Character Development — Personality
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Character development tips for creative writing –
create new interesting,
original and memorable characters…
or give established characters a breath of fresh air.
Those who know my various writings and works know that everything I create has a character-based origin. That is to say, I let characters be the driving factor of my stories… they are what designs my worlds, cultures and even my plot. Because character is the pillar on which my creative works stand, it’s very important for my characters to be able to stand on their own. I’d like to hope that they’re likeable (or dislikeable), strong, vibrant and alive to my readers. No matter how fictitious the circumstances they are put into, I want my characters to remain true and alive… acting and reacting like real people would.
When I create a character (on purpose or by accident), I do it from the inside out. Rarely do I know what a character looks like until after I have discovered their motivations, desires, dreams and personality. To me, the saying “It’s what’s inside that counts” is 100% true. You can design a character that looks totally awesome… but if they are nothing but a flat, 2D character, there will be nothing there to keep readers feeling and connecting to that character.
I view character personality as two aspects:
- Major Personality
- Minor Personality Traits
Major Personality
This is the TYPE of person your character is — the rules by which your character always acts, reacts and views his/her world. These are the foundational laws of the character’s soul, things that you must abide by at all times as an Author. Once you have established these rules, if you break them, your readers may feel as if you’re “writing out of character.”
In old tabletop games, sometimes this was considered a character’s alignment. But it goes a little deeper than Good/Evil/Neutral. What are your character’s major motivations? How did the environment and community (or lack of) during childhood develop them? Did any major events in their life impress something upon them that has changed how they view the world? Etc…
These are the big questions.
Don’t know how to define your character’s Major Personality? Here’s a place to start for some basic ideas: Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI).
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is a personality questionnaire designed to identify certain psychological differences according to the typological theories of Carl Gustav Jung as published in his 1921 book Psychological Types (English edition, 1923). The original developers of the indicator were Katharine Cook Briggs and her daughter, Isabel Briggs Myers, who initially created the indicator during World War II, believing that a knowledge of personality preferences would help women who were entering the industrial workforce for the first time identify the sort of war-time jobs where they would be “most comfortable and effective.”
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers-Briggs_Type_Indicator
At the site below, it lists 16 different personality types as an overview… and links to more in-depth explanations about each type. Though I wouldn’t hold fast to all the rules of these definitions, this is a good place to start thinking about who your character is or will be and why they are the way they are.
High-Level Description of the Sixteen Personality Types
Minor Personality Traits
These are the little quirks that add to the Major Personality type that help to flesh your character out and make him/her human. For me, these sometimes develop as I get to know the character better – just like you start to learn about all the cool and annoying things about people around you the longer you spend near them. And just like real people, characters should have their share of both cool and annoying traits.
There are so many different things that can make up the minor traits:
- Do they have a special laugh?
- A craving for a certain food?
- An unnatural fear?
- An overwhelming desire triggered by something in everyday life?
- A favorite childhood hero?
- A silly hobby they wish to keep secret?
- A musical instrument they like to play?
- A favorite song, TV show or game they annoy everyone else to tears about?
- Is there something they seriously just suck at doing?
- Is there someone they wish they could be like but are not?
- Is there something they think they are good at but fall short at?
It’s a list of both the good and bad things that make them more human. Look at people around you… or even yourself. You can see these traits, borrow and change them and mesh them into the overall personality of your character to give them so much more depth than just knowing that someone is cheerful and responsible, shy and manipulative or angry and reckless.
If you’re coming up short handed, here’s a neat forum post that can give you some quirky ideas. I’m sure there’s more out there somewhere!
http://www.geekculture.com/ultimatebb/Forum9/HTML/000170.html
Exercise: Using Minor Personality Traits for Development
Do you have a character that you feel is flat and uninteresting? Give them a personality quirk and delve back to find out why it’s there.
Even if the character cannot express why they feel angry every time they see yellow curtains… something in their life happened to create this quirky response. And it’s up to you as the Author to explore to get to the root of the quirk. Doing this allows your character to tell you his/her story and may help you discover layers of personality you didn’t even know exist!
I wouldn’t over use this exercise, however. It’s just a fun thing to try to jump-start some details of your character’s personality.
Want More?
Check out the full Character Development Series!
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6 Comments on Character Development — Personality
Yay! Learn a new thing everyday. I’m totally going to use the websites you gave. My characters are changing on account of their author changing and growing as a person and a writer, therefore I want to understand them better.
I had no idea you develop your characters first then design them. I’m the opposite, my characters come from quick visual impressions I’ve had of them and from their facial expressions, body language, and clothing choices they develop personalities and dialogue. I just can’t deny the sheer raw physical impression cold eyes shifting slowly towards you says about a character’s personality. But…now that I think about it, eheheh…I hope they don’t come off as boring and 2D because of this. *scratches the back of her head*
And for the record, I’ve always loved your characters especially when they’re being dislikeable *wink*
Hello, Pen! I’m so happy you decided to stop by and leave your thoughts!!
Yep… about 99% of the time I have a personality trait in mind before I sit down to design what a character will look like… or the two will come to me together from the start.
For example, SoYa — I remember his concept came to me when I was laughing about Zemi’s “rival”… and how funny it would be if Fu’s father was a little softie with curly hair (since Fu is anything but a softy). I had a personality type for SoYa, but I also had a physical feature that complimented it in mind from the start.
Then, there are the characters that start out flat for me that begin to develop on their own… and when that happens, their physical design changes. TsuYa is a prime example of that. In Book 1 of Dreigiau, if you look back the oooold first character profile art (don’t really look… it’s bad!!), you can see he started out looking a LOT different. But when I started to get to know him, his physical design changed as he developed until I finally got the design that I have now.
There are a few rare times that I have created a character physical design and then went back and filled in personality later. But I find this really hard to do unless I have Syn’s help RPing to get the feel of what the character is like. KoGuRai and Kudako are two I can think of.
With KoGu, I knew the basis of his character was vicious… but his real backstory and personality didn’t come until a long time after my first drawing of him.
Kudako has to be the most difficult character I ever designed… that teaches me to create a character as a plot device for another character! Kudako was created because I knew I needed someone to keep young Zento in line and to teach him the ways of a warrior. The only things I knew about him were 1- he was a warrior 2- he was stern enough to keep Zento in line 3- he was one of Zemi’s servants. So I drew a concept piece that I thought looked cool and different from the rest of the characters in Dreigiau, because I wanted him to stand out in design… but at this point, I don’t know that I think the blue/yellow really fits the personality he developed into.
I remember posting his picture up and saying… well… here’s a new character but I don’t know a thing about him. Does anyone have any suggestions? I knew he was a stoic warrior… but I didn’t have anything beyond that to work with. I searched the web over for ideas on hobbies and interests… quirks and personality traits. It really was a terribly forced thing.
With Kudako, it eventually got to the point where I couldn’t figure him out until I dropped him in Wayrift chats and attempted to RP his personality. So Kudako really developed on the fly, over the years. I like who he is now… but the creation method didn’t work for me. I don’t think I’ll ever try to create a character in this manner again. ~~;
However! Just because character creation doesn’t come to you in that order doesn’t mean that your characters are boring! I’m glad that you brought that up. I’m sure there’s plenty of people who work in the reverse order — they see something visual and can attach a story or personality to it. There’s nothing wrong with that at all! I just was outlining how it comes to me.
What I was expressing here was, no matter what order personality comes in, it’s important to make this a deep consideration of creation. Thinking about every angle and quirk that your character can have will go a long way to make them more real.
I know you already do that with your characters, Pen — so there’s no worry in that!! ^^
(PS… fixed the comment issue)
Syn sez:
I find that collaboration is particularly important in terms of developing and fleshing out characters. You really find out what is behind a character when they are thrown in situations that you can’t really anticipate — and sometimes you find them reacting very contrary towards what you had thought of.
In the case of Zeb and Aiden — they were two of my original characters — however, they were very, very 2D feeling before they were thrown into the Wayrift. I think it also holds forth for many NPC’s and etc.
You’re just going to have to write something on collaboration now, Wren. Heh. =3
I owe so much of my character development to collaborating with you in RPs… I just can’t express how much! You may think I’m the writer between the two of us, but I know that I wouldn’t have fleshed out my characters half as much as I have without you.
I do plan to write on collaboration… but it’s really hit and miss sometimes. I think you and I have a very unique situation in that though we sometimes have creative conflicts, we tend to be of the same mind in what we want to see happen with our worlds. And we both have the same respect and love for each other’s characters… which really means a lot.
Collaboration between artists is a pact of deep creative trust and balance. It’s hard to find out there, even between good friends. But I’ll save all those thoughts for another post!
Oh yeah, now that you mention it I remember all the problems you had with Kudako in the beginning (wow, it’s been that long? or does it just feel that happened a long time ago?). I’m glad he’s so solid to you now! So does this mean Kudako’s going to have a ‘costume’ change in the near future?
Actually, that is the one downside to visualizing first–character design change becomes frequent. At least for me. For instance, in my Ghost prequel I originally had everyone set in how they would look right from the beginning. Well, after taking some time and then returning to it, I’ve realized that just doesn’t work with the story. Because my characters in the prequel decide for themselves how they look by what they see, they’re character design will be a reflection of the changes in their world as well as what they grew an affinity for (I.E. Self would never admit it but he really likes shiny things. So once gold jewelry is invented, Self decks himself out in as much of the stuff as he can. He’s like Mr. T with dragon ears).
Thanks for the compliment on my characters, Wren! I try to think about them from different angles and quirks, but honestly lately my Ghost characters are feeling really mysterious to me. Which is why I’m committing myself to writing the prequel first because my characters there are more solid and obvious with their motivations than in Ghost. I think what happens there will have a trickle down effect on my characters in Ghost. (I.e. Ashen is so subconsciously linked to Self that I need to know Self first before I truly understand Ashen.)
Kudako tends to wear Baron uniforms in his current day incarnation. But as far as changing his outfit in Dreigiau, I doubt it.
Ah… so then that’s a normal thing. For characters to change appearance as you develop personality when you’re doing it the other way around. I thought I was the only one that couldn’t nail down how a character should look! *laugh*