How to Write a Character Sketch: Learning More About Your Characters’ Motivations and Personalities Regardless of the type of writing you are doing, knowing who your characters are and knowing them well will add greatly to your work. Understanding your characters’ personalities through a character sketch helps you to understand where they are coming from and what motivates them. This, in turn, helps you understand what drives all of the action in your work, and the clearer this is, the easier your audiences will be able to connect with your writing. But how do you go about writing a character sketch? There are numerous ways to go about it. Interview Your Characters Perhaps the most straightforward way of getting to know who your characters are and what drives them is by asking them outright in an interview. It may seem like a very obvious or banal exercise, but even minor details will help you understand who your character is. Write a Character Monologue Another fantastic and highly effective way of getting to know your character is by writing a monologue as your character.
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. In your hands, you hold a book that your friend recommended. 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.
How to Write a Character From Start to Finish The best fiction is about a character who changes in some significant way. The selfish brute learns to put others first. The woman marrying for money decides to marry for love. The career ladder climber learns to cut back on his hours to enjoy his family. The bitter old crone learns to let others in. We love to see characters transformed. —by Jeff Gerke Most of the time, main characters in fiction are changing for the better. But there’s also room for characters who change for the worse. Perhaps most intriguing of all is a “bad” character who flirts for a while with the idea of being good, but then decides that his true self is on the dark side of the street. Of course, not every story has to be about a character who changes. Whether your protagonist ultimately turns toward or away from the light will be up to you, but we’ll look at ways to send her on a journey in which she’s transformed. The Inner Journey The heart of this system is your main character’s inner journey. The Nexus
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 25 Ways To Fuck With Your Characters - StumbleUpon As storyteller, you are god. And to be frank, you’re not a particularly nice god — at least, not if you want your story to resonate with readers. A good storyteller is a crass and callous deity who treats the characters under his watchful eye like a series of troubled butt-puppets. From this essential conflict — storyteller versus character — a story is born. (After all, that’s what a plot truly is: a character who strives to get above all the shit the storyteller dumps on his fool head.) Put differently, as a storyteller it’s your job to be a dick. It’s your job to fuck endlessly with the characters twisting beneath your thumb. And here’s 25 ways for you to do just that. 1. Gods have avatars, mortal or semi-mortal beings that exist on earth to embody the deity’s agenda. 2. The audience and the character must know the stakes on the table — “If you don’t win this poker game, your grandmother will lose her beloved pet orangutan, Orange Julius.” 3. 4. 5. 6. This one? 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13.
Character Trait Chart Character Trait Chart and Personality Components It can sometimes be helpful to make a Trait Chart for each character. To use this chart, print it out and make a copy for each of your characters. Full name - a character's name is very important. Besides the character's official name, we also need to know what he is called (and, perhaps, what he prefers to be called). Date of Birth/Age - we should carefully consider assigning our character a birthday. Address - this can be as detailed or as vague as you wish, but it should answer a few questions: does the character live in a large city, the suburbs, a small town or deep in the country? Height - this doesn't need to be specific. Weight/Body Build - again, we don't really need to know a character's exact weight, only if he or she is stocky, slender or "had a figure that . . ." Hair - keep in mind the character's ethnic background in assigning hair and eye color. Health - does your character have any health problems or weaknesses? Questions?
Top 10 Tricks to Make your Villain Stand Out Welcome back to the column that breaks down gaming into what’s really important, ten things at a time! Any story arc needs a good villain. The best big bads are more than just another devil or vampire or dragon. These ten suggestions can help take your villain above and beyond the ordinary and give your players a more memorable game. 1. Why do people follow this villain? 2. The villain should have a single overriding goal that drives all his or her actions. 3. Along with the goal, place concrete steps the villain needs to take to reach the goal. 4. The villain should be making progress if nobody is stopping him or her. 5. Give your villain a weakness the adventurers can figure out and exploit. 6. Avoid faceless or generic threats. 7. Make the villain’s presence known in every corner of the campaign. 8. One of the best ways to make the villain’s presence known is by reusing symbols and calling cards. 9. 10. Powered By DT Author Box Written by loganbonner Rating: 4.2/5 (25 votes cast)
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. There aren’t any quick and easy recipes, and I don’t have one either, but I do have some things that have worked for me when creating my characters, and some things that haven’t. 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. Do start developing your character by giving him a problem, a dramatic need, a compulsion. What does the character want? Don’t rely on crutches. Do empathize with your character. This is sometimes easy.
50 Questions to Ask Your Characters It's time for another PEP rally by our guestblogger Sam. Just as a reminder, PEP stands for Productivity, Ego, and Procrastination, the three most important things to a writer after their computer or favorite pen. Even though the Rally was created to start a week off right, it can help combat the dreaded writers block any day of the week. Productivity One of my most difficult challenges when writing is trying to get into the mindset of my characters. Today’s productivity task is an interview to help you get a better grasp of your characterization. Name and age? Nickname? What is most noticeable about your character’s appearance/physical presence? Describe his or her voice, verbal ticks, pet phrases etc. Describe a gesture your character makes. Where does he or she now live? Has s/he lived elsewhere? What part of her home is her favourite? What does your character’s bedroom/sleeping place look like? What does he or she wear to sleep in? What does your character dream of at night?