an excellent tutorial about writing the Villain, so I won't make specific references to writing an antagonist. The Basics of Characters The first thing about characters - They are just one facet of a good story. Character Creation: Little Exercises Open up a phonebook and pick out a name, and write a description of that person based only on their name. Types of personality flaws These are just a few of my favourites to give you an idea of what you can add to a character. Sarcastic or cynical. A note on Romance A note on Character Death '...and they lived happily ever after.' Clichés: What NOT to do Patricia C.
3 Types of Character Arcs: Choose the Best for Your Novel
How Does Your Character Change? You know your character must change somehow over the course of your novel. But how? And more than that, how do you sync the changes with the external plot? The middle of a novel can suffer from the dreaded “sagging middle” and it’s mainly because you don’t have a firm handle on the character’s inner arc and how it meshes with external events. I’ve found three approaches to the inner arc, each trying to laying out how the character changes. Hero’s Journey: Quest for Inner Change In the Hero’s Journey, laid out so well in Christopher Vogler’s book, The Writer’s Journey, a character receives a Call to Adventure that takes him/her out of the normal and ordinary world into a world where they must quest for something. Melanie as an Example So, we’ve got Melanie who wants more than anything else to get her mother’s approval, but can’t because her mom’s a chef and Melanie can’t cook worth a flip. Iron Sharpens Iron – Friendships Back to Melanie: Flawed Way of Coping
How to Create a Character | How To's
by Holly Lisle All Rights Reserved No matter what sort of fiction you’re writing, you’re going to have to populate your story with characters, and a lot of them, if not all of them, you’re going to have to create from scratch. Unfortunately — or maybe fortunately — there is no Betty Crocker Instant Character-In-A-Can that you can mix with water and pop into the oven for twenty minutes. Don’t start your character off with a name or a physical description. I know this doesn’t seem logical at first glance — after all, you name a baby before you get to know him very well. There are a couple of reasons. In the same way, maybe your heart has been broken twice by redheads, or the gorgeous surfer you dated briefly who stole your credit card, did drugs in the back seat of your car and got your twin sister pregnant before dumping you and vanishing from your life forever. Do start developing your character by giving him a problem, a dramatic need, a compulsion. What does the character want?
Character Development - Profile Template : Library
This character profile template (with instructions and prompts throughout) is provided on the resources page of my writer's website, linked above. I have posted this character profile here to aid in character development. The purpose of using a character profile is to flesh out a character who is little more than a 'sketch', or who has not had much thought put into him or her. If you wish to use this profile, or portions of it copied and pasted directly, as the standard skeleton in a roleplay of yours, please credit me as the profile creator with my name clearly visible. Another note upon the use of character profiles: ninety-nine chances out of a hundred that your readers will never read or see, or need to see, your completed character 'profiles'. Without further ado, I here present the character profile which I myself have created and refined, with instructions and prompts throughout, over the past year and a half. Role: For example, general role, or story-specific role.
Seven Common Character Types
Seven Common Character Types by Terry W. Ervin II Fiction writers employ a variety of characters while weaving their tales. Confidante- someone in whom the central character confides, thus revealing the main character’s personality, thoughts, and intentions. Example: In a story, Melvin Sanders is a detective on the trail of a serial killer. In this example Chops is a confidante. Dynamic Character - a character which changes during the course of a story or novel. Example: Ebenezer Scrooge, in A Christmas Carol by Dickens, was very stingy with his money. In this example Ebenezer Scrooge is a dynamic character. Flat Character - a character who reveals only one, maybe two, personality traits in a story or novel, and the trait(s) do not change. Example: In a story about a friendly teacher named Sandra Smith, Louis Drud is a janitor in her building. In this example Louis Drud is a flat character. Foil - a character that is used to enhance another character through contrast. Copyright © Terry W.
Fiction Writer's Character Chart - EpiGuide.com
If you're a fiction writer -- whether you're working on a novel, short story, screenplay, television series, play, web series, webserial, or blog-based fiction -- your characters should come alive for your reader or audience. The highly detailed chart below will help writers develop fictional characters who are believable, captivating, and unique. Print this page to complete the form for each main character you create. IMPORTANT: Note that all fields are optional and should be used simply as a guide; character charts should inspire you to think about your character in new ways, rather than constrain your writing. Fill in only as much info as you choose. Have fun getting to know your character! If this character chart is helpful, please let us know! Looking for more character questionnaires / charts?
CALLIHOO Writing Helps--Feelings Table
Character Feelings You can describe your character's feelings in more exact terms than just "happy" or "sad." Check these lists for the exact nuance to describe your character's intensity of feelings. SF Characters | SF Items | SF Descriptors | SF Places | SF EventsSF Jobs/Occupations | Random Emotions | Emotions List | Intensity of Feelings
