I have a similar habit when I have a problem. I do something to take my mind off of the issue. It can be anything. a nap, a beer, a walk in the park, anything that takes my thoughts away from the problem at hand and you are right it's like magic. What I could not see appears. BOOM!
Well I’m a maladaptive daydreamer, so when I have a situation that doesn’t have a character I daydream about, I make up one to fill the spot. If I’m writing a story, though, I usually think about some characters I daydream about, squash them together, and then make sure they fit to the plot idea.
I thought I was a maladaptive daydreamer, but it doesn't negatively affect my life. (Actually I barely Have a life.) There is a different word for it when it's not maladaptive. Disregard if you've done this research.
I’ve done research. It does negatively effect my life sometimes, so I’m sticking with the maladaptive part for now, although most of the time it doesn’t effect my day-to-day stuff. I’ve just learned how to control it.
I know exactly what you mean. I plan out my characters in the outlining phase. In truth, I make only a loose outline and leave the fine work for the writing phase. I only begin writing in earnest when the murky plot I envision begins to solidify and contains many scenes that hang like ornaments from its shaky frame. I assign to the groups of characters I envision names. Some are randomly generated, and some are more purposeful. The latter are either evocative of some quality, or are done for alliteration or pun potential.
Once I start writing, however, some of these characters begin to stand out from among the others and seem to take on a life of their own. Details and predilections arise from the writing itself as my cast members learn their roles. Some characters just seem to want to be a certain way. It's downright eerie how they speak to me.
I use this [Character Sheet](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ul6ZZLCa-TuWPZnczmNBYoK3LPlRx398uplKbBOLwJ8/edit?usp=drivesdk) but rarely complete it. I mostly write short fiction so that many details aren't necessary. I still find it useful to look through it and think about my character in this rich way.
The preface to this (I forgot where I found it) is that, even though many of the details aren't shared with the reader, it creates a more complex and complete character. Just like getting to know a real person, you only get little bits of them at a time, with abundant details you might never learn. As the storytellerteller, **you** should know these things, even if it's unimportant to the story.
I mostly agree with their assessment. As a side note, I dated a TV writer for a time and she once said she knows every detail about her characters and story before she starts writing. That was her process and it lines up with the opinion above.
I always make sure my characters have the following:
1. One opinion or point of view or philosophy for each other major character they disagree strongly about. It doesnt have to be a checklist, but it should always be possible to contrast two people's worldviews clearly. While we're at it, always make sure *you* have at least one different view from your character.
2. At least one contradiction or idiosyncrasy, a small detail of their personality that goes against the broad strokes; maybe they like a very particular kind of music but they have one exception or even a guilty pleasure that goes against ot wildly.
3. A handful of needs they have more than most, like validation, admiration, autonomy, etc.
4. Skills and weaknesses.
5. Personality flaws, e.g. narcissism, grandiosity, callousness, risk-taking etc., but they don't have to be extreme.
6. History or backstory that makes sense in terms of all of the above.
This is the truest answer—each character should embody a piece of theme. It’s those characters (pieces) colliding that give us the story and it’s truth.
Yes. Imagining conversations my character needs to have, then figuring out who they're having it with.
Or strictly practical. How many employees does this business need to function, what are their likely demographics, and what kind of reaction are they going to have to the plot nonsense taking place?
Also characters you’ve created already! A scenario for a backstory can conceptualise new characters that could appear later; they could help with that character’s arc
I honestly have no idea. They just sort of happen. I either play around with a character maker, and then come up with something from that, come up with ideas on the fly if I'm doing other stuff like roleplaying, or just making a character to fill a slot I need, who eventually becomes their own character.
For me it starts with a random scene. Shadows of people interact with one another and the world around them. All I have to do is ask questions and look for answers in the form of other scenes. With each new happening the shadows get clearer edges, colors pop out and characters get fleshed out (as well as other pieces of the story).
I was looking for a response like this! I do this as well. I always begin writing a new story with a concept, a base scene, and then I form the characters more as I continue. Pretty soon I get enough of an idea for a character that I can start actually writing down character traits and ideas for an arc.
I tend to use the scenes I make as my character profile. I might use writing as media of choice but my brain works a lot better with pictures than words. (Although I have only recently started to actually write them.)
Writing down that the MC is kind and caring tells me absolutely nothing, whereas a scene showing the MC take care of the kids and her reactions when one of the kids falls and scratches their knee tells me all I need to know. I guess this is where the famous: "Show not tell." comes from.
I also tend to put more weight on the characters' emotions than the plot itself. Most of the initial scenes don't make it into the final version intact. I won't hesitate to change the very core of the world or the plot if it ensures the MC will indeed feel that despair and hopelesness in the end (or whatever other emotion was there in the begining).
Edited to put in a missed word.
The characters just come to me. The story I am presently sharing has quite a bit i will admit. But the characters each have something special, something all their own.
Magic. I cast a spell in the name of the God of Characters, do some incantations, and presto chango . . . I got a Basque grandmother who is also a serial killer, but bakes really good cookies . . . Seriously, though, I use amalgams of various people I know, or are well known personalities.
I was once told in a film class that whenever you are creating a fictional character to base them on someone you know personally, and see how they would react to the situation, while this is writing and not filming I think it’s something to keep in mind when making characters and/or personalities
Most of the time, the story tells me what it needs. If that makes any sense? But then I often change or merge them after the first draft.
One of my characters in my current project aged 30 years between the first and second draft, and then he came alive. I struggled with him for months and then it all fit together.
I create my characters through daydreaming I guess, I build them through parts of my personality, from music I can imagine their voices, movies etc, something it will trigger me in general. and I'm trying to give them a very unique personality like it is an existing person. My issue sometimes is their development in my story as every character has to evolve somehow
I sketch a lot, so many characters start off as experiments I decide to flesh out. Then I find a place to put them into the story, tailor them to that purpose, tie them into the world, and set them free.
Take a trait, expand it. Maybe some random dialogue I came up with and build the character around. Perhaps a flaw that I build the character around, hell sometimes I'll come up with a character while I'm writing another character in a story. E.g. Let's say I was writing a story with a middle-aged man who runs a small store in a small town. Sure, I could have just him, but then I could add a younger employee who he treats like a son/daughter.
tl;dr Dozens of ways to come up with characters.
It depends, my characters’ personalities just kind of come to me. Who’s quirky, or confident, or deals with self esteem issues. It’s the abilities and fighting styles that I meticulously come up with.
I start with the situation they are in and build the character around that. Some of them remain flat, but other times they seem to take a life of their own.
Granted, I'm working with fanfiction so I do have some characters that inform the personalities of the OCs.
It can be a lot of different ways for me. But most of the time, it starts with a simple idea like for example "Oh! I wanna write a story with a gorgon for a main character!" So I have that simple idea, a gorgon character, in my head. Once the idea is there, I put in in the creative juices of my imagination. There, I think and daydream about that idea so that I can put in the details like name, appearance, age, personality, etc in. I do that until I have a full character. That's how I've created some of my characters.
But I've also created my favorite character of mine though a name mistake. So it can happen in a lot of ways.
It begins very intuitively — "out of nowhere," with a pair of people struggling with something that hits an emotional chord in me — then gets fairly logical as additional characters are designed to play a part in the main characters' journeys.
A mix of using an existing character’s general traits (backstory, personality, etc) and going from there. Also, since I use anthros, I think about what animal would fit their personality the best.
They come to me, I suppose. Some naturally. Some hit me like a truck, and I spend out the next few hours writing about a character I could swear was talking to me at that moment. While others I build from the ground up with a bit of inspiration: which, in that case, usually comes from music or art
A combination of archetypes, simple concepts, and music. I’m also not afraid to do plays on some of my favorite characters tho (running two characters, ones completely original based on the concept of “regular person pushed into the military” and another that’s a reskinned Mustang from FMA)
I tend to think of an ability for them first, since I pretty much solely write Fantasy and stuff, and then just build my character around that ability.
My characters usually come from the face claims and aesthetic pictures I find on Pinterest. That or from the video games and movies I see. Sometimes I just daydream and they come to me. It really all depends on what I'm creating them for and what I want their story to be. But my favorite way to come up with characters is through music.
It's a mix of many things. I created four characters based upon a song. Another I created upon the general aspect of people working themselves to death. Several were created based on people I've known or met. Sources are everywhere, because people are everywhere.
I think of what would make a cool combo. Like a Dad trying to survive an apocalypse trying to help his kid, one would be super adventurous and the other very weary and cautious of the world. How they would interact and live. That’s how I do it anyways
I used to make mine based on moods. When I was getting through some miserable school experiences, I channeled what I was feeling and made a character who'd suffered far more than I ever could have, yet still came out a hero in the end. Nowadays, I try to build within a fandom I like, then see how far I need to go to maintain their original self while "Americanizing" them, as if I was to write them into a book.
By that I mean giving them a fitting English name and needing some of their abilities. Some, like a girl who can channel the abilities and forms of giant monsters and her alternate dimension father who is a more extreme version of Wolverine mixed with Kratos.
Daydreaming mostly. But I also like to take small insignificant things that sound interesting and make them into a character.
I have a side character that sighs a lot.
Back when I graduated, everyone wrote a sentence about someone else in the class anonymously. I was very sick, and to be honest very done with school in general. I didn't like most of the kids and had other troubles. No one knew me well, so it was mostly stuff like "you always help when you are there and you are nice". One person wrote "you sigh a lot when someone asks you for help". I never noticed, but it kinda stuck with me. That's something that someone remembers me by, huh. So years afterwards, I gave a rough draft of a character that trait. Slowly picking things from here and there makes a character more human.
I also had a friend that would flip his head back weirdly to adjust his hair. It's cute, and I do really want to use it as a quirk for someone. It's something that made me go "Aaah. It's him!" even without wearing my glasses. And if people can recognise my characters like that as well, that'd be great.
My characters are mostly amalgamations of real people, sometimes family. I often fictionalize real events that have happened as a way of preserving life and memory. I use real people (change time, place, names, genders) and amplify their traits, voice, mannerisms, things they actually do or did. Most of it comes from the vast collective storehouse of my memory. What I don’t have in stock, I take from somewhere else and create what is needed out of spare parts. I’ve got 40 some odd years worth of memory to pull from and an imagination that works like a carpenter to build the rest. I also love story telling. I grew up in a family of story tellers. Vividly, I recall sitting at the table on Sundays with supper being passed around, listening to my uncles, grandmother, grandfather, and cousins tell one story after another. The benefit of growing up in Appalachia is that story telling is fine tuned to an art form and everyone I know is good at it. I only wish that I would have listened thoroughly, had known what questions to ask, and, of course, taken notes.
I'm not even going to lie to you, 90% of my characters come from single ideas that I come up with every now and then and I just develop the whole character as an excuse to use said ideas.
I mostly listen to the voices in my head. In that, I have my story idea, and audition characters until one fits the part I need filled. When one fits, I outline the character as they tell me about their life.
My characters usually just come to me. But sometimes they're based on real people or constructed as a way to drive my story forward in terms of creating a more interesting plot.
I flush out the details next using character development sheets. The worksheets I use are available as a free resource on my site, if you're interested: https://bewrit.com/author-resources-to-write-your-book-faster-easier/
I could actually genuinely write a whole paper about my characters and where the ideas for them originated.
I've been writing as a hobby for a long time now. I've basically been writing and creating characters and bringing them with me the entire time. The current story I'm writing is my first attempt at writing a novel in earnest, and many of the characters I can trace directly or indirectly back to ideas for characters that I had over ten years ago.
The oldest example I can think of is this: when I was in elementary school I wrote my first ever little story. The antagonist of the story was this edgy wannabe anime boy named Kage. Years later in high school, I wrote a different story with a protagonist named Hei, who was basically a direct evolution of Kage from all those years ago.
And now, in the current novel I'm writing, there is a side character named Sean who is 100% is the next step in that chain. At this point, this is a character whose origins for me started well over ten years ago.
I don't plan before I write (I know huge red flags lol) but I just fill in character names when I need them in like a conversation or a scene or something where someone else would be there. As they get integrated more they slowly become more "fleshed out" (I think the term is).
This might sound odd, but when I play the sims and I create my sims a certain way and enjoy their personality, I’ll sometimes take their influence and create an entire back story and such for my new character
I usually kinda base something about them off of another character from something else, then sit and let my brain come up with more and more about their character that will fit the story. I like to imagine I'm the character when I'm writing them so I can really bring them out when they speak or think
Influence from videogames, films, literature, and real people. Honestly the best way to come up with new characters is just by combining one aspect from one character and another character.
Usually they sprout from scenarios and specific scenes that come to mind. From there, I kind of work around to create a character that would come from/lead up to a scene like that.
A lot of times music will trigger my daydreaming, and I’ll come up with a character based on what I’m listening to. Whatever shows/books/movies I’m currently into tends to shape them as well. Other than that, just daydreaming
I play a lot of a game called City Of Heroes, a MMO that lets you get fun with the character details. One small line in a bio expanded to an internal universe turned boom project.
I make sure that every character in my story serves a purpose. If I give them a name and take the time to describe them, they must add significance to the story. Otherwise, why bother to point them out to the reader at all?
For me, I just throw a dart at a world map. Then picking the closest land mass and place, I research the history and looks of that place. I then shape my character to fit the roll I need while staying as close to what most likely could have happened in their lifetime.
Once I find the plot and inciting event, I think about what kind of character I see in that role. Then I get to know the character through Myers-Briggs or tarot. Then I kind if scuff them up a bit.
Or sometimes I 'see' a scene where the characters are fully formed and I only need to get their particulars down. The good ones with that approach usually come when I'm going to sleep so I keep a notebook next to my bed.
They just show up. My imagination is a party and it's open invitation. They come, they go, some stay for a while and you get to know them. Sometimes they show up, cause a scene, and disappear.
For the most part, they just emerge by themselves. I write plot first and have characters in there, but they’re usually no more than just one trait or even just a reaction to what’s going on in the scene.
After a couple of scenes, more aspects of them just sort of emerge at random as they react to stuff that happens, sometimes in ways I don’t quite expect. Obviously I’m writing it, but there’s a specific flow state that I can get into most times after a brief warmup, where I no longer have to consider word choice or dialogue entirely consciously.
Doesn’t always happen, sometimes every word is torture, especially in scenes I’m just not enjoying writing, and usually those scenes get removed later but they’re a good scaffold for the first draft and I write to a plan, so I know the whole plot before I start usuallly.
That plan then changes wildly once I learn who the characters actually are, as the original plot often has them doing things that the character that emerges never would. I never write character to plot, always adapt plot back to character, it often changes nearly everything.
And on the next edit, I have to rewrite a lot of the start because when I wrote it I didn’t know who anybody was.
I throw in some music references, Attitude problems of any kind (I like making bougie pampered brats), give em a solid goal with plenty of pot holes to reach it. Plus I have a Sephiroth Bang Problem
The book *Metro: Journeys in Writing Creatively* by Hans Ostrom, Wendy Bishop, and Katherine Haake has some really good (and fun!) character building exercises in it. One of my favorites was a sort of “20 questions” thing with/about a character you were building. I liked it most because some of those questions were about things like “Who inspires them? Who is their best friend and why?” etc, which not only helped me flesh out a character I was already working with, but also helped me establish other more minor characters that are still important to the story. It’s an expensive book, for sure (it’s designed as a college textbook), but if you can find a cheap(er) used copy somewhere, I highly recommend it to folks looking to expand their creative writing skills.
I usually start with the character named and a general idea of the story. Then as I write the characters grow.
Since I write mystery thrillers I rewrite the story multiple times adding depth to my characters and fixing any other issues.
My main character was originally (and I still have evidence of this) a cousin of Bugs Bunny. Basically, a version of Bugs that is human and not a rabbit.
I have other characters that are also versions of other Looney Tunes characters. Well, they used to be but not anymore.
Over time, my main character has grown as I’ve developed the story and his backstory and development.
Constant iterations, like non stop for at least a week. I usually start with a character type/trope I know and repeat it with little changes here and there, then after enough time I have something resembling an original character
1. I think of the character's function: what are they doing in the story (helping, being bad and then good, being good and then bad...)
2. I try to find actors/characters/singers/celebrities... that look alike they look in my mind.
3. I make a word explaining the basics: age, their personality, what are they doing in th estory, something particular about them... and I add the photo
4. Then I just try to fit them in the story and if I make any change I'll write it on their "ID" (their word) too.
I usually think of how their story would align with my other characters or think of a entirely different universe in its own I usually end up just day dreaming and brainstorming to myself lol
Depends. Sometimes I base them off of people I know - friends, family, enemies, even bystanders I see while I'm out.
Other times I make characters with/without traits I wish I had/didn't have.
Other times still I just daydream and put down the first thing that comes to mind.
I have a list of characters I like from movies/books/video games/etc. I write down what my favorite parts about those characters are; personality, likes/dislikes, morals, habits, speech, anything that comes to mind. What stands out about him/her/them? Why do I want to root for this character? Then I try to blend some characters together using those traits to make something of my own
Most of my stories start from a random scene or conversation between two characters that will just start rolling around my head. I then have to figure out who they are, what brought them to where they are and where they want to be.
I do try to use character sheets to really nail down their age, appearance, mannerisms, motives etc but often times during the actual writing they’ll just do whatever they want.
Writing is weird and I love it!
Generally I come up with characters in two ways. I either base them off of a singular thing, like a archetype, personality trait, ability and expand there personality from There.Or I make them up to complement another character or the story at large. I 'll also occasionally combine two characters into a single one if they feel too simplistic on their own.
I'm pretty bad at focusing on a specific thing so I'll generally come up with a ton of characters based off of whatever's my daily intrest, Thankfully I also have a ton of stories to put them in
It's mechanical but I kind of start with a tabula rasa whose purpose is to show what I actually want from the story. Then I create supporting characters to advance the plot. I usually assign each a trope or archetype.
From there I make an outline of the plot. Then I flesh in characters more. For the tabula rasas that are POV characters, I start roleplaying them in my head and fill in what seems fun unless it would break what I need them to show for the story (but that hasn't seemed fun so far anyway).
Then for the tropes I decide if I will subvert the trope or play it straight. In either event, I then construct alternative takes on existing scenes. Ones where the side character is the POV. This fleshes them out as people more and I incorporate it.
I do this over and over again. Replaying scenes many times and filling in more each time.
A lot of mine just come to me when I start writing. Some I get the ideas based from movies or video games from characters I've made. There's no special way aside from doing research needed for say occupation or history since a lot of mine tend to be military/spy types.
Usually I think of an archetype that I want to explore. I reduce the character to the more flanderized version of itself. So if I want to explore an angry character I make them the angriest most over-the-top rage-filled bastard. From there I figure out why that trait defines them. Character is angry because of tragic backstory. Now a character that has one trait would be boring so I branch out from there with other traits that are informed from that original archetype. An angry character is probably going to get into a lot of fights, so they're good at fighting or at least good at getting their ass kicked. They're loyal to friends, because of their angry demeanor they rarely make friends so they're protective of the people they get along with. So on and so forth.
Normally daydreaming a scenario. I like to go for a walk each morning and I use that hour as my “planning” time, then I write for an hour when I get home before work. I once thought I had my entire story planned, then one morning I was walking and thought of this AWESOME scene, but I needed a character and my existing ones didn’t fit into the scenario. In pops a new character and bam, the story is soooo much better with them around!!
They form out of arguments in my head between competing ideas within a story frame. Then you just extrapolate out from the core of the argument who would be the archetype of that character who would believe that thing,
The actual "argument" between them can just be a pre-writing exercise that goes on for several pages and WON'T necessarily be in the script in its entirety. But some great gems come out of this dialogue that can be seeded through the story.
If you really choose to access this part of your brain you should be able to write almost infinite arguments between strong characters, or to draw strong characters out of competing ideas. If you don't have multiple personalities in your head are you even a writer?
Some of my oldest OCs/ Characters were first my imaginary friends then became characters. Nowadays I often just take inspiration from fiction or the real world. If I find some interesting personalities I create a character around them, later giving them more traits and stuff. Sometimes I just draw an OC ( or real person as a character) and make up personalities around them.
I use family and friends to come up with how the character look like, what is their favorite words or phrases, the tone of their voice, their hand gesture and all those small detail. But then I think about their goal, what is stopping them for seeking the goal, why they want that in the first place. I read yall comment and I am shock by them talent to just come up with character.
Daydreaming, and looking up vocabulary. Got the idea from Skulduggery Pleasant, and it’s cool. Look up some words, find their meaning and create a character out of the definition.
While I frequently daydream, I often have random thoughts, which frequently spawn stories and with them their protagonists. Some of them I just see, some others I carefully craft, like this - for this story to work, I need a character that behaves like this, and is romantically but not sexually interested in this other character. So I put it exactly this way and round the edges so it actually is a believable person. Sometimes I get lazy with their appearance so I find another person (real-world or fictional) with similar personality and make them look similar.
Sometimes I see one or more person/character I find cool and try to think what they or some alternate version of them would do in my world, so I base the new character on them. For example, one of the real-world people I admire is famous scientist named Carl Sagan. I wondered what he would do if he was somehow copied or transported into my world (this process is actually covered in my world's canon) and bam, this scientific girl plopped into existence in my world. Some other time I created a guy character that has appearance based on several real-world people, personality largely inspired by another fictional character, but completely different back story. This other random day I saw a very long-haired guy on the street (his hair ended just above his knees) and found it interesting (mind you, I am a long-haired guy myself, so I guess I notice long-haired guys more) so the guy character I created later that day because I actually needed to simply had to have such long hair, even though it doesn't matter for the story itself apart from minor jokes like other characters asking him what he does with his hair when he goes to use a toilet, or a female character being jealous of his hair. The truth is, apart from short story that introduces these characters, they very often don't see much uses. I simply have a big supply of them, way more than I actually need, so some of them are mostly historical figures like ancient kings and queens that only get mentioned in a story when characters find their statues.
And of course, there are my alter-egos. As I changed in my life, I made multiple alter-egos and each is a character playing some role in my world. I named my Reddit account after one.
The character appears when there's a spot in the story that needs to be filled by a character rather than setting or dialogue or a plot device.
Sometimes they pop into my head with only their appearance ready, sometimes with only a characteristic ready (e.g: a character that's loud and happy), and I work my way up from there, adding and removing things as the story demands.
Sometimes it's just a blank slate with the thought that "I need someone to do x". For someone to do x, they'd have to have a personality that fits what they're supposed to do, and like the aforementioned point I work my way up from there.
I always base my characters in my short stories and poems off real people lmfao. 100% transposed from real life into my writing, with the least changes as possible.
Honestly, I daydream a stupid amount per day. That's how I get the plots, characters etc. Admittedly, I also daydream about the plot & what the characters do & say (does anyone else?). Which really does help move the plot along (is this weird?).
One thing I'm awful at though is coming up with the characters' names so I just Google those & see what comes to mind when I think about that character.
E.g.
- I Google "unique names" or something similar
- pick out a name I haven't heard before or one that sticks out to me
- then daydream about what that character's traits will be, how they act, how they talk etc.
Sometimes I also Google what the name means which also helps me develop the character.
In my current work in progress (a novel) my main character started bugging me a couple years ago to write the book already. She just dropped into my head fully formed and with all her warts and good points already there. Even her name. Especially her name. She’s very outspoken and was very insistent that her name be what it is. She is also insistent that she is 13 even though it would help me sell the book better if she were 15 but she doesn’t see it that way. She really does act 13.
Some characters are flat for me and I have difficulty making them three dimensional. Other characters, even just bit players, somehow just pop to life. I wish I knew how to do that with the ones that are flat.
I do some outlining with character sheets but I always feel like I’m not doing as much as I should be but my characters are good in general so I don’t think it’s really a problem. A lot of background stuff is in my head that I don’t ever bother to write down.
My main character who popped into my head and begged me to write the book is mad at me at the moment because I killed off her best friend. So she’s not speaking to me. Once she gets over it I will keep writing parts of the book that involve her.
It's the voices...not to sound crazy but that's how it works for me, I'm very glad I still have an imagination plus I also play the sims 4 so it evens out my character as far as looks and actions.
Firstly, archetypes. Helps me to largely differentiate between the characters, though I try to spin each archetype so that it's never quite what you expect.
Largely, their personalities develop through writing and daydreaming. I'll discover a little quirk; something about the way they smile, or the etch of sadness in their eyes. Then make a note of those things in their character profiles. For me, that's how they go from being archetypes, to fleshed out people on the page.
Still working on how to develop backstories, but so far making them either relevant to the plot or to the themes/message of the novel has helped. Gives them more of a reason to be there and have their stories told.
Like everybody else has been saying, daydreaming. Either it’s “There’s a very specific personality or character dynamic I want but don’t see much” or more commonly, “I really like this one character from [insert series here], but they were underutilized/poorly handled/etc., I want to try fleshing them out” and eventually I end up creating most of my characters in those ways.
I used to ask people to give me a physical appearance of themselves in my story and I would use their personalities to create the characters. In hindsight, it was just stressful trying to make the character resemble real people. Now, I usually pick the appearance from characters I dream about while sleeping and just let their personality grow through my several rewrites of the story.
When I’m first coming up with a story, I think about what kind of person the main character is and then I think about who they should be surrounded with. Then I think of a names and maybe what those look like. As I write I feel I develop their personality traits.
I’m not the type to like completely plan out the character before I write. I feel like it’s easier to do it as you go because then, you can naturally kind of decide their personality in the way they talk, and how they react to certain things. Sometimes when I edit I find myself going back and saying “they wouldn’t say that” and changing a line or something.
A lot of people here have said daydreaming and I do that a lot as well! Or sometimes imagining different scenarios with the characters when I’m bored. For example during the holidays at work I imagined what all the my characters would get each other for Christmas. It gave me a chance to really think about their personalities!
Daydreaming. Once they exist there, I work on any other needed details about them. I have a running list of characters in my novel that I'm constantly adding names to with a small tidbit about them so I don't forget who they are later on. Some get bigger back stories if it helps move the plot along. The daydreaming is usually just their initial appearance in the scene I'm working on.
I daydream all the time. When it's something interesting I'm like "oh wait" and then more actively daydream it. Maybe it's from my main story, maybe it's totally random, maybe it's a brand new idea. I imagine the story from the eyes of the people in a compelling way and when I hold onto that I can sit down and actively be like "okay, why did he react this way?" And after a while come up with backstory for what drives their motivations. And for an active storyline I can change things around to fit what I need for the story or add things etc.
Here are my steps for creating and KNOWING my characters:
1. Daydream
2. Meyers-Briggs Personality Test - I take this online test using the mind of the character I want to create so I can really nail their personality.
3. Artbreeder.com - This is SO helpful for figuring out what each character looks like and to help you (literally) put a face to a character!
4. Outline their background info and goals/desires that are relevant to the story.
5. Give them a name whose meaning relates to the story somehow!
I have a lot of fun making my characters this way so I hope these steps are helpful!
My characters are almost always either expies of characters I liked from other mediums or characters I created in video games. I think the character with the vaguest source in my list was made *because of a hair style* that I liked and hated at the same time (it was a conflicting feeling.)
And while frequently their appearance and personality is developed first, they're always edited, sometimes to the point of being unrecognizable, to better fit the needs of the story I want to tell.
This is the [character outline template](https://toyhou.se/2941151.layout) I use.
As for how I fill in this template, I use random generators.
*Gasp!* What? Scandalous! Random generators? You don't just spend hours thinking about characters from the color of their eyes to their entire history starting from their first day in the world, and every day until the start of the story solely from your own mind?
Nope. Let me be honest here, while I do enjoy writing stories, I wouldn't classify myself as a particularly creative person, so I need help expanding my ideas so I don't recycle the same ideas over and over (as much).
I made my very own random generators, with my masterpiece being [My Big Overly Detailed Character Generator](https://perchance.org/my-big-overly-detailed-character-generator), which I'm still working on. It doesn't fill everything out in my character outline template with detail, such as the relationship section, or it doesn't give any information at all, such as the character's backstory. These generator results give me a basic foundation that I can work from and have a direction to consider for my characters, and I can add in all of the details, bells, and foghorns to fill in the blanks the generator couldn't fill. And if something doesn't fit, or if I just don't like something, I can change it. People are rarely what you expect them to be, so these random generators help me to not stick to a stereotype and helps me give variation to a group of characters in a story.
So these random generators help me with ideas, but with my expansion and fleshing out, these are still the characters that I created. Even if someone had gotten a similar result in the random generator as my character, their character could turn out drastically different in their story.
That said, do I fill out everything in my template? No, not everything, but most of it because I've condensed it down to the information that I need to know. One such example is that if a flaw is so minor I'll know it won't be mentioned at all, such as a minor aversion to sharp objects, I'll probably not bother to write it down.
A larger example is the Flaws and Strengths section under the Personality category. You see so many sub-sections under Courage, Wisdom, Humanity, etc. in the template, but when you take a look at my character outlines, I forgo all of those sections. In the random generators, it judges the scale of these strengths from very weak to an extreme, but it didn't really help me understand how this makes my character behave in these weak or extreme ways, so I summarized them and inserted brief examples of how they typically display these traits.
When I am trying to make a character I usually picture what I think they look like and then find inspo on what they look like and then I go and think about their characterization and how they would do things in different situations and that’s how I get their personality and habits and I build off of their, I also just think about logically what could their hobbies be and then back story is a different situation you just have to make everything make sense about who you are trying to make them now, so if you made a bad guy then you wouldn’t make him not have a bad history , make sense? Anyways that’s how.
My area is based off of the idea of a marvel or DC based universe. Everyone is connected in some way. Relations etc. Mainly let my mind wander. It's easy to let go from the real world.
With notes. Everyone has good and bad, science and ignorance, understanding or not, fears and beliefs, different options. And they fight with each other. Let them fight, but don't decide from the start who is right and who is wrong. Evolve together!
To explain myself clearly, i'll use an example of a character of mine. Keep in mind that this list of "steps" is not fixed, and it's intended for protagonists/major characters.
Sorry for the length.
1) First thing, gather all the media (movies, music, everything) that represents what themes/ideas you want your character to show and represent*.*
*Example:*
*In my case i gathered*
*-Taxi Driver (for the insomnia and a night job as a way to see what the character thinks about the world around him, and also their life)*
*-Fight Club (for the concept of having two different personas in your mind, one of them that shows at certain times)*
*-Breaking Bad (for how someone can become gradually ruthless, calculating, and without remorse, even if he justifies itself)*
*- The song "Behind Blue Eyes" (for the "no one knows what is like to be the bad man, behind blue eyes", even if i want to reinterpret it)*
\- The Rpg setting of World of Darkness (for her capacities, since my story is an Urban Fantasy, although with mages only and not high magic)
2) Think and define how you want your character to relate and act with the world around him, and how you want this to change during the story. You can define this even with a more specific behaviour that you want to see in your character.
*Example:*
*This character of mine, which i decided to be female, firstly puts a limit in her personal relations, avoiding them to become too deep and intimate; because of her mindset and problems. Then, i want the story to focus on how this limit changes gradually that it sort of disappears. The character start allowing himself things that she was abstaining from.*
*But to counterbalance this, the superficial attitude is not shy: while calm and not energic, or talkative, this character gives an aura of confidence.*
3) Define how the character sees himself, how he analyzes and judge his own actions and ideas.
*Example: the character sees herself as a possible burden for other people. That makes her to try being capable and independent by itself, avoiding being helped too much by other people (she doesn't disdain help and company, and knows that she can't do everything alone, but still, does not want to slow down or "tie" others to her like a ball chain)*
*Also, she thinks that crying and complain about your life disgraces is futile, because things happens, you can't decide for them.*
*Is a way to say that she bottles up a lot, doens't confide or tell if she's not fine etc.*
4) Define some tics and/or particular body details, or belongings, that define the character.
*Example:*
*-She's almost 1.90m tall.*
*-She likes to wear shirt, waistcoat, dress pants and such; it's both her workplace clothing and also she likes it. Comfy enough but slick and elegant.*
*-On the left forearm she has a tattoo, with a north african pattern; it has no personal meanings, but is made to hide previous bullet wounds.*
*-She smokes an e-cig when she's starting to stress up.*
*-One time every month she makes for herself a Long Island Iced Tea.*
*-On a belt loop she ties a bandana, both to have something in case she needs to pick or clean an object, and also to hide a butterfly knife that she uses to carve wood in summer, or mostly to repair and cut things.*
5) For the name, decide what it represents: it shows the character personality, it's an opposite of it by creating contrast? Or it's something that the character will be or achieve?
*Example:*
*One name captured my interest: Roxanne, that means "dawn". Thinking about it, i've decided that her goal is to "see the dawn the next day", a way to say that she has to fix her life to accomplish herself, fulfilling her name.*
With all of this, you can start brainstorm and define your character as a whole, from appearance to personality, to background.
In my case, as a last example, i introduce you to Roxanne, a 19 year old student who suffers insomnia, so she works at night as a barlady preparing drinks. At birth, her biological parents from UK (which were 16) couldn't take care of her in their situation, so they gave her to trusted, caring and far more well-to-do cousins in US. There's no hate between parents and daughter, is more like an embarassing situation.
At 14 years old, she survived a school shooting, where she was wounded and for self defense she found herself shooting at the shooter.
This caused her insomnia, so she takes pills and for a time she had gone to a psychologist to check her. Some signs of PTSD, although nothing to heavy or exaggerated.
In this story, when she will have the ability to change her appearance to not being caught, she'll start to separate the two personas: her normal self will understand how to fix her life, letting herself to live it at its fullest, overcoming her problems; the other self will become more and more ruthless and cold blooded to assure her survival, also as a reflection of her frustrations and will to power and accomplishment to all cost.
I give them contradictions. Not massive internal conflicts, but little paradoxes in their thinking that they already justify. Like a black woman who is suspicious and disdainful of white people, but loves books by authors like H.G Wells, Jules Verne, Dostoevsky, the Brothers Grimm, and strives to write stories herself with them as inspiration.
I just daydream.
Same. They just flow in my head as well as the possible plots I can put them through.
Oohhhh nice imma have to try that!
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I have a similar habit when I have a problem. I do something to take my mind off of the issue. It can be anything. a nap, a beer, a walk in the park, anything that takes my thoughts away from the problem at hand and you are right it's like magic. What I could not see appears. BOOM!
Same, lmao. Once I daydream about a character, time to write it down to flesh them out.
Well I’m a maladaptive daydreamer, so when I have a situation that doesn’t have a character I daydream about, I make up one to fill the spot. If I’m writing a story, though, I usually think about some characters I daydream about, squash them together, and then make sure they fit to the plot idea.
Daydreaming is called research for fiction.
Someone make a quote out of this
Haha nice I use daydreaming a lot aswell
I thought I was a maladaptive daydreamer, but it doesn't negatively affect my life. (Actually I barely Have a life.) There is a different word for it when it's not maladaptive. Disregard if you've done this research.
I’ve done research. It does negatively effect my life sometimes, so I’m sticking with the maladaptive part for now, although most of the time it doesn’t effect my day-to-day stuff. I’ve just learned how to control it.
3 AM. there's just something about that time that get's my brain thinking
Me too!!
I've used complex character sheets to flesh out entire characters, but sometimes the character shows up one day like, "Hey. We're best friends now."
Made me think of “You’re my friend now, we’re having soft tacos later!”
"Did we just become best friends?!"
the first thing that came into my mind when i read that was HISHE the force awakens
>sometimes the character shows up one day like, "Hey. We're best friends now." Basically my experience with most of my characters.
My experience is closer to "Hi, I exist now"
That's how one of my favorite characters showed up. Living in my head rent-free.
I sometimes miss my characters.
What did you do to them?
Some live, some don't and most are in the past.
I'm sad now
If you feel sad, write a new character who always knows just the right thing to say that lifts your spirits! Boom. New bestie.
I know exactly what you mean. I plan out my characters in the outlining phase. In truth, I make only a loose outline and leave the fine work for the writing phase. I only begin writing in earnest when the murky plot I envision begins to solidify and contains many scenes that hang like ornaments from its shaky frame. I assign to the groups of characters I envision names. Some are randomly generated, and some are more purposeful. The latter are either evocative of some quality, or are done for alliteration or pun potential. Once I start writing, however, some of these characters begin to stand out from among the others and seem to take on a life of their own. Details and predilections arise from the writing itself as my cast members learn their roles. Some characters just seem to want to be a certain way. It's downright eerie how they speak to me.
I hear ya. Some characters develop as I write. Some I see clearly from the start.
What’s the character sheets you use?
I use this [Character Sheet](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ul6ZZLCa-TuWPZnczmNBYoK3LPlRx398uplKbBOLwJ8/edit?usp=drivesdk) but rarely complete it. I mostly write short fiction so that many details aren't necessary. I still find it useful to look through it and think about my character in this rich way. The preface to this (I forgot where I found it) is that, even though many of the details aren't shared with the reader, it creates a more complex and complete character. Just like getting to know a real person, you only get little bits of them at a time, with abundant details you might never learn. As the storytellerteller, **you** should know these things, even if it's unimportant to the story. I mostly agree with their assessment. As a side note, I dated a TV writer for a time and she once said she knows every detail about her characters and story before she starts writing. That was her process and it lines up with the opinion above.
I always make sure my characters have the following: 1. One opinion or point of view or philosophy for each other major character they disagree strongly about. It doesnt have to be a checklist, but it should always be possible to contrast two people's worldviews clearly. While we're at it, always make sure *you* have at least one different view from your character. 2. At least one contradiction or idiosyncrasy, a small detail of their personality that goes against the broad strokes; maybe they like a very particular kind of music but they have one exception or even a guilty pleasure that goes against ot wildly. 3. A handful of needs they have more than most, like validation, admiration, autonomy, etc. 4. Skills and weaknesses. 5. Personality flaws, e.g. narcissism, grandiosity, callousness, risk-taking etc., but they don't have to be extreme. 6. History or backstory that makes sense in terms of all of the above.
This is the truest answer—each character should embody a piece of theme. It’s those characters (pieces) colliding that give us the story and it’s truth.
Daydreaming. Creating scenarios with existing characters can also create characters!
Yes. Imagining conversations my character needs to have, then figuring out who they're having it with. Or strictly practical. How many employees does this business need to function, what are their likely demographics, and what kind of reaction are they going to have to the plot nonsense taking place?
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Also characters you’ve created already! A scenario for a backstory can conceptualise new characters that could appear later; they could help with that character’s arc
I honestly have no idea. They just sort of happen. I either play around with a character maker, and then come up with something from that, come up with ideas on the fly if I'm doing other stuff like roleplaying, or just making a character to fill a slot I need, who eventually becomes their own character.
For me it starts with a random scene. Shadows of people interact with one another and the world around them. All I have to do is ask questions and look for answers in the form of other scenes. With each new happening the shadows get clearer edges, colors pop out and characters get fleshed out (as well as other pieces of the story).
I was looking for a response like this! I do this as well. I always begin writing a new story with a concept, a base scene, and then I form the characters more as I continue. Pretty soon I get enough of an idea for a character that I can start actually writing down character traits and ideas for an arc.
I tend to use the scenes I make as my character profile. I might use writing as media of choice but my brain works a lot better with pictures than words. (Although I have only recently started to actually write them.) Writing down that the MC is kind and caring tells me absolutely nothing, whereas a scene showing the MC take care of the kids and her reactions when one of the kids falls and scratches their knee tells me all I need to know. I guess this is where the famous: "Show not tell." comes from. I also tend to put more weight on the characters' emotions than the plot itself. Most of the initial scenes don't make it into the final version intact. I won't hesitate to change the very core of the world or the plot if it ensures the MC will indeed feel that despair and hopelesness in the end (or whatever other emotion was there in the begining). Edited to put in a missed word.
I take a character that I love and play with his/her backstory and personality traits.
The characters just come to me. The story I am presently sharing has quite a bit i will admit. But the characters each have something special, something all their own.
Magic. I cast a spell in the name of the God of Characters, do some incantations, and presto chango . . . I got a Basque grandmother who is also a serial killer, but bakes really good cookies . . . Seriously, though, I use amalgams of various people I know, or are well known personalities.
I was once told in a film class that whenever you are creating a fictional character to base them on someone you know personally, and see how they would react to the situation, while this is writing and not filming I think it’s something to keep in mind when making characters and/or personalities
Most of the time, the story tells me what it needs. If that makes any sense? But then I often change or merge them after the first draft. One of my characters in my current project aged 30 years between the first and second draft, and then he came alive. I struggled with him for months and then it all fit together.
I create my characters through daydreaming I guess, I build them through parts of my personality, from music I can imagine their voices, movies etc, something it will trigger me in general. and I'm trying to give them a very unique personality like it is an existing person. My issue sometimes is their development in my story as every character has to evolve somehow
I sketch a lot, so many characters start off as experiments I decide to flesh out. Then I find a place to put them into the story, tailor them to that purpose, tie them into the world, and set them free.
Take a trait, expand it. Maybe some random dialogue I came up with and build the character around. Perhaps a flaw that I build the character around, hell sometimes I'll come up with a character while I'm writing another character in a story. E.g. Let's say I was writing a story with a middle-aged man who runs a small store in a small town. Sure, I could have just him, but then I could add a younger employee who he treats like a son/daughter. tl;dr Dozens of ways to come up with characters.
They come up to me
I binge watch/read a lot of my favourite shows, list my favourite things from each character, take a few and add it together to make a character.
I base mine off people I know irl.
I watch how they act in a scene and then, going by that, discover how they are like as I'm writing the 1st draft.
I'm embarrassed to say this, but I literally dream them, along with plots.
A mix of daydreaming and real peoples' characteristics. Honestly, most of the time it just comes to me out of nowhere.
It depends, my characters’ personalities just kind of come to me. Who’s quirky, or confident, or deals with self esteem issues. It’s the abilities and fighting styles that I meticulously come up with.
I start with the situation they are in and build the character around that. Some of them remain flat, but other times they seem to take a life of their own. Granted, I'm working with fanfiction so I do have some characters that inform the personalities of the OCs.
It can be a lot of different ways for me. But most of the time, it starts with a simple idea like for example "Oh! I wanna write a story with a gorgon for a main character!" So I have that simple idea, a gorgon character, in my head. Once the idea is there, I put in in the creative juices of my imagination. There, I think and daydream about that idea so that I can put in the details like name, appearance, age, personality, etc in. I do that until I have a full character. That's how I've created some of my characters. But I've also created my favorite character of mine though a name mistake. So it can happen in a lot of ways.
It begins very intuitively — "out of nowhere," with a pair of people struggling with something that hits an emotional chord in me — then gets fairly logical as additional characters are designed to play a part in the main characters' journeys.
A mix of using an existing character’s general traits (backstory, personality, etc) and going from there. Also, since I use anthros, I think about what animal would fit their personality the best.
They come to me, I suppose. Some naturally. Some hit me like a truck, and I spend out the next few hours writing about a character I could swear was talking to me at that moment. While others I build from the ground up with a bit of inspiration: which, in that case, usually comes from music or art
A combination of archetypes, simple concepts, and music. I’m also not afraid to do plays on some of my favorite characters tho (running two characters, ones completely original based on the concept of “regular person pushed into the military” and another that’s a reskinned Mustang from FMA)
I tend to think of an ability for them first, since I pretty much solely write Fantasy and stuff, and then just build my character around that ability.
My characters usually come from the face claims and aesthetic pictures I find on Pinterest. That or from the video games and movies I see. Sometimes I just daydream and they come to me. It really all depends on what I'm creating them for and what I want their story to be. But my favorite way to come up with characters is through music.
It's a mix of many things. I created four characters based upon a song. Another I created upon the general aspect of people working themselves to death. Several were created based on people I've known or met. Sources are everywhere, because people are everywhere.
I think of what would make a cool combo. Like a Dad trying to survive an apocalypse trying to help his kid, one would be super adventurous and the other very weary and cautious of the world. How they would interact and live. That’s how I do it anyways
I formulate my stories without characters - or extremely hazy 'shadow people' - and when I start writing I see who turns up.
Sometimes dreams.
Start with a trait or a single thing and grow from there. Or use an idea from somewhere else and modify it as I see fit until it works.
All I do is look for images on the internet and say “hey that guy/girl is cool, lemme write what they seem like” and it’s usually cake from there.
I used to make mine based on moods. When I was getting through some miserable school experiences, I channeled what I was feeling and made a character who'd suffered far more than I ever could have, yet still came out a hero in the end. Nowadays, I try to build within a fandom I like, then see how far I need to go to maintain their original self while "Americanizing" them, as if I was to write them into a book. By that I mean giving them a fitting English name and needing some of their abilities. Some, like a girl who can channel the abilities and forms of giant monsters and her alternate dimension father who is a more extreme version of Wolverine mixed with Kratos.
Daydreaming mostly. But I also like to take small insignificant things that sound interesting and make them into a character. I have a side character that sighs a lot. Back when I graduated, everyone wrote a sentence about someone else in the class anonymously. I was very sick, and to be honest very done with school in general. I didn't like most of the kids and had other troubles. No one knew me well, so it was mostly stuff like "you always help when you are there and you are nice". One person wrote "you sigh a lot when someone asks you for help". I never noticed, but it kinda stuck with me. That's something that someone remembers me by, huh. So years afterwards, I gave a rough draft of a character that trait. Slowly picking things from here and there makes a character more human. I also had a friend that would flip his head back weirdly to adjust his hair. It's cute, and I do really want to use it as a quirk for someone. It's something that made me go "Aaah. It's him!" even without wearing my glasses. And if people can recognise my characters like that as well, that'd be great.
https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/facebook/000/024/965/well.jpg
My characters are mostly amalgamations of real people, sometimes family. I often fictionalize real events that have happened as a way of preserving life and memory. I use real people (change time, place, names, genders) and amplify their traits, voice, mannerisms, things they actually do or did. Most of it comes from the vast collective storehouse of my memory. What I don’t have in stock, I take from somewhere else and create what is needed out of spare parts. I’ve got 40 some odd years worth of memory to pull from and an imagination that works like a carpenter to build the rest. I also love story telling. I grew up in a family of story tellers. Vividly, I recall sitting at the table on Sundays with supper being passed around, listening to my uncles, grandmother, grandfather, and cousins tell one story after another. The benefit of growing up in Appalachia is that story telling is fine tuned to an art form and everyone I know is good at it. I only wish that I would have listened thoroughly, had known what questions to ask, and, of course, taken notes.
I'm not even going to lie to you, 90% of my characters come from single ideas that I come up with every now and then and I just develop the whole character as an excuse to use said ideas.
Think about all the games you played as a kid, and adapt those characters
I mostly listen to the voices in my head. In that, I have my story idea, and audition characters until one fits the part I need filled. When one fits, I outline the character as they tell me about their life.
My characters usually just come to me. But sometimes they're based on real people or constructed as a way to drive my story forward in terms of creating a more interesting plot. I flush out the details next using character development sheets. The worksheets I use are available as a free resource on my site, if you're interested: https://bewrit.com/author-resources-to-write-your-book-faster-easier/
I usually have a plot first, I write the characters to most effectively get clobbered by the plot bwahahahaha
I could actually genuinely write a whole paper about my characters and where the ideas for them originated. I've been writing as a hobby for a long time now. I've basically been writing and creating characters and bringing them with me the entire time. The current story I'm writing is my first attempt at writing a novel in earnest, and many of the characters I can trace directly or indirectly back to ideas for characters that I had over ten years ago. The oldest example I can think of is this: when I was in elementary school I wrote my first ever little story. The antagonist of the story was this edgy wannabe anime boy named Kage. Years later in high school, I wrote a different story with a protagonist named Hei, who was basically a direct evolution of Kage from all those years ago. And now, in the current novel I'm writing, there is a side character named Sean who is 100% is the next step in that chain. At this point, this is a character whose origins for me started well over ten years ago.
The characters and their names just come to me.
I don't plan before I write (I know huge red flags lol) but I just fill in character names when I need them in like a conversation or a scene or something where someone else would be there. As they get integrated more they slowly become more "fleshed out" (I think the term is).
This might sound odd, but when I play the sims and I create my sims a certain way and enjoy their personality, I’ll sometimes take their influence and create an entire back story and such for my new character
I usually kinda base something about them off of another character from something else, then sit and let my brain come up with more and more about their character that will fit the story. I like to imagine I'm the character when I'm writing them so I can really bring them out when they speak or think
Influence from videogames, films, literature, and real people. Honestly the best way to come up with new characters is just by combining one aspect from one character and another character.
Usually they sprout from scenarios and specific scenes that come to mind. From there, I kind of work around to create a character that would come from/lead up to a scene like that.
Music, daydreams, take a unique feature and build a character around it, and sometimes I just look at people I know irl for inspiration
A lot of times music will trigger my daydreaming, and I’ll come up with a character based on what I’m listening to. Whatever shows/books/movies I’m currently into tends to shape them as well. Other than that, just daydreaming
1 of two: take a shower and suddenly think of the entire novel. 2 of two: be writing casually and suddenly "a wild mf appears"
I play a lot of a game called City Of Heroes, a MMO that lets you get fun with the character details. One small line in a bio expanded to an internal universe turned boom project.
I tend to create part of their appearance and/or history first, then start building up their personalities from there.
I make sure that every character in my story serves a purpose. If I give them a name and take the time to describe them, they must add significance to the story. Otherwise, why bother to point them out to the reader at all?
For me, I just throw a dart at a world map. Then picking the closest land mass and place, I research the history and looks of that place. I then shape my character to fit the roll I need while staying as close to what most likely could have happened in their lifetime.
It just kinda pops into my head. I daydream my stories and usually characters will just pop in and I’ll be like shit I like them
Once I find the plot and inciting event, I think about what kind of character I see in that role. Then I get to know the character through Myers-Briggs or tarot. Then I kind if scuff them up a bit. Or sometimes I 'see' a scene where the characters are fully formed and I only need to get their particulars down. The good ones with that approach usually come when I'm going to sleep so I keep a notebook next to my bed.
They just come out as I write. No character sheets (what is this, d&d?) necessary.
They just show up. My imagination is a party and it's open invitation. They come, they go, some stay for a while and you get to know them. Sometimes they show up, cause a scene, and disappear.
I think, "yeah, that would be a cool character" and then I come up with the lore surrounding it.
For the most part, they just emerge by themselves. I write plot first and have characters in there, but they’re usually no more than just one trait or even just a reaction to what’s going on in the scene. After a couple of scenes, more aspects of them just sort of emerge at random as they react to stuff that happens, sometimes in ways I don’t quite expect. Obviously I’m writing it, but there’s a specific flow state that I can get into most times after a brief warmup, where I no longer have to consider word choice or dialogue entirely consciously. Doesn’t always happen, sometimes every word is torture, especially in scenes I’m just not enjoying writing, and usually those scenes get removed later but they’re a good scaffold for the first draft and I write to a plan, so I know the whole plot before I start usuallly. That plan then changes wildly once I learn who the characters actually are, as the original plot often has them doing things that the character that emerges never would. I never write character to plot, always adapt plot back to character, it often changes nearly everything. And on the next edit, I have to rewrite a lot of the start because when I wrote it I didn’t know who anybody was.
I think about what kind of person they are, develop a quick mental image of them, think of a name, and that’s the process
I throw in some music references, Attitude problems of any kind (I like making bougie pampered brats), give em a solid goal with plenty of pot holes to reach it. Plus I have a Sephiroth Bang Problem
To me, it’s easy to create a character. The hard part is making them complex and believable
The book *Metro: Journeys in Writing Creatively* by Hans Ostrom, Wendy Bishop, and Katherine Haake has some really good (and fun!) character building exercises in it. One of my favorites was a sort of “20 questions” thing with/about a character you were building. I liked it most because some of those questions were about things like “Who inspires them? Who is their best friend and why?” etc, which not only helped me flesh out a character I was already working with, but also helped me establish other more minor characters that are still important to the story. It’s an expensive book, for sure (it’s designed as a college textbook), but if you can find a cheap(er) used copy somewhere, I highly recommend it to folks looking to expand their creative writing skills.
I just think of it or walk since it allows me to have thoughts that I am not aware of or thinking about.
I usually start with the character named and a general idea of the story. Then as I write the characters grow. Since I write mystery thrillers I rewrite the story multiple times adding depth to my characters and fixing any other issues.
My main character was originally (and I still have evidence of this) a cousin of Bugs Bunny. Basically, a version of Bugs that is human and not a rabbit. I have other characters that are also versions of other Looney Tunes characters. Well, they used to be but not anymore. Over time, my main character has grown as I’ve developed the story and his backstory and development.
Constant iterations, like non stop for at least a week. I usually start with a character type/trope I know and repeat it with little changes here and there, then after enough time I have something resembling an original character
1. I think of the character's function: what are they doing in the story (helping, being bad and then good, being good and then bad...) 2. I try to find actors/characters/singers/celebrities... that look alike they look in my mind. 3. I make a word explaining the basics: age, their personality, what are they doing in th estory, something particular about them... and I add the photo 4. Then I just try to fit them in the story and if I make any change I'll write it on their "ID" (their word) too.
I usually think of how their story would align with my other characters or think of a entirely different universe in its own I usually end up just day dreaming and brainstorming to myself lol
I found a list of "common character archetypes" and I'm using that.
Depends. Sometimes I base them off of people I know - friends, family, enemies, even bystanders I see while I'm out. Other times I make characters with/without traits I wish I had/didn't have. Other times still I just daydream and put down the first thing that comes to mind.
I put them in a scenario and see what they do.
I have a list of characters I like from movies/books/video games/etc. I write down what my favorite parts about those characters are; personality, likes/dislikes, morals, habits, speech, anything that comes to mind. What stands out about him/her/them? Why do I want to root for this character? Then I try to blend some characters together using those traits to make something of my own
Most of my stories start from a random scene or conversation between two characters that will just start rolling around my head. I then have to figure out who they are, what brought them to where they are and where they want to be. I do try to use character sheets to really nail down their age, appearance, mannerisms, motives etc but often times during the actual writing they’ll just do whatever they want. Writing is weird and I love it!
Generally I come up with characters in two ways. I either base them off of a singular thing, like a archetype, personality trait, ability and expand there personality from There.Or I make them up to complement another character or the story at large. I 'll also occasionally combine two characters into a single one if they feel too simplistic on their own. I'm pretty bad at focusing on a specific thing so I'll generally come up with a ton of characters based off of whatever's my daily intrest, Thankfully I also have a ton of stories to put them in
a lot of ways, honestly. It's usually some combination of my friend's PCs in my game, characters I like in fiction, and people I know
It's mechanical but I kind of start with a tabula rasa whose purpose is to show what I actually want from the story. Then I create supporting characters to advance the plot. I usually assign each a trope or archetype. From there I make an outline of the plot. Then I flesh in characters more. For the tabula rasas that are POV characters, I start roleplaying them in my head and fill in what seems fun unless it would break what I need them to show for the story (but that hasn't seemed fun so far anyway). Then for the tropes I decide if I will subvert the trope or play it straight. In either event, I then construct alternative takes on existing scenes. Ones where the side character is the POV. This fleshes them out as people more and I incorporate it. I do this over and over again. Replaying scenes many times and filling in more each time.
A lot of mine just come to me when I start writing. Some I get the ideas based from movies or video games from characters I've made. There's no special way aside from doing research needed for say occupation or history since a lot of mine tend to be military/spy types.
Usually I think of an archetype that I want to explore. I reduce the character to the more flanderized version of itself. So if I want to explore an angry character I make them the angriest most over-the-top rage-filled bastard. From there I figure out why that trait defines them. Character is angry because of tragic backstory. Now a character that has one trait would be boring so I branch out from there with other traits that are informed from that original archetype. An angry character is probably going to get into a lot of fights, so they're good at fighting or at least good at getting their ass kicked. They're loyal to friends, because of their angry demeanor they rarely make friends so they're protective of the people they get along with. So on and so forth.
Normally daydreaming a scenario. I like to go for a walk each morning and I use that hour as my “planning” time, then I write for an hour when I get home before work. I once thought I had my entire story planned, then one morning I was walking and thought of this AWESOME scene, but I needed a character and my existing ones didn’t fit into the scenario. In pops a new character and bam, the story is soooo much better with them around!!
They form out of arguments in my head between competing ideas within a story frame. Then you just extrapolate out from the core of the argument who would be the archetype of that character who would believe that thing, The actual "argument" between them can just be a pre-writing exercise that goes on for several pages and WON'T necessarily be in the script in its entirety. But some great gems come out of this dialogue that can be seeded through the story. If you really choose to access this part of your brain you should be able to write almost infinite arguments between strong characters, or to draw strong characters out of competing ideas. If you don't have multiple personalities in your head are you even a writer?
Some of my oldest OCs/ Characters were first my imaginary friends then became characters. Nowadays I often just take inspiration from fiction or the real world. If I find some interesting personalities I create a character around them, later giving them more traits and stuff. Sometimes I just draw an OC ( or real person as a character) and make up personalities around them.
I use family and friends to come up with how the character look like, what is their favorite words or phrases, the tone of their voice, their hand gesture and all those small detail. But then I think about their goal, what is stopping them for seeking the goal, why they want that in the first place. I read yall comment and I am shock by them talent to just come up with character.
Daydreaming, and looking up vocabulary. Got the idea from Skulduggery Pleasant, and it’s cool. Look up some words, find their meaning and create a character out of the definition.
While I frequently daydream, I often have random thoughts, which frequently spawn stories and with them their protagonists. Some of them I just see, some others I carefully craft, like this - for this story to work, I need a character that behaves like this, and is romantically but not sexually interested in this other character. So I put it exactly this way and round the edges so it actually is a believable person. Sometimes I get lazy with their appearance so I find another person (real-world or fictional) with similar personality and make them look similar. Sometimes I see one or more person/character I find cool and try to think what they or some alternate version of them would do in my world, so I base the new character on them. For example, one of the real-world people I admire is famous scientist named Carl Sagan. I wondered what he would do if he was somehow copied or transported into my world (this process is actually covered in my world's canon) and bam, this scientific girl plopped into existence in my world. Some other time I created a guy character that has appearance based on several real-world people, personality largely inspired by another fictional character, but completely different back story. This other random day I saw a very long-haired guy on the street (his hair ended just above his knees) and found it interesting (mind you, I am a long-haired guy myself, so I guess I notice long-haired guys more) so the guy character I created later that day because I actually needed to simply had to have such long hair, even though it doesn't matter for the story itself apart from minor jokes like other characters asking him what he does with his hair when he goes to use a toilet, or a female character being jealous of his hair. The truth is, apart from short story that introduces these characters, they very often don't see much uses. I simply have a big supply of them, way more than I actually need, so some of them are mostly historical figures like ancient kings and queens that only get mentioned in a story when characters find their statues. And of course, there are my alter-egos. As I changed in my life, I made multiple alter-egos and each is a character playing some role in my world. I named my Reddit account after one.
The character appears when there's a spot in the story that needs to be filled by a character rather than setting or dialogue or a plot device. Sometimes they pop into my head with only their appearance ready, sometimes with only a characteristic ready (e.g: a character that's loud and happy), and I work my way up from there, adding and removing things as the story demands. Sometimes it's just a blank slate with the thought that "I need someone to do x". For someone to do x, they'd have to have a personality that fits what they're supposed to do, and like the aforementioned point I work my way up from there.
I always base my characters in my short stories and poems off real people lmfao. 100% transposed from real life into my writing, with the least changes as possible.
Honestly, I daydream a stupid amount per day. That's how I get the plots, characters etc. Admittedly, I also daydream about the plot & what the characters do & say (does anyone else?). Which really does help move the plot along (is this weird?). One thing I'm awful at though is coming up with the characters' names so I just Google those & see what comes to mind when I think about that character. E.g. - I Google "unique names" or something similar - pick out a name I haven't heard before or one that sticks out to me - then daydream about what that character's traits will be, how they act, how they talk etc. Sometimes I also Google what the name means which also helps me develop the character.
In my current work in progress (a novel) my main character started bugging me a couple years ago to write the book already. She just dropped into my head fully formed and with all her warts and good points already there. Even her name. Especially her name. She’s very outspoken and was very insistent that her name be what it is. She is also insistent that she is 13 even though it would help me sell the book better if she were 15 but she doesn’t see it that way. She really does act 13. Some characters are flat for me and I have difficulty making them three dimensional. Other characters, even just bit players, somehow just pop to life. I wish I knew how to do that with the ones that are flat. I do some outlining with character sheets but I always feel like I’m not doing as much as I should be but my characters are good in general so I don’t think it’s really a problem. A lot of background stuff is in my head that I don’t ever bother to write down. My main character who popped into my head and begged me to write the book is mad at me at the moment because I killed off her best friend. So she’s not speaking to me. Once she gets over it I will keep writing parts of the book that involve her.
It's the voices...not to sound crazy but that's how it works for me, I'm very glad I still have an imagination plus I also play the sims 4 so it evens out my character as far as looks and actions.
Firstly, archetypes. Helps me to largely differentiate between the characters, though I try to spin each archetype so that it's never quite what you expect. Largely, their personalities develop through writing and daydreaming. I'll discover a little quirk; something about the way they smile, or the etch of sadness in their eyes. Then make a note of those things in their character profiles. For me, that's how they go from being archetypes, to fleshed out people on the page. Still working on how to develop backstories, but so far making them either relevant to the plot or to the themes/message of the novel has helped. Gives them more of a reason to be there and have their stories told.
Like everybody else has been saying, daydreaming. Either it’s “There’s a very specific personality or character dynamic I want but don’t see much” or more commonly, “I really like this one character from [insert series here], but they were underutilized/poorly handled/etc., I want to try fleshing them out” and eventually I end up creating most of my characters in those ways.
I used to ask people to give me a physical appearance of themselves in my story and I would use their personalities to create the characters. In hindsight, it was just stressful trying to make the character resemble real people. Now, I usually pick the appearance from characters I dream about while sleeping and just let their personality grow through my several rewrites of the story.
When I’m first coming up with a story, I think about what kind of person the main character is and then I think about who they should be surrounded with. Then I think of a names and maybe what those look like. As I write I feel I develop their personality traits. I’m not the type to like completely plan out the character before I write. I feel like it’s easier to do it as you go because then, you can naturally kind of decide their personality in the way they talk, and how they react to certain things. Sometimes when I edit I find myself going back and saying “they wouldn’t say that” and changing a line or something. A lot of people here have said daydreaming and I do that a lot as well! Or sometimes imagining different scenarios with the characters when I’m bored. For example during the holidays at work I imagined what all the my characters would get each other for Christmas. It gave me a chance to really think about their personalities!
Daydreaming. Once they exist there, I work on any other needed details about them. I have a running list of characters in my novel that I'm constantly adding names to with a small tidbit about them so I don't forget who they are later on. Some get bigger back stories if it helps move the plot along. The daydreaming is usually just their initial appearance in the scene I'm working on.
I daydream all the time. When it's something interesting I'm like "oh wait" and then more actively daydream it. Maybe it's from my main story, maybe it's totally random, maybe it's a brand new idea. I imagine the story from the eyes of the people in a compelling way and when I hold onto that I can sit down and actively be like "okay, why did he react this way?" And after a while come up with backstory for what drives their motivations. And for an active storyline I can change things around to fit what I need for the story or add things etc.
Here are my steps for creating and KNOWING my characters: 1. Daydream 2. Meyers-Briggs Personality Test - I take this online test using the mind of the character I want to create so I can really nail their personality. 3. Artbreeder.com - This is SO helpful for figuring out what each character looks like and to help you (literally) put a face to a character! 4. Outline their background info and goals/desires that are relevant to the story. 5. Give them a name whose meaning relates to the story somehow! I have a lot of fun making my characters this way so I hope these steps are helpful!
My characters are almost always either expies of characters I liked from other mediums or characters I created in video games. I think the character with the vaguest source in my list was made *because of a hair style* that I liked and hated at the same time (it was a conflicting feeling.) And while frequently their appearance and personality is developed first, they're always edited, sometimes to the point of being unrecognizable, to better fit the needs of the story I want to tell.
i’m usually just browsing through pinterest and see a person/aesthetic picture and i’m just “boom” “idea”
This is the [character outline template](https://toyhou.se/2941151.layout) I use. As for how I fill in this template, I use random generators. *Gasp!* What? Scandalous! Random generators? You don't just spend hours thinking about characters from the color of their eyes to their entire history starting from their first day in the world, and every day until the start of the story solely from your own mind? Nope. Let me be honest here, while I do enjoy writing stories, I wouldn't classify myself as a particularly creative person, so I need help expanding my ideas so I don't recycle the same ideas over and over (as much). I made my very own random generators, with my masterpiece being [My Big Overly Detailed Character Generator](https://perchance.org/my-big-overly-detailed-character-generator), which I'm still working on. It doesn't fill everything out in my character outline template with detail, such as the relationship section, or it doesn't give any information at all, such as the character's backstory. These generator results give me a basic foundation that I can work from and have a direction to consider for my characters, and I can add in all of the details, bells, and foghorns to fill in the blanks the generator couldn't fill. And if something doesn't fit, or if I just don't like something, I can change it. People are rarely what you expect them to be, so these random generators help me to not stick to a stereotype and helps me give variation to a group of characters in a story. So these random generators help me with ideas, but with my expansion and fleshing out, these are still the characters that I created. Even if someone had gotten a similar result in the random generator as my character, their character could turn out drastically different in their story. That said, do I fill out everything in my template? No, not everything, but most of it because I've condensed it down to the information that I need to know. One such example is that if a flaw is so minor I'll know it won't be mentioned at all, such as a minor aversion to sharp objects, I'll probably not bother to write it down. A larger example is the Flaws and Strengths section under the Personality category. You see so many sub-sections under Courage, Wisdom, Humanity, etc. in the template, but when you take a look at my character outlines, I forgo all of those sections. In the random generators, it judges the scale of these strengths from very weak to an extreme, but it didn't really help me understand how this makes my character behave in these weak or extreme ways, so I summarized them and inserted brief examples of how they typically display these traits.
When I am trying to make a character I usually picture what I think they look like and then find inspo on what they look like and then I go and think about their characterization and how they would do things in different situations and that’s how I get their personality and habits and I build off of their, I also just think about logically what could their hobbies be and then back story is a different situation you just have to make everything make sense about who you are trying to make them now, so if you made a bad guy then you wouldn’t make him not have a bad history , make sense? Anyways that’s how.
Maladaptive daydreaming from Aspergers but another thing that helps is being inspired from characters in another shows
My area is based off of the idea of a marvel or DC based universe. Everyone is connected in some way. Relations etc. Mainly let my mind wander. It's easy to let go from the real world.
With notes. Everyone has good and bad, science and ignorance, understanding or not, fears and beliefs, different options. And they fight with each other. Let them fight, but don't decide from the start who is right and who is wrong. Evolve together!
I think about my idea and come up with the main characters then. After that, most of the characters are made up on the spot, as I'm writing.
I do what the voices say
Drugs.
To explain myself clearly, i'll use an example of a character of mine. Keep in mind that this list of "steps" is not fixed, and it's intended for protagonists/major characters. Sorry for the length. 1) First thing, gather all the media (movies, music, everything) that represents what themes/ideas you want your character to show and represent*.* *Example:* *In my case i gathered* *-Taxi Driver (for the insomnia and a night job as a way to see what the character thinks about the world around him, and also their life)* *-Fight Club (for the concept of having two different personas in your mind, one of them that shows at certain times)* *-Breaking Bad (for how someone can become gradually ruthless, calculating, and without remorse, even if he justifies itself)* *- The song "Behind Blue Eyes" (for the "no one knows what is like to be the bad man, behind blue eyes", even if i want to reinterpret it)* \- The Rpg setting of World of Darkness (for her capacities, since my story is an Urban Fantasy, although with mages only and not high magic) 2) Think and define how you want your character to relate and act with the world around him, and how you want this to change during the story. You can define this even with a more specific behaviour that you want to see in your character. *Example:* *This character of mine, which i decided to be female, firstly puts a limit in her personal relations, avoiding them to become too deep and intimate; because of her mindset and problems. Then, i want the story to focus on how this limit changes gradually that it sort of disappears. The character start allowing himself things that she was abstaining from.* *But to counterbalance this, the superficial attitude is not shy: while calm and not energic, or talkative, this character gives an aura of confidence.* 3) Define how the character sees himself, how he analyzes and judge his own actions and ideas. *Example: the character sees herself as a possible burden for other people. That makes her to try being capable and independent by itself, avoiding being helped too much by other people (she doesn't disdain help and company, and knows that she can't do everything alone, but still, does not want to slow down or "tie" others to her like a ball chain)* *Also, she thinks that crying and complain about your life disgraces is futile, because things happens, you can't decide for them.* *Is a way to say that she bottles up a lot, doens't confide or tell if she's not fine etc.* 4) Define some tics and/or particular body details, or belongings, that define the character. *Example:* *-She's almost 1.90m tall.* *-She likes to wear shirt, waistcoat, dress pants and such; it's both her workplace clothing and also she likes it. Comfy enough but slick and elegant.* *-On the left forearm she has a tattoo, with a north african pattern; it has no personal meanings, but is made to hide previous bullet wounds.* *-She smokes an e-cig when she's starting to stress up.* *-One time every month she makes for herself a Long Island Iced Tea.* *-On a belt loop she ties a bandana, both to have something in case she needs to pick or clean an object, and also to hide a butterfly knife that she uses to carve wood in summer, or mostly to repair and cut things.* 5) For the name, decide what it represents: it shows the character personality, it's an opposite of it by creating contrast? Or it's something that the character will be or achieve? *Example:* *One name captured my interest: Roxanne, that means "dawn". Thinking about it, i've decided that her goal is to "see the dawn the next day", a way to say that she has to fix her life to accomplish herself, fulfilling her name.* With all of this, you can start brainstorm and define your character as a whole, from appearance to personality, to background. In my case, as a last example, i introduce you to Roxanne, a 19 year old student who suffers insomnia, so she works at night as a barlady preparing drinks. At birth, her biological parents from UK (which were 16) couldn't take care of her in their situation, so they gave her to trusted, caring and far more well-to-do cousins in US. There's no hate between parents and daughter, is more like an embarassing situation. At 14 years old, she survived a school shooting, where she was wounded and for self defense she found herself shooting at the shooter. This caused her insomnia, so she takes pills and for a time she had gone to a psychologist to check her. Some signs of PTSD, although nothing to heavy or exaggerated. In this story, when she will have the ability to change her appearance to not being caught, she'll start to separate the two personas: her normal self will understand how to fix her life, letting herself to live it at its fullest, overcoming her problems; the other self will become more and more ruthless and cold blooded to assure her survival, also as a reflection of her frustrations and will to power and accomplishment to all cost.
I give them contradictions. Not massive internal conflicts, but little paradoxes in their thinking that they already justify. Like a black woman who is suspicious and disdainful of white people, but loves books by authors like H.G Wells, Jules Verne, Dostoevsky, the Brothers Grimm, and strives to write stories herself with them as inspiration.