Creating Well Thought Out Characters

[Captain Dory]

I could really use some tips on making a well thought out characters. I'm creating a comic with Steampunk/Sci-Fi elements.

[Kaxen]

You just think about your characters a lot, I would assume...

What do you mean by "well thought out"?


If I'm actually thinking ahead when making a character, I usually think of what sort of problems they will have to decide what will make the happenings interesting. Like, throwing a shy character into a setting where nothing threatens her preference to avoid eye-contact means nothing will happen, while throwing her into a social situation means something will happen since at the very least she will be wishing she could crawl under a rock. Or, I think of what a character is supposed to come off as. If they're supposed to be a badass, you can't make the character only fight with pathetic losers, their enemy has to seem like a valid threat. And then you add traits to the character that help or hinder them in their goals.

And there's also thinking about the setting. An environmentalist in a steampunk setting isn't going to get treated the same as one in ours... No one ever cares about the increased use of coal in steampunk-land... unless the usually unexplained hyper-efficiency of coal in their steam-powered universe makes it magically less polluting...

[-2o]

So, there isn't a magic key, but there is some things that produce better characters than others. For one, what is your main story about, and how does the goals and personalities affect the story?

Remember that characters do not exist in vacuums- they are partially a product of their environment, their peers and their upbringing. So think about circumstances- what chain of events could create this character? Why did this character turn out like X and why not like Y? Think about their relationships to other people,the time and the setting.

Give them flaws that make sense with their personalities and have real consequences. Both parts of this are important. On the one hand , tacking on flaws just to fill some "deep character" requirement makes the character ring hollow because their actions don't seem to have any rhyme or reason or origin of purpose (this obviously doesn't apply if the character in question has mental issues). On the other having flaws that do not impact the narrative in any way feels artificial and is easily caught by the reader. Both are important.

What all this means is that you cannot create characters that become your darlings- you have to make people who are a product of the life they were lived and have internal struggles that make sense for their characterization.

As a final note, ignore people who rant about Mary Sues - a lot of the time they obfuscate the point by railing against competent or hyper competent, good looking characters when the problem is less about the individual aspects of the characters themselves and more about how those characters interact with the story.

[corollary]

Don't get caught up in trying to make every single character "well thought out." Not every character has to be round. A combination of round and flat characters is necessary to a story, mostly because if every single character was round, you would be spending so much time developing the characters rather than the plot that the story would be lost. You have to think, "how does this character contribute to the plot?" and if they don't contribute anything, edit them out or change their role. And if you have an action you need, but there isn't a character that already serves that purpose, but you only need the action once, don't be afraid to have a flat/"throw away" character. And if we're redefining "well thought out" as "applicable to plot," well, you tell us.

[Captain Dory]

I appreciate these tips.

[Gearfish]

I'm not really sure how to explain it, but I tend to make characters in sets/groups where they all balance to do what I want them to but also complement each other. Basically I think of them as puzzle pieces in what sort of role I want them to play, and then I flesh them out as necessary from there.

Even when I'm just making up concepts that don't have an attached story, part of making characters up is figuring out what kind of adventures that character is suited to go on.

[Aqua-regias]

real people have backgrounds, unique influences, flaws, attributes that vary in proficiency, etc.

You need to flesh out characters more than will ever be revealed in the story. Think about your own life, your friends and family. Think about little things that make them who they are. Maybe they like to sing, but are terrible at it. Maybe they are usually calm, but some things make them angry that you wouldn't expect. Real people also aren't always logical or consistent.

Sometimes it also helps to find people who remind you of that person, whether a character on tv, a celebrity or a famous dead person. Think about what traits make them unique and try to apply them to your own character. Like if Albert Einstein was known for crazy hair, or being a bit eccentric, those are the kinds of influences you can use for your own characters.

[peahat]

I'm not sure if I'd agree that you need to flesh out ALL the characters more than you need to. The main characters for sure, but I think corollary has the right idea.

corollary

Don't get caught up in trying to make every single character "well thought out." Not every character has to be round. A combination of round and flat characters is necessary to a story, mostly because if every single character was round, you would be spending so much time developing the characters rather than the plot that the story would be lost. You have to think, "how does this character contribute to the plot?" and if they don't contribute anything, edit them out or change their role. And if you have an action you need, but there isn't a character that already serves that purpose, but you only need the action once, don't be afraid to have a flat/"throw away" character. And if we're redefining "well thought out" as "applicable to plot," well, you tell us.

I think the most important thing is to have fun with your characters. Be passionate about getting to know them better. If you're feeling stressed or pressured to make every character super realistic and unique, you may lose interest or come out with really awkward, needlessly detailed characters.

If you're adventurous, I'd suggest writing the story before you even know them very well. You can learn about the character as you write about them; the reader will be learning about them through the course of the story, so why not you?

You can always go back and edit things you don't like. Even if it's a webcomic. It's your webcomic, so no one's gonna sew you for retconning it ):<

[Cat-the-Bat]

Something I do (but this is kind of an off-the-wall technique that not everyone has access to) is that I test my character by RPing them IRL with my GM who runs World of Darkness and Dungeons and Dragons games with us.

The GM has the ability to put them in interesting, pressing situations, and even develops contacts that you may or may not choose to include with your comic, but it adds to the depth of the character none the less.