Creating a Character

Hi! I'm ET/Elephants @Elephants888rule!!! (in case you want to ping me in the comments for any questions). I got the idea to make a page for creating a *good* character, and hope this helps! I'll be going over what to do, what not to do, how to set up a plot along-side your character, and a fill out form for (a) character(s).

ET went inactive and this page was incomplete so I'll just try my best to complete it. Hope you don't mind, ET.

## **Introduction**

Creating a good character is a lot of work, and some people have a knack for it. But knack or not, it's still a lot of work, and seems so difficult. It is. But... it's also not. If you know how to do it correctly then it'll be a breeze. Now you don't have to follow all of this, but I recommend that you do some of this, maybe even most of this, and just read through so that you know what *not* to do. Anyways, don't want this to get too long, happy character building!

## **Types of Characters**

Okay, so there are different types of characters, not character personalities, or stuff like that. Don't get confused.

### **Bad Types of Characters**

#### **Mary/Gary Sue**

We're starting from on of the most well known types of characters. A Mary or Gary Sue. Now, some people may not know what Mary/Gary Sue's are. Well, a (I'm going to call Mary/Gary Sue's MGS because it's too long to type it all out) MGS is a completely unrealistic character. They tend to have improbably good looks, blonde, blue eyed, no acne, anything that would potentially ruin the character's "good looking appearance" is bad. They also have unrealistic personalities with no flaws, such as: Funny, sweet, cute, sarcastic, snarky, and kind. They have a number of love interests, and usually think very low of themselves having thoughts such as "No one could ever like *me*" or "Him? Like me? Ridiculous!" I'm not saying you can't have those thoughts, but don't cover everything else/most of everything else. That's what you DON'T WANT! DON'T MAKE A MGS.

#### **One Personality/Same personalities**

Next we'll do this kind of a character. A character with only one personality. Now, you might be thinking, *ET are you kidding? A character with one personality, who's going to do that? How does that book even get published?* I'm going to be truthful, I've never read a book that a character has only one personality, but hey, it could happen. So an example, let's name a female Sally. Sally is kind. She smiles at everyone, and waves at everyone. Her story is boring because all she does is smell the flowers. There's no room for her to develop because nothing is set out for her, and she wouldn't survive her story. Now you may be thinking: *ET no one will make that kind of a character. And besides, even if they did Sally was kind, what if my character is brave?* To answer both: Numero Uno; Maybe when drafting you will subconsciously make a boring story, and give a boring character along-side it. Numero Dos; Good question! Different personalities make a difference! But, let's do this. Mark is brave. Mark ran into danger head-first, and he did the bravest thing ever. It still doesn't allow Mark to grow, and develop. My point is, you need more that one personality.

That got long so for the second part... all the characters have the same personalities/personality. Okay, so example, May, Mark, and Sally have different personalities. May is sweet. Mark is brave. Sally is kind. That's what you wanted, but suddenly, Mark is in a situation where Sally would have done well with her kind nature, so to get Mark out of that situation you make him kind. Just once, doesn't matter. Now he has two personalities either way. May is sweet, which is similar to kind. Suddenly Mark keeps getting kinder, and all your characters are kind. Now they could literally be one person and not three separate people. Okay now same personalities; Mark, Sally, and May are all kind, smart, and brave. Again, it's like they're the same people, maybe they just have their personalities show up at different times, it's still not a good character.

#### **Popular Girl/Guy**

This type of character is a bit of a cliche, no matter how you decide to use them. Let's say May is the popular girl, she can either be snobby, obsessed with either a person/her phone/object/internet/some sort of obsession. Or she can be the popular girl who pushes aside the fact that she's popular, and is a main character, but not main protagonist who hangs out with the protagonist and can '*be herself*' there. Now, you can have this kind of a character, but it's a bit of a cliche, and you should add something to this character that doesn't make it a cliche.

#### **Plain Jane**

Yes Jane is a female name, but this is just describing a bland character with the personality of a loaf of bread. This character literally has no personality, not even kindness. They tend to dress in just grey, and fall into that robot mode person. Now, I doubt you'll make this kind of character, but just a reminder: DON'T!

#### **Diverse Pers**

No, probably not what this kind of character is called, but I wanted it to rhyme- anywho. A diverse character is good, but don't make then too diverse. Both appearance, and personality wise. Let me give the definition of a diverse character: "A diverse character is a character with many different kinds of traits unique to them." Now I get to rant: Appearances; Don't do something unrealistic with the characters appearance, blue eyes and black hair are fine, and it's fine if it's up to a certain species, or if they're an exception that your story/plot allows, but if they are a normal human being how many people of Asian ethnicity are you going to see with green eyes? Or blue for that matter? And if your character has a darker skin complexion, how many book characters do you know that have yellow eyes? Sometimes author's add those unusual traits to make the characters seem unique, but a characters appearance isn't the only thing that makes them unique. Also, do your research, for example, I know that 5% of the world has hazel eyes, did you? I know that 17% has blue eyes, did you? So take some of these things into account, because it'll make your character realistic.

Personalities: Diverse personalities, are amazing because then you don't just revolve around this one personality group such as, "Rude, sarcastic, snarky, cold." BUT! Yes there's a but. DO NOT make the character's personalities contradict themselves. Such as, "Kind, cold, smart, illogical." Does that really make sense? No, it does not. Unless your character has some sort of personality disorder, then it's fine for exceptions, but don't have all your characters have opposing personlities.

#### **Cliche Character(s)**

There are a number of cliches, but I'll go over a few.

* **The Bullied One**

Kind of like a Mary/Gary Sue, but not exactly, this is used way to often, even just the shy part is over-used and therefore cliche. The character often also lets the bullying get to them, and they often find places to hide, then at their hiding place, something strange happens. It sounds like I'm giving a prompt, but I'm not, I guarantee, pick up a book and if the character is female she'll be shy. Usually males tend not to be shy, but they talk back and have sass, so watch out in case you do that!

* **Bad Boy/Rebel/Prankster**

Pick up a random book. Maybe the bad boy is a side character, and the protagonist's main love interest, maybe the protagonist is the bad boy. But 99.9% there is a bad boy, and it's THE BIGGEST CLICHE AROUND. This may just be my opinion, but hmm... let's analyse a few books and see that there's a bad boy in every single one. Keeper of the Lost Cities: Keefe; prankster, rebel, bad boy. Sisters Grimm: Puck; prankster, rebel, bad boy. Percy Jackson: Percy; rebel, bad boy. There is usually a bad boy, and it's the most commonly used cliche.

* **Mean Girl**

So this kind of a character picks on the protagonist for no reason, and is usually the reason for the MGS's insecurity. They have some unrealistic reason at the end such as just thinking that the protagonist had everything handed to them, just runs in the family, ect. And then they then become friends/BFF's with the protagonist. One: It's not realistic, at all. And two: If you're doing to have a Mean Girl, then do it in a non cliche way.

* **Opposite Personality Character**

For more types of clichés go to this page: Writing Clichés

#### **Concluding Bad Types of Characters**

I went through everything I could think of, if you have something I may not have remembered, feel free to add it in the comments, and I will update! :) Again my username so that you can ping me is: Elephants888rule!!!

## **Character Flaws and Development**

Character flaws are important to have FOR LOADS OF REASONS. Character development, character problems, over-coming a situation, friendships, fatal flaws, plots... ect. You get my point. And readers will weed you out for making a Mary/Gary Sue. Character flaws, do SO MUCH though, and here are some tips on how to write out character flaws, also, how to make it weave in with your story. (Tip: Never, with bare minimum exceptions, focus on JUST character development, if you want GOOD character development then you can either: put the character development first with the plot in the background or you can weave character development and plot together).

### Tips

#### Don'ts:

* **DON'T** just focus on character development as I mentioned.
* **DON'T** make a bunch of weaker flaws and count that as a good character, because one: No time to get over all that, and two: a good character has a major flaw.
* **DON'T** shove character development all together, different flaws, different situations to over-come them. I suggest making the fatal/strongest flaw develop at the end.

This is a really helpful website, and you can go on there for more writing tips as well, not just flaws.

Feelings Wheel