Do you ever base your characters on people you know?

[justadarling]

I usually make up my characters as their own person without and ties to anyone i know in real life. But yesterday i made a character and I said to my friend "You know, Emily, I'll make her loosely based off you" So now im thinking it might be fun to loosely base characters off my friends, just for the sake of fun.

Have you ever done that?

I feel like if maybe you arent so good at coming up with characters on your own, making some based off people you know could be good practice since real people are dynamic and have unique personalities and depth. So maybe if you practice basing off of friends, itll help you figure out what makes a good character. Just a thought. Feel free to you know, express your opinions and discuss and whatnot smile

[Roscid]

Yeah, I sometimes do that.

[Noodle Ton]

.o. I don't think I've ever fully based a character off someone I knew, but I do take small traits of my friends and use that if it fits with the story line. Same thing goes for strangers. I actually just got a little bit of inspiration from you just now. >w > I'm going to go write it down before I forget.

[Eljah_Black]

I think there's a big difference between basing a character after someone and using that person as a character, but giving them a different name.

I base characters off of people off the time. I use one (or a couple) traits about someone and then that character becomes something of their own. A lot of the time a bit of me slips into my characters, so my personality traits are strewn across all my characters.

I don't think that basing a character on someone in real life is just something for beginners either. I also don't think using your friend as a character is a good thing either. One, they might not like what you've written about them and two, you should put a little more creativity into characters than that. Of course, those are just my opinions.

[lexipthemudkip]

Sometimes I will, if I'm stuck and need a side-character for something, but usually I don't do it for my main characters. I find that that's usually a place where I can trip up and, uh, accidentally offend someone. Especially if the story demands that not-so-nice things happen to said character. xd

If anything, my characters are vaguely based off of myself... or at least a characteristic of mine.

[justadarling]

Eljah_Black

I think there's a big difference between basing a character after someone and using that person as a character, but giving them a different name.

I base characters off of people off the time. I use one (or a couple) traits about someone and then that character becomes something of their own. A lot of the time a bit of me slips into my characters, so my personality traits are strewn across all my characters.

I don't think that basing a character on someone in real life is just something for beginners either. I also don't think using your friend as a character is a good thing either. One, they might not like what you've written about them and two, you should put a little more creativity into characters than that. Of course, those are just my opinions.

Of course its not just something for beginners, I just said it could help. And I'm not using her as a character really, i meant loosely based like "some of the traits and other personality related things for this character were inspired by you".

See, I was drawing, drew a character that looked cool to me. She was an Asian looking character and i happened to be texting my friend who is also Asian and I said "You know how you have your real name but go by your American name? I think I'll make the character have two names like that as well". So why my character isnt my friend exactly, parts of her identity were inspired by my friend. Which is all I was trying to say haha smile

[justadarling]

lexipthemudkip

Sometimes I will, if I'm stuck and need a side-character for something, but usually I don't do it for my main characters. I find that that's usually a place where I can trip up and, uh, accidentally offend someone. Especially if the story demands that not-so-nice things happen to said character. xd

If anything, my characters are vaguely based off of myself... or at least a characteristic of mine.

I try to be careful with that because I dont want my characters to be too much like me

I sometimes put my own characteristics into my characters too! XD

[lexipthemudkip]

lppurplegirl11

lexipthemudkip

Sometimes I will, if I'm stuck and need a side-character for something, but usually I don't do it for my main characters. I find that that's usually a place where I can trip up and, uh, accidentally offend someone. Especially if the story demands that not-so-nice things happen to said character. xd

If anything, my characters are vaguely based off of myself... or at least a characteristic of mine.

I try to be careful with that because I dont want my characters to be too much like me

I sometimes put my own characteristics into my characters too! XD

I find a way to avoid making them too much like you is to either exaggerate or under-use a certain trait and have that be the basis of their personality somehow. Either that, or just make someone who's completely opposite from me and marvel at how they react to things, haha.

[KageNoRurouni]

Whether you mean to or not, all characters are reflections of yourself and the people who have affected you the most. I always say, "You write what you know". You can learn a lot about a person by reading what they've written.

[justadarling]

KageNoRurouni

Whether you mean to or not, all characters are reflections of yourself and the people who have affected you the most. I always say, You write what you know. You can learn a lot about a person by reading what theyve written.

Wow, I never thought about it like that. Thanks for answering

[KageNoRurouni]

lppurplegirl11

KageNoRurouni

Whether you mean to or not, all characters are reflections of yourself and the people who have affected you the most. I always say, You write what you know. You can learn a lot about a person by reading what theyve written.

Wow, I never thought about it like that. Thanks for answering

I've been reviewing books and writing for years, so I'd like to think I know a thing or two about character and story development. 3nodding

[justadarling]

KageNoRurouni

lppurplegirl11

KageNoRurouni

Whether you mean to or not, all characters are reflections of yourself and the people who have affected you the most. I always say, You write what you know. You can learn a lot about a person by reading what theyve written.

Wow, I never thought about it like that. Thanks for answering

I've been reviewing books and writing for years, so I'd like to think I know a thing or two about character and story development. 3nodding

Oh nice smile Ive been writing for... a year xD

[KageNoRurouni]

lppurplegirl11

KageNoRurouni

lppurplegirl11

KageNoRurouni

Whether you mean to or not, all characters are reflections of yourself and the people who have affected you the most. I always say, You write what you know. You can learn a lot about a person by reading what theyve written.

Wow, I never thought about it like that. Thanks for answering

I've been reviewing books and writing for years, so I'd like to think I know a thing or two about character and story development. 3nodding

Oh nice smile Ive been writing for... a year xD

You gotta start somewhere. 3nodding Fanfiction or what?

[justadarling]

KageNoRurouni

lppurplegirl11

KageNoRurouni

lppurplegirl11

KageNoRurouni

Whether you mean to or not, all characters are reflections of yourself and the people who have affected you the most. I always say, You write what you know. You can learn a lot about a person by reading what theyve written.

Wow, I never thought about it like that. Thanks for answering

Ive been reviewing books and writing for years, so Id like to think I know a thing or two about character and story development. 3nodding

Oh nice smile Ive been writing for... a year xD

You gotta start somewhere. 3nodding Fanfiction or what?

I actually started off with some fiction stories which are so bad, they make me cringe looking back on them) and then I decided that i was going to try to work where I needed the most improvement which was the actual writing, not the plot or characters. It was then where I decided fanfiction would be good practice since i could focus on just the writing part and not worry so much about characters. Plus posting it on ff.net allows me to get unbiased feedback and criticism biggrin

But lately Ive been feeling like Im ready to attempt writing a completely original story :3

[KageNoRurouni]

lppurplegirl11

I actually started off with some fiction stories which are so bad, they make me cringe looking back on them) and then I decided that i was going to try to work where I needed the most improvement which was the actual writing, not the plot or characters. It was then where I decided fanfiction would be good practice since i could focus on just the writing part and not worry so much about characters. Plus posting it on ff.net allows me to get unbiased feedback and criticism biggrin

But lately Ive been feeling like Im ready to attempt writing a completely original story :3

That's how I started writing. I started doing some fanfiction, which is really good practice. It gets you to examine characters to understand how they act and why.

It doesn't hurt to start writing original stuff. I would recommend saving all of the stuff you're writing so that you can look back on it later. I started writing a story when I was a teenager and never did anything with it. I actually just went through it again and really liked what I saw in it. Of course, the style is really different because that was before I had published anything or had even gone to college. Now, I'm expanding on it and I'm going to make it into a series. I love some of the ideas I came up with then because I wouldn't have come up with them now, if that makes sense. But you know, there are certain insights you have right now that you won't have later in life. I think getting those down now is a really good way to set up something that could be interesting later on. Worse case scenario, you never do anything with it. What's the harm in that? rofl