I was wondering about creating unique characters that are fully developed but not all the same. My current WIP takes place in a group home. There is the main staff. My MC has a roommate. The narrator character also have a roommate. There are two other characters who have their own rooms. This is what I thought of so far; The MC is named Kurt. He has a pet cat named CJ which is Charley Junior it something like that. Still working on MC’s roommate but working name is Dexter. I decided on his name by a brand of kitchen knives at work. I am guessing he has an obsession with knives but since he lives in a group home he is not allowed to have any. The narrator character is Izzy and she is a lycan dhampire. Her father is basically a werewolf. Izzy’s roommate is a mermaid dhampire. Alex and EJ are the ones who live in their own rooms.
Oops I forgot to finish the post. What can I do to make the characters unique as in not all the same?
First I would try to steer away from overused ideas. The whole werewolf business for a start, unless done in a really unique and important way. Also, Dexter has already been used in a similar way quite famously for the smash hit TV show Dexter. The knife analogy because of the inspiration for the name would be overshadowed by this. I didn't even watch the show and that was my initial reaction. Try and think outside the mainstream and create something we haven't seen before, or a new and interesting take on something we have. To make them not all the same, just build each one up individually, taking influence from the world around you. But that would depend on their environment. It wasn't clear what kind of group home it is, and this would help influence the type of characters to create. For example, a group home for people with delusional mental issues, some could identify as immortal beings from folklore, while really they're really just nuts. Except that one guy....
I think you've got a right idea by making them diverse. At least kind of on the outside. For beginners, I suggest starting with three basic things for each of these central characters: What is each of these character's goals, motives, and conflicts. When you do that exercise, you start to realize who they are and why they act the way they act and that's how the personality develops. Dexter, for example, has an obsession with knives. So in the story, it seems like his goal is he just wants to get a knife and do god only knows what with it. Okay, well, what's his motive for having that goal? Is he afraid of something (whether its rational or not?) Does he want to hurt himself? A lot of people like weapons, but an obsession and fixation on them is usually because of some kind of insecurity. And of course his conflict is that they don't allow them. Now this is where his personality shapes. How far is he willing to go to get that knife? So you do this exercise with all the characters. Maybe Kurt's only goal is to protect his cat. You can go so many different directions with this. For advanced, that's where you're going to get into the themes of your story and how each individual character represents that central theme. Say you have a theme about how rules of a group home serve the institution but not the individuals who reside there. So this one character might represent the kids who abide by the rules 100%. Another might represent the defiant kids and how that works for them. And each other character might represent the various shades of obedience and disobedience. And your main character, represents nothing, because he's going to decided which why of living wins out and at what cost. But that's a little more advanced.
I'm familiar with the OP's idea (intertwining dragonkin with mythical creatures), and I actually think it's something unique and has good potential if done right. @MissBadWolf in order to create distinct personalities, you've got to be able to jump into the minds of each - understand them for not what they are, but who they are. As Kallisto mentioned, know their goals, motives, and conflicts. It's almost like having disassociative identity disorder (multiple personalities) while you write - it requires the ability to jump back and forth between your characters and see the world through their eyes. It takes a bit of time when getting into a book - because a personality takes time to develop. That's about all the advice I can give. If you don't understand the cast of your novel, neither will those reading it.
I really like the advice that's been given to you so far. And I like the ideas you have around your story. When I'm writing a more complex story, I like to take time to outline key-characteristics about my characters, similar to what has been outlined above. I find this helps with A) separating my own thoughts/morals etc from the characters', and B) getting to know the character on a much deeper level. I find it helpful to keep my notes on certain characters too, so I can add to them if necessary.
Think up interesting character traits, and if you arent good at imagining stuff yourself, simply use your memory - Who in your past have you met that had quirky, eccentric, or just plain old *normal* personality traits that made you think "Huh, they are a bit different from the average joes ive met in my life." Inspiration won't walk up to you, sit down, and then tell you what to do, you have to try and work for it.
If you like to keep notes, consider trying yWriter software. It's free. It's good for planning and plotting a novel.
Thanks for the tip, I'll check it out. I am definitely in need of something a little more organized than all my paperwork!
My thoughts: Complex and deep characters usually consist of character, past, and motivation. The past depends on the story, so put it off for later. 1) Character... If simple: choleric, sanguine, phlegmatic and melancholy. 2) Motivation: What is the motivation for this particular character? What are his dreams and aspirations? 3) After you have written these two points, write a past that could educate (Transform) him as he was. Do this for each of the characters and you will get different characters. How many combinations you can imagine, you can make as many characters. A hardworking idealist, a person flowing with the stream, a narcissistic egoist and a dreamy good-natured person, or a closed loner, and so on ...
How do I deal with characters that might be assumed to be token or something like that? I am afraid if I have a character who happens to be a lesbian, she will be taken wrong. I have been working on a character who had been abused and used in the past, especially male characters. Her name is Xyfie. That is her birth name and trying to decide if her adopted parents tried to rename her or not. As of right now, I have not decided to have her adopted father do any intentional harm to her. I am trying to make her more complex than just another lesbian character. She will probably be an antihero type character, but I have not figured out all her flaws yet.
Each character should be designed specifically to relate to the central dramatic issue the story is built around. What you don't want to do is just come up with an interesting story setting and some cool characters and then try to figure out what to do with them. I mean, it might start that way, but pretty early on you need to decide what is the central dramatic issue of the story, and then everything needs to relate directly to that. And it should be a powerful human issue, something like "how do we create or find meaning in our lives?" or "Can love really conquer all obstacles in the characters' way?" I didn't put much thought into coming up with those issues, just vomited them up, but you know what I mean. I don't know what kind of dramatic issue you might want to explore with this story, but that's what you should be thinking about. And you might get there by thinking about your already existing characters and how you see them interacting with each other—what kind of issues come up that are powerful and universal?
My problem isn't that I can't create characters that aren't the same as my other characters. My problem is, I have a hard time creating characters that aren't the same as other authors' characters.
If you're going to paralyze yourself with fear at every turn then you might want to reconsider being a writer. Someone, somewhere, WILL have a problem with WHATEVER you write. You have to ignore that idea, full stop. My god, have you never heard of twitter? If people actually lived their lives along the lines of those imbeciles then the entire world would grind to a halt tomorrow.
@MissBadWolf People are always going to misinterpret intentions. This is the fact of the human condition. So, the question is how okay are you with that? The good news is that most people won't see it that way. Most people know when a character is being tolkenized. Mostly it's indicated by a bland Mary Sue whose soul trait is being a lesbian.
Oh man, now I really want to see how characters can be Tolkienized!! Does it make them as amazing as characters in LoTR or The Hobbit? Sorry, couldn't resist, I know it was just a typo. But a rather cool one, I must say! As for the actual subject, I think as a writer you need to set yourself strategies and limitations. You need to decide what constitutes legitimate criticism (which means it's intended to help you be a better writer) and what counts simply as ideological attacks or other unhelpful types of comments. And your strategies are about how to deal with these (the unhelpful ones and attacks). If you're getting accused of cultural appropriation or another of those catch phrases used by the complaint brigades, either don't respond or have some stock response that you use and then block that person or keep a list of people you refuse to engage with anymore. If they're really committed ideologues there's no reasoning with them and trying to will just drive you up the wall.
I guess I need to learn who to listen to and who to ignore. I think I am almost finished with this painting of EJ but I asked one girl her opinion. She apparently did not like the painting because of the skin tone. That is how I picture her. Her skin tone is a detail about her but does not define her.
That's exactly it. When you start writing, you're going to get all kinds of advise. Some of it helpful, but some of it not. It takes a little practice to figure out what advise works. To know which is good advise and which is bad, it's important to know the basics of story telling. Your basic exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution. Your basic character build of a goal, motive, and conflict. And then the central theme. Those are super basic and you probably already do them without even knowing that you do them. But they are super important to remember, because that's really going to help you sort out what is good advise and bad advise. So let's say I read your story and I make a suggestion like, "I think your character needs to show where your character is eating dinner with her family" (or whatever). How do you know if that's a good advise or bad? Well, look at your basics. If you have a theme of loneliness and isolation that often happens when people come out of the closet, then that scene may not fit with your theme. It certainly won't fit with your character's conflict. So, you might not want to take that advise.
I think making them diverse is a good start, and not just in personality but in their beliefs, morals, actions, and so on. One thing I would say is make sure characters who are friends have common interests and some common opinions. We tend to make friends with people similar to us and like what we like. I know someone who has very conflicting opinions to my own, and although I still like her, our differences in opinions prevent us from getting too close. We tend to think the opposite to each other. The other things is make them all affected by the main characters goal and in different ways. People in our lives can impact us and make us think. Again, I have a friend who is so calm he's almost in a coma. I wish I could be that calm and steady but I suffer with anxiety too much. However, his attitude reminds me to be a bit calmer. My elderly neigbour is quite sassy and sticks up for herself despite the fact she is disabled and unwell. She has shown me you can still stand up for yourself without being rude. So we do learn things from each other. So making the character interactions as close to real life as possible helps.
