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Duino's Do's and Don'ts of Character Design
12 years ago
General
In the time I'm not spending demanding attention, free art, and respect I don't deserve, sometimes I write things. I'm wrapping up an English major in college this coming fall, and will be enjoying all the merits and boons that title brings (like asking "Would you like fries with that?" in an especially defeated tone). But one of the most important aspects of writing is the ability to make a good, believable character. And a lot of people seem to be really bad at it. So I thought I'd try my hand at giving some advice, to any and all that desire it.
1. Don't: Make your character motivations overly complex.
Characters with a lot going on are not only no fun to write for, they're no fun to read. Mental conflict may drive a story but having ten different opposing sides just leads to pointless conversation. Family tradition, societal norms, promises to friends, matters of personal honor, physical urges and needs, and even mental illness are all good ways to cause your character some stress, but giving them one of each at the same time isn't going to go well. Every little choice they have to make in the story will become two pages of thought-out deliberation that no one wants to read.
Do: Keep motivation simple.
Of the examples listed above, or of your own, pick one or two. Maybe three, if you can strike a healthy balance, but no more than that. Figure out what your character really wants out of life, and whittle it down until you've got their deepest desires figured out. A simple character might just want money, and set off on a quest to find it. A more complicated one might be struggling with the approval of his friends and the rules put in place by an authority. Know who wants what, and write your dialogue accordingly.
2. Don't: Give a weightless tragic backstory.
We've all seen the writer on DeviantArt whose OC in a happy cartoon world has dead parents. or whose parents or siblings hate them. But without context those deaths carry no weight, earn the character no sympathy, and only make the tone more brooding. It's especially bad when the character is still portrayed as happy and optimistic; if all I know about them is they've got dead parents and like to make friends, then I'll think they're nuts.
Do: Give death and suffering weight.
If you really want a tragic character, death is a fantastic way to build character. But only if the person who dies matters to the reader. When you hear about a family who suffered a loss that you don't know, you feel sad, but you hardly feel invested. If, however, you pictured the death of a close friend, or someone you knew in your daily life, you'd be saddened, hurt; and most of all, interested. If a character says their parents are dead, they earn no sympathy. But if there's three chapters of the character bonding with the parents, and the parents being likable and interesting and THEN dying, then the reader is going to feel something.
This is just the classic example, of course. Not every story has room for three chapters of parent-bonding. But keep in mind no character can earn sympathy from page one. Think carefully about how you would make a stranger care about someone who is suffering, and try writing scenes around it.
3. Don't: Write the same character more than once.
This is the issue I'm most guilty of. Most people tend to gravitate toward a specific type of character, like you do a genre of music or movie. And there's nothing wrong with that at all; in fact, if you like happy, silly characters most, you're probably going to be able to write a really good happy, silly character. But you're also most likely to have more than one happy, silly character, and that leads to imbalance. If everyone is happy and silly, there's never going to be any interesting conversation. No exchange of different ideas or disagreements. Just a bunch of happy and silly nuts running around in circles.
Do: Give each character three distinct characteristics.
It's a rule that's thrown around in discussion of short fiction more often than novels, but it still remains a good rule of thumb. Take your character and list the three more defining words you can think of regarding them. For example, take my motley crew of idiots:
Duino: Selfish, grumpy, vain
Rainer: Honest, sporting, confident
Royvas: Stoic, silent, plain
Alex: Paranoid, controlling, irritable
Shiva: Single-minded, domineering, competitive
When put on paper like that, it's easy to see they're all meant to be different and interact in unique ways. But I still have the issue of giving them all snide, sarcastic one-liners, since characters like Duino are my absolute favorite. Don't homogenize your characters. Keep in mind their differences, and always be aware of what is and is not in character.
4. Don't: Have useless characters.
Again, more an issue for short fiction, but not every character needs an origin story and a name . If your story is about a journey across fantastic, foreign continents, then you don't need to have three pages of the protagonist talking to the baker about what growing up in the village was like. Again, perhaps it serves some plot purpose, or gives necessary exposition, but if that baker never comes back and don't have useful information, then I'd rather not even have to be affirmed he exists.
Do: Know when to cut characters.
Having minor characters you really like is a pretty common theme. And since you like them, you want to have them overstay their welcome. But sometimes the tavern wench who you orchestrated a thrilling secret agent witness protection kung-fu swashbuckling adventure origin for needs to just serve the drinks to the characters you're focusing on and keep walking. Characters can't stay on the train past their stop because you like writing jokes for the conductor. Either leave those characters as plain throw-aways, or if you're so obsessed, write about them instead in a different story! Nothing says you can't; just don't create a complex character where one shouldn't exist.
Overall these are common issues I've seen both on the internet and in stories written by my classmates in upper-level creative writing. They're easy pits to fall into, and with all writing "rules" there's most likely a bunch of exceptions one can come up with. But, hopefully this gives you something to think about when trying to make unique characters in the future. If this was any good, or you guys would like me to do more writing advice stuff, just let me know. Bottom line- be aware of what you're saying, and know that someone who isn't you is going to be looking at what you work on.
1. Don't: Make your character motivations overly complex.
Characters with a lot going on are not only no fun to write for, they're no fun to read. Mental conflict may drive a story but having ten different opposing sides just leads to pointless conversation. Family tradition, societal norms, promises to friends, matters of personal honor, physical urges and needs, and even mental illness are all good ways to cause your character some stress, but giving them one of each at the same time isn't going to go well. Every little choice they have to make in the story will become two pages of thought-out deliberation that no one wants to read.
Do: Keep motivation simple.
Of the examples listed above, or of your own, pick one or two. Maybe three, if you can strike a healthy balance, but no more than that. Figure out what your character really wants out of life, and whittle it down until you've got their deepest desires figured out. A simple character might just want money, and set off on a quest to find it. A more complicated one might be struggling with the approval of his friends and the rules put in place by an authority. Know who wants what, and write your dialogue accordingly.
2. Don't: Give a weightless tragic backstory.
We've all seen the writer on DeviantArt whose OC in a happy cartoon world has dead parents. or whose parents or siblings hate them. But without context those deaths carry no weight, earn the character no sympathy, and only make the tone more brooding. It's especially bad when the character is still portrayed as happy and optimistic; if all I know about them is they've got dead parents and like to make friends, then I'll think they're nuts.
Do: Give death and suffering weight.
If you really want a tragic character, death is a fantastic way to build character. But only if the person who dies matters to the reader. When you hear about a family who suffered a loss that you don't know, you feel sad, but you hardly feel invested. If, however, you pictured the death of a close friend, or someone you knew in your daily life, you'd be saddened, hurt; and most of all, interested. If a character says their parents are dead, they earn no sympathy. But if there's three chapters of the character bonding with the parents, and the parents being likable and interesting and THEN dying, then the reader is going to feel something.
This is just the classic example, of course. Not every story has room for three chapters of parent-bonding. But keep in mind no character can earn sympathy from page one. Think carefully about how you would make a stranger care about someone who is suffering, and try writing scenes around it.
3. Don't: Write the same character more than once.
This is the issue I'm most guilty of. Most people tend to gravitate toward a specific type of character, like you do a genre of music or movie. And there's nothing wrong with that at all; in fact, if you like happy, silly characters most, you're probably going to be able to write a really good happy, silly character. But you're also most likely to have more than one happy, silly character, and that leads to imbalance. If everyone is happy and silly, there's never going to be any interesting conversation. No exchange of different ideas or disagreements. Just a bunch of happy and silly nuts running around in circles.
Do: Give each character three distinct characteristics.
It's a rule that's thrown around in discussion of short fiction more often than novels, but it still remains a good rule of thumb. Take your character and list the three more defining words you can think of regarding them. For example, take my motley crew of idiots:
Duino: Selfish, grumpy, vain
Rainer: Honest, sporting, confident
Royvas: Stoic, silent, plain
Alex: Paranoid, controlling, irritable
Shiva: Single-minded, domineering, competitive
When put on paper like that, it's easy to see they're all meant to be different and interact in unique ways. But I still have the issue of giving them all snide, sarcastic one-liners, since characters like Duino are my absolute favorite. Don't homogenize your characters. Keep in mind their differences, and always be aware of what is and is not in character.
4. Don't: Have useless characters.
Again, more an issue for short fiction, but not every character needs an origin story and a name . If your story is about a journey across fantastic, foreign continents, then you don't need to have three pages of the protagonist talking to the baker about what growing up in the village was like. Again, perhaps it serves some plot purpose, or gives necessary exposition, but if that baker never comes back and don't have useful information, then I'd rather not even have to be affirmed he exists.
Do: Know when to cut characters.
Having minor characters you really like is a pretty common theme. And since you like them, you want to have them overstay their welcome. But sometimes the tavern wench who you orchestrated a thrilling secret agent witness protection kung-fu swashbuckling adventure origin for needs to just serve the drinks to the characters you're focusing on and keep walking. Characters can't stay on the train past their stop because you like writing jokes for the conductor. Either leave those characters as plain throw-aways, or if you're so obsessed, write about them instead in a different story! Nothing says you can't; just don't create a complex character where one shouldn't exist.
Overall these are common issues I've seen both on the internet and in stories written by my classmates in upper-level creative writing. They're easy pits to fall into, and with all writing "rules" there's most likely a bunch of exceptions one can come up with. But, hopefully this gives you something to think about when trying to make unique characters in the future. If this was any good, or you guys would like me to do more writing advice stuff, just let me know. Bottom line- be aware of what you're saying, and know that someone who isn't you is going to be looking at what you work on.
It' basic stuff that they drill into you at college. and then in the work place.
And time and time again people come up with these bad ideas. Characters that are always zany-happy and end up on top, always. Jaded-jerks who always seem to have the right answer all the time. Mary Sues. and lucky-go-happy-soul-eaters.
Say what you want, but don't assume everyone who writes about something is doing it because they're looking into a career.
:D
Granted, you can go to more complicated designs, so long as you have parts that stick out. I don't want to go into specifics, since it's a much more abstract field and one I don't feel qualified to discuss, but good character design is a sense. You really know it when you see it. If you have a character that you made and designed, and other people not only like it but some say "I'd like to draw that," you've succeeded.
Plus, a good personality can save a plain design. I again refer to Bloo- if he weren't conceited and sporadic, I'd think his design was a lot worse. And I can think of just as many great fox characters as I can lame ones, though all of them maintain a pretty standard aesthetic. So my idea is to give them something unique, but remember that unique thing isn't what you should base your character on. Picking an exotic species or a crazy bow tie may give them something to stand out; but if you don't have an organic character to back it up you're screwed.
That is my joke.
But seriously this list is way good. I've seen way, way, way too many characters without a hope of being relateable. "I have this cursed souleating sword that spews out barely controllable evil lightning magic, also I'm a pretty great guy outside of that" is just plain more difficult to relate to than "I hate my job and I'm grumpy about it." Nobody has cursed swords and even if they did they wouldn't be chipper about it.
Like I guess if I were going to add something it'd be something like "be able to justify why everything exists." If you can't even come up with a reason why your character has this sword from the last example, why does he even have it? What relateable, interesting stories are you telling about it? You can't even figure out why you put it on him, how are you gonna figure out how to tell a cool story about it?
I haven't seen that second part as much, but I totally get it. I've been working on a high-concept kind of story off and on having to do with metaphysical locations and the part that's stumping me is how it all "works." I'd rather get that squared away before anything else, and if you work with fantasy and sci-fi genres, so should you. The stakes are only raised if the reader can tell what the issue is. They must construct additional pylons. How? Is is challenging? What happens if they fail? What does a pylon do? Was your father killed in a pylon-related accident? If I'm expected to be invested, these are things I need to know.
Well, I thank you for that.
I think the rule I see being broken the most in any environment is backstory. I see people enjoy making histories of events, but fail to really understand the consequence of the events they put forward. It's not even so much that a parents death-by-backstory is weightless, but that any detail at all tends to be. It almost seems just as well that none of it never happened, in some case. I think the difficulty for both online characters and tabletop characters is making such a backstory weighty, and at the same time concise. A book or actual story has time to develop an entire act one to explain a characters current life, dreams, and troubles. A character that you're going to share and play needs something relevant, relatable, and easily related.
Having a fairly large cast of characters, I sometimes fear a few of them are too samey.
I'm always trying to buff out the scratches. xD
Scurrow: Obnoxious, neurotic, silly
Things like grammar. And spelling.
These are the basics, and if you can't get these right, then you really need to learn these skills before you consider things like whats in this journal.
I personally have read some stories that annoyed me really badly because they actually had good plot and such, but their spelling and grammar was almost nonexistent.
Maybe I ought to do another one like this now that I have some more experience.