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I Plan To Live Forever, Of Course...
15 years ago
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… but barring that, 
Faora’d settle for a couple thousand years. Even five hundred would be pretty nice.
Hey guys! Friendly neighborhood writer-dragon here again, with more obscure video game references. Well, I’m here for more than just that, as a matter of fact. I’m here to test your creative mind with another of my interactive journal thingeys! So far they’ve proven quite good at drawing people out from the woodwork and getting them involved with the group. We’ve had a character defining exercise and a discussion on the attitude one should take with writing, and they’ve done quite well in my opinion. So today, I wanted to try something a little different. Oh, and I’m also looking forward to seeing if anyone guesses the game that I referenced this time. Dragoons were easy, but it seemed like no one really got the last game I referenced. I’m trying it again here, to see if anyone shares my taste in gaming. *chuckles* By the way, brief aside. Sorry for my absence of late; life gets in the way sometimes..
This is a prompt, of sorts, but not the usual one. There are prompts all over the internet for story-writing (including the Thursday Prompt by FA’s own lovely
poetigress) but none that I saw that were all about the creation of characters. Now in my Characters guide, I said that I liked to break my characters down at their most basic to a handful of traits that defined who they are and what they were like. I also said that characters were the most important element to your story; no matter what the driving force of the story is, characters are there to take you through it. Characters are immortal; they live forever on the page as a testament to our creativity and vision. They deserve a lot of work, and the creation of them is often an arduous process.
So this thought popped into my head as I woke up. I’ll list off a quick little series of trait groups, each one enough to create the basics of a character’s personality. Personality is only a part of it, though. Once you have that character’s behavior set the way you want it to be (and traits have a lot of leeway in that regard!), then your challenge is to take your newly created character and provide them with a backstory. Just a little flavor text that helps you to define who they are, why they are who they are, and the like. Don’t feel bound to any one kind of setting or theme, either; I’m a sci-fi and fantasy writer, but I wouldn’t do this and only create characters for those genres. This is an experiment! Go wild!
Just a reminder, the Primary Trait of a character is what everything they do is weighted by. It’s at their core, defining them more strongly than anything else. Secondary Traits support the Primary, adding a little more depth to their actions and thoughts. Finally, the Tertiary Traits are flaws that help to humanize your characters. These allow them to be more relatable to the reader. Further, even typically ‘good’ Primary and Secondary Traits can be twisted, if you feel like creating a darker (or villainous!) character. Don’t feel bound to any one idea; make the character your own!
Here’s the trait groups:
Primary Trait: Fearless
Secondary Traits: Athletic, Honorable
Tertiary Traits: Workaholic, Procrastinator, Liar
Primary Trait: Genius
Secondary Traits: Humorous, Persuasive
Tertiary Traits: Shy, Lonely, Socially Inept
Primary Trait: Proud
Secondary Traits: Domineering, Charismatic
Tertiary Traits: Over-Emotional, Stubborn, Promiscuous
Primary Trait: Empathetic
Secondary Traits: Self-Sacrificing, Soft-Spoken
Tertiary Traits: Perfectionist, Tactless, Morally Grey
Primary Trait: Cruel
Secondary Traits: Quick Mind, Silver Tongue
Tertiary Traits: Liar, Clumsy, Forgetful
That’s just five little groups there. Often a character will possess more traits than the six I usually start off with, but I find that – as I mentioned in my Characters guide – this tends to present a good starting point for character creation. Feel free to add to this base as you experiment with the creation of characters through this system. Pick one of the examples above if you like, or if you want to you could even do all five! Give the traits a look-over, determine how they would come together to create a character, and then delve a little into what makes that character tick beyond those traits.
And after you’re done, reply to the journal with what group you chose and what you’ve managed to create. I look forward to seeing what these little groups of words can become when your creative efforts are put behind them! Oh, and check out my latest guide right here on FA_Writers. I need a little input, as elaborated at the bottom, for my next guide!
- Fae
Faora’d settle for a couple thousand years. Even five hundred would be pretty nice.Hey guys! Friendly neighborhood writer-dragon here again, with more obscure video game references. Well, I’m here for more than just that, as a matter of fact. I’m here to test your creative mind with another of my interactive journal thingeys! So far they’ve proven quite good at drawing people out from the woodwork and getting them involved with the group. We’ve had a character defining exercise and a discussion on the attitude one should take with writing, and they’ve done quite well in my opinion. So today, I wanted to try something a little different. Oh, and I’m also looking forward to seeing if anyone guesses the game that I referenced this time. Dragoons were easy, but it seemed like no one really got the last game I referenced. I’m trying it again here, to see if anyone shares my taste in gaming. *chuckles* By the way, brief aside. Sorry for my absence of late; life gets in the way sometimes..
This is a prompt, of sorts, but not the usual one. There are prompts all over the internet for story-writing (including the Thursday Prompt by FA’s own lovely
poetigress) but none that I saw that were all about the creation of characters. Now in my Characters guide, I said that I liked to break my characters down at their most basic to a handful of traits that defined who they are and what they were like. I also said that characters were the most important element to your story; no matter what the driving force of the story is, characters are there to take you through it. Characters are immortal; they live forever on the page as a testament to our creativity and vision. They deserve a lot of work, and the creation of them is often an arduous process.So this thought popped into my head as I woke up. I’ll list off a quick little series of trait groups, each one enough to create the basics of a character’s personality. Personality is only a part of it, though. Once you have that character’s behavior set the way you want it to be (and traits have a lot of leeway in that regard!), then your challenge is to take your newly created character and provide them with a backstory. Just a little flavor text that helps you to define who they are, why they are who they are, and the like. Don’t feel bound to any one kind of setting or theme, either; I’m a sci-fi and fantasy writer, but I wouldn’t do this and only create characters for those genres. This is an experiment! Go wild!
Just a reminder, the Primary Trait of a character is what everything they do is weighted by. It’s at their core, defining them more strongly than anything else. Secondary Traits support the Primary, adding a little more depth to their actions and thoughts. Finally, the Tertiary Traits are flaws that help to humanize your characters. These allow them to be more relatable to the reader. Further, even typically ‘good’ Primary and Secondary Traits can be twisted, if you feel like creating a darker (or villainous!) character. Don’t feel bound to any one idea; make the character your own!
Here’s the trait groups:
Primary Trait: Fearless
Secondary Traits: Athletic, Honorable
Tertiary Traits: Workaholic, Procrastinator, Liar
Primary Trait: Genius
Secondary Traits: Humorous, Persuasive
Tertiary Traits: Shy, Lonely, Socially Inept
Primary Trait: Proud
Secondary Traits: Domineering, Charismatic
Tertiary Traits: Over-Emotional, Stubborn, Promiscuous
Primary Trait: Empathetic
Secondary Traits: Self-Sacrificing, Soft-Spoken
Tertiary Traits: Perfectionist, Tactless, Morally Grey
Primary Trait: Cruel
Secondary Traits: Quick Mind, Silver Tongue
Tertiary Traits: Liar, Clumsy, Forgetful
That’s just five little groups there. Often a character will possess more traits than the six I usually start off with, but I find that – as I mentioned in my Characters guide – this tends to present a good starting point for character creation. Feel free to add to this base as you experiment with the creation of characters through this system. Pick one of the examples above if you like, or if you want to you could even do all five! Give the traits a look-over, determine how they would come together to create a character, and then delve a little into what makes that character tick beyond those traits.
And after you’re done, reply to the journal with what group you chose and what you’ve managed to create. I look forward to seeing what these little groups of words can become when your creative efforts are put behind them! Oh, and check out my latest guide right here on FA_Writers. I need a little input, as elaborated at the bottom, for my next guide!
- Fae
Primary: Sadistic
Secondary: Greedy, Intelligent
Tertiary: Lustful, deceiving, obsessive, adoring
Primary: Intelligent/genius
Secondary: Shy, loving
Tertiary: Fearful, adoring, questioning, obedient
Primary: Lustful
Secondary: Greedy, controlling, adoring
Tertiary: Abusive, sensual, demanding, needy
XD Usually I don't get beyond primary and secondary traits because any one character will end up being used in multiple timelines, places, and ways - only the core of what makes that character that character stays the same.
It's not me telling people to make characters to my spec, it's about getting people involved in the idea of building characters based on traits that they need for a certain circumstance. I understand where you're coming from; it's why I've no interest in writing fanfic of any kind, even for stuff I love. Sometimes though you just need to quickly create a character from a pre-determined idea of what the situation needs. I was only trying to go and present this in a fun exersize.