Realistic characters are a necessary condition for the success of a narrative work. If creating them is your Achilles heel, this article could help you get out of the way and move your imagination.
Steps
Method 1 of 1: Create Compelling Characters
Step 1. First of all, sketch out a basic profile of your character
Keep your imagination in check - for now - and limit yourself to writing basic information such as name, age, profession, socio-demographic bracket, gender, everything that is part of the mere personal identity of the character.
Step 2. Now go deeper and equip him with goals, loved ones, intimate worries and external conflicts
We all have a purpose in life, things and people we care about, as well as aversions, dislikes and antagonists. In The Lord of the Rings, Frodo's mission is to destroy the ring - the character's cross and hassle - to save what he loves, namely the Shire and its friends. The key word is simplicity.
Step 3. Starting from the mission, personal values and antagonists established earlier, proceed with his past history, his past
This is the most substantial and demanding task in character creation and you must give it all the necessary time. Start by writing one detail at a time for each point, by way of a list, and then develop them by supporting the arrival of new ideas. However, try to stay consistent with what you want to tell.
Step 4. Equip him with peculiar tics
Assign habits and compulsions: eating neurosis, typical gestures, phobias, ridiculous self-discipline (for example: brushing your teeth for exactly three minutes; chewing a bite 50 times, and so on), tireless love of literary quotation. It is the set of apparently insignificant aspects that give your character three-dimensionality, as well as make it more human.
Step 5. Determine what would make your character cry
Crying is the highest emotional expression of emotion or pain. Not that your character has to cry. At least manifestly. However, setting a "breaking point" helps readers / viewers create an empathic connection with the character.
Step 6. Nobody is perfect:
defects make us human. Does your character harbor feelings of hatred, resentment, resentment, dislike towards one of the other characters? Do you have the unfortunate tendency to get distracted even when maximum concentration is required? The defects are the final brushstroke, the vital drop that makes a human character, and not an unbearable - and very unrealistic - 'Signor Perfettino.'
Step 7. Get to know your character
Try to imagine being face to face with your character and having an intimate conversation with him, almost like a four-year-old would do with his imaginary friend. This is a serious suggestion and must be taken seriously. By talking to him you will bring to light unexpected and important aspects, such as the way he speaks or his philosophy of life, without trying too hard. Its facets will emerge natural and will appear so when you write about it.
Step 8. Give your character a physical appearance, a personality and a story
Finish modeling your character in his physical existence, in order to make sense of the notes you have taken so far. Summarize everything in a character sheet, it will be your vademecum, your guide, to outline the story of your protagonist.
Advice
- Practice creating characters. Draw up detailed cards for each character involved in the world you invented. There are two good reasons for doing this: first, because practice makes you better and this is also true in the enterprise of shaping imaginary characters; second, even the supporting actors will thus have greater thickness and you will have to make less effort if one of them should take on a leading role during the drafting.
- Take a cue from reality: watch your friends carefully and gather ideas for idiosyncrasies, flaws, values and anxieties.
- Go one step at a time. Divide every aspect of your "creature" into many small points that you can tackle one at a time; in this way you will not feel oppressed by the feeling of having to imagine, all at once, the man who will save the world.
- One last piece of advice, outside the general subject: the procedure described above, with the necessary adaptations, can be applied to every aspect of your imaginary world, animate or inanimate. You can write guidance sheets for planets, ships, cities, palaces, just about anything.
Warnings
- Consistency first of all: your characters must behave congruently with the supporting actors around them, with the world in which you have placed them, with themselves.
- Avoid stereotyped characters and clichés, the characters all in one piece. Imagine a puzzle without well-defined joints (don't overdo it though, there must be an explanation for everything). Stereotypes are the brainless arrogant (Biff Tannen in Back to the Future) or the clumsy, passive and tormented intellectual (Woody Allen in many of his 1970s films).
- Do not bend the character to the needs of the plot. The result will be forced, clumsy and unrealistic. Treat him like a real person.
- Never give up! Getting good at writing takes practice, like anything else.
- Avoid plagiarizing the work of others. Tracing your character on another already famous is not a crime, but you will still have to strive to differentiate him enough to make him unique.
