Writer's Work Shop - Bringing Characters to Life -Personalities

This page was imported from a forum post dated October 06, 2014 in the category Chatterbox by Dylan Locke. Its content is likely to be out of date!

Mon, 10/06/2014 - 15:18

EDITED: Making a character's personality stick in the memory of players can be rather hit or miss sometimes. There is no secret formula to creating a memorable personality nor is there such a thing as a perfect personality.

Personalities

I decided to rework this forum thread simply because it didn't really work the way it was before.

The goal of this thread is to exchange ideas on how to bring your character to life through their personality.

Making a character's personality stick in the memory of players can be rather hit or miss sometimes. There is no secret formula to creating a memorable personality nor is there such a thing as a perfect personality.

There are ways to make your character stand out though.

Exaggerate your qualities

Every character has qualities, strengths and weaknesses. When given the chance to show them don't be afraid to exaggerate them a bit. If your character is noble and trustworthy, play that up. If your character is addicted to blue berry pie then don't hesitate to have him reach out and grab one off of a window seal even while being chased by a horde of savage wolverines!

Play with characters of the opposite personality.

How can you spot one penny from a pile of fifty other pennies? I don't know but I am sure it isn't easy. If you want your character to stand out then have them stand next to a character with the opposite personality. If your party is filled with mostly heroic dodders then your morally grey theif will certainly stand out as different and visa versa.

Facial expressions

There are two ways to tell the reader what your character is thinking. A. Simply tell them in a thought bubbly. Or B. Use facial expressions. This goes beyond, "Fox frowns. Fox chuckles, fox smirks" There is nothing wrong with these expression, but if done too often they become mannerisms. Let's add a bit of spice to these.

"The frown on Fox's face was slight but unmistakable." "Fox frowned deeply" "Fox's frown bordered on a scowl."

"Fox chuckled once and only once." "Fox's chuckle quickly turned into laughter." "Fox chuckled and then wiped a tear from his eye."

"Fox gave a wide toothed smirk, as if he knew something the others did not." "Drumming his fingers together Fox smirked. The smile spread from ear to ear." "Draping one arm over the chair behind him Fox crosses his legs and gives them a smirk."

Jobs and you

Jobs never define your character. How they DO their job defines your character. Your alt doesn't actually have to be good at their job or even like it. When thinking about giving your character a job ask yourself, 'Why did they choose this profession? Why didn't they choose another profession?

You can tell a lot about a character by how much importance they put on their work, how focused they are at their job, how quickly they get it done, and how much they like it.

Examples:

-Under the watchful gaze of his employer Fox swept the floor like a mad man! No dust bunny was safe! No space left unclean. Giving Fox an approving nod his employer clocked out for the night and walked out the door. Fox craned his neck upward to see if he had really left. He smiled to himself and slowed down his pace.

-The surgeon looked over Fox with a serious frown. The fox was in a cold sweat even with the ice pack upon his fore head. His swollen stomach rose and fell with each frantic breath. It was in these precious moments that could mean life or death. The operation must begin immediately. Moving the scalpel forward the surgeon let it hover for a moment over Fox's belly. He had to close his eyes and take a moment to calm his shaking hand before he moved to make the first incision...

Notice in each of those examples that you don't have to do a whole lot to show off your characters personality at once. A little does go a long way.

Conflict

Stories are driven by conflict, from great and epic battles to simply trying to get through rush hour traffic before the store closes. Don't be afraid to generate conflict (In character conflict. Out of character conflict is never welcome.) between alts. Have a different opinion. How they express that different opinion can also show case our alts personality. Do they express their opinion aggressively, or with reason, or just agree with the majority simply not to create a scene?

A word of warning though, don't try to create conflict for the sake of conflict. You should never go out of your characters personality for the sake of rp.

Go against the norm

A simple and effective way to make a character stand out is to simply make them different than other players. Kind of self explanatory I know. And yet you would be surprised how hard it is to come up with something someone else has not already tried.

It helps to get a feel of the game you are playing first. For example even before I started role playing I knew the vast majority of people would be playing a character who was muscular with dashing good looks, had a tragic background, and skilled at combat.

Don't get me wrong, nothing is wrong with any of that. It's just wanted my first character to be different. So I decided to make an overweight story teller with a normal childhood.

It kind of stuck to the rest of my characters over time to make them this way.

Insanity done right

The biggest danger of playing an insane alt is 'overplaying' their insanity. Chaotic Evil is not insanity, chaotic evil is a symptom of insanity. A mental disorder does not also necessarily mean your character is insane either.

Sanity is retaliative to the given situation or culture. An insane character simply see's the world in a different way, often to their own disadvantage. Let's take a real world example. My history is a bit rusty on the subject but my understanding is that there used to be trees and people on Easter island until the islanders made those giant rock statues. Those statues too wood to build and erect, trees have to be cut down to make wood.

Wood is also used to make tools, homes, fire. So what happens when you cut down all the trees upon the island and have no way to bring in more? Your civilization collapses.

So what was going through the mind of the man who cut down the very last tree on Easter Island? We can hardly guess but rest assured that it seemed perfectly logical and reasonable to him to cut down that tree and thus, doom his civilization. To us not part of that culture, this would be an insane action.

Lesson learned for story telling. If you want your characters insanity to stand out, find a way for him to justify it. Bonus points for making their justification almost reasonable.

Examples

The best example for this is yourself. On your own ask yourself what makes you different from the people around you, especially those of the same culture or background.

Then apply that to your own character.

Where ever it fits of course. :3

So how about you guys? What do you do to make your alts stand out?

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