Hello, hello, this is Dr. (_____) coming to you live from the real world to waste your time and other fashionable stuff, and present you with my own guide to character creation, because some people (you know who you are, just think about where your reading this.) just can't seem to get the hang of making characters that are actually distinct from pre-existing characters! Which is baffling, because it's not hard at all. actually I shouldn't say that since apparently It IS very hard to do something original. But enough vague accusations. Lets move on to the meat of today's post: Dr. (_____)'s guide to character creation!Step zero: So you want your own original character:
Good for you, you've just joined the ranks of countless other artists and writers who want to make their very own creation! You've also just opened up a big can of worms, some good, some bad.
The good news: You do this right and you'll have a core around which to build your very own stories rather than just using the characters someone else made up. A huge step up, you'll no doubt agree.
The bad news: It's not always an easy thing. which is where this guide come in with some basic dos, and some basic don'ts (which a lot of people ignore. again you know who you are, and if you don't? Shame on you.)
Step one: The basic concept:
This is where most people make their first mistake, usually because they've never done something original before they decide to draw "inspiration" from pre-existing characters.
Say for example you're a Sonic fan, and want to create a fan character to write about. You've no idea where to start so you might just go "He's like sonic, but..."
Problem. If your "new" character is so identical to sonic that you need only list the one or two things that make him "different", exactly how original is that character, really? If your being honest you'll realise that it isn't. And no, adding more and more stuff after the "but" will not get you away from that. The only way to get away from the unoriginality is to drop the "like sonic" bit entirely.
so what now?
Well... look at the basic concept for Sonic himself. "A blue semi-anthropomorphic hedgehog who can run at the speed of sound and battles evil." It's short, simple, and describes his basic appearance , powers, and character. Countless iconic characters start off from similarly concise and descriptive statements.
Thus if you want to create your own original fan character you might start off with something similar. Like oh I don't know... "A young green hedgehog wearing a scarf wishes to surpass Sonic in every way, and keeps getting in his way." There a new hedgehog character described in simple terms, which is not only a different colour, but age and appearance too. Sure its still another hedgehog, but he is not JUST "like sonic but"
(Disclaimer: Given the amount of fan-works concerning sonic, I feel it necessary to say, on the off chance that I have described someone else's character, I assure you that I was unaware of their existence and did so unintentionally.)Step 2: Characterisation:
Okay. You've got your basic idea, so now its time to move on to fleshing out the details. No I don't just mean a long excruciatingly detailed back story. That is actually the opposite of what I mean. Think about "Dirty" Harry Callahan, of the Dirty Harry movie. We know next to nothing about his personal history, why he has issues with authority. What we get instead is a character so iconic that it helped spawn the renegade cop archetype.
Writing ten pages of a character biography doesn't automatically make a character interesting. History is only a part of characterisation, and it's always important to recognise that you have to pick the proper time and place to reveal it. Do it in the wrong place and you'll just bore your audience or bog down a story with details. Which is generally why we either only learn bits and pieces of a characters history, or get a full blown prequel to explain it all. Make a story out of it.
Long story short, when creating a character its important to first focus on how the audience sees the character in the "present" and THEN think about divulging the characters past to them.
Lets go back to that sonic character I made up in step one. Lets call him Groove, which is something I just picked from a list of racing terms.
Groove is young, hyper-actively upbeat, and practically bursting with enthusiasm for pretty much everything in the world. He constantly rushes into trying to solve problems, frequently not sticking around long enough to have them properly explained to him, though its easy enough to keep him out of the way, just make up something for him to do and watch him go to it.
There you go, a good start to some original characterisation. The character will of course change and grow during the course of any stories he's involved in, that's what characters do, but for now you have a snapshot of how he is "right now" and I haven't bored you to tears with the character's life story before you even begin to care about him.
And that's it for part 1, stay tuned boys and girls for part 2.
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