HistoryA lot of a character's personality can and will be able to trace back from a character's past. So naturally, when you start out questing one of the first things you do aside from picking the particular pokemon you'de like, is picking a personality, and a type of history. Now, the shop has a mandatory history section due to the focus on pokemon and how they become human. Or rather, how they go from a pokemon to gijinka. The history should be able to break down into three parts.
1- Pre-Gijinka, Life as a Pokemon
2- Dream encounter with Musharna, the transformation of pokemon to gijinka
3- Life after, Life as a Gijinka
Part one establishes really, the reason your pokemon would be approached by Musharna, and why they would want, need, or desire to become human.
Part two is the actual dream itself, where the reason is clearly stated, and the actual transformation takes place.
Part three is waking up to find the human form, and the life that follows.
First, let us go over part one.
In part one, think of this as setting up everything for your character. This is their birth, their life. This is everything the have known and expect to know. This part establishes what will be the bare basic profile and personality. The personality in this part can't be ignored when you write up the current personality. That isn't to say it must be the same or deviate. Think of it like a growing person. A person might start off as really cruel, but, due to time, they shift perspective, and by the end, they could have gone 180. But this is not an overnight event. It takes time, key events, and logical progression.
In this portion of your character's history, try to include their birth, their personality as a pokemon, any changes or events that would gather the interest of Musharna, and setting up a reason they would become a gijinka.
In part two, this is the big event, the dream that turns them from pet to person. Now, Musharna is an NPC, meaning it acts as a writing device. You don't give them so much as a personality or speaking parts, as you use them as a tool to explain your story. What you need to do here is draw from part one and provide the reason why Musharna would come to your character and make them the offer. Stating this is very key, since the reason they become gijinka needs to be both logical, canon, and consistant. To have a pokemon with a super happy fun life turn human to help commit a crime? Why is that? Look at the shop's story. The Musharna are not doing this so much as to promote revenge, hate, or to foster supremacy. Musharna wanted to show humans, specifically trainers, that pokemon are meant to be treated as equals. But naturally, each pokemon would want to be human for for different reasons. The shop's story is there for a reason. Keep it in mind when writing your character's history. Just remember, consistency is key!
Part three, the life after. You pokemon is now a human. Firstly, they will not know everything about humans and how humans behave. They lived their whole lives as pokemon. They have pokemon habits, pokemon understanding. Suddenly they are now fully functioning human beings..more or less. They will not know everything about humans. They might know some aspects of human life, like that humans wear clothes. That they don't just shove their faces into bowls of food. But depending on the pokemon, their understanding of everyday society is limited. Think of it like being picked up, and dropped into a foreign nation where you don't speak the language, know the customs, and have just an inkling of social norms. This is probably what your character is going through.
In this part, establish your character's reaction to the change, address the reason they changed into a gijinka in the first place. Was it resolved? Is it ongoing? Or is it never going to be completed? Finally, establish the character as they are in the present. What are they doing in the sense of now. The aftermath if you will. Re-evaluate their personality and the changes that have happened over time since their beginning personality in part one. The small bits of personality here should be directly reflected into the personality we see in the profile.
By the time you have history done you should have a very good concept of the character's current personality and just why they are that way. A solid history helps to build a solid personality profile. It should act like a tool box as you write, something to draw from and use to help back up the who, what, why, when and how.
Some things to avoid and keep in mind when writing a history:1- Be logical
Having drastic personality jumps, extreme forms anything, going heavily against the canon norms just is not typical, nor, logical. If you want a pokemon that was once owned by a team rocket member, the pokemon is going to have been exploited. They wouldn't have had a good life. Just like a pokemon that was owned as a common pet wouldn't have been some incredible battle master. A pokemon in the wild wouldn't know common human tools or objects. In being logical you also should...
2- Avoid Extremes
While its cool to have a tragic past, there are limits. Now by limits, I am talk extremes. Staying within a relative norm. Anytime you venture into an extreme, you are running into the realm known commonly as as sue syndrome. Making your character out to be more special then it really needs to be. If you want an abusive or tragic past, that's cool, but having a past where your pokemon say, was experimented on by team rocket and yet managed to escape but now was cursed with the inability to do something, or, was prone to fits of random abilities? Yeah..that is running into a bit of an extreme. So when you write you should try to...
3- Make it believable
Tragic past is a common thing I see. A lot of people do it because it is a good basis for a reason behind wanting to be human. But many go into the realm of extreme. The best way to make a reader interested is to get creative without needing to go over the top. You don't need the saddest story, the most horrible history, the worst thing ever. Often, the most common event when written well will work better then the one who has the most, best, or worst whatever. Don't write to be special. While to define your character and to make them a cohesive being. Something that makes sense and you can see happening. A good test is to ask if this could happen to any other pokemon. Run it on a scale of one to ten, ten being yes, one being no. The closer you are to one, the less believable the story is. So, case in point....
4- If it sounds over the top, chances are it is
Nobody likes a sue. being called it, playing with one...sue type characters, or 'special snowflakes' are seen in very poor light in RP groups. Taking Mary-Sue tests, like
this one, can help to identify even pre-personality if you're already hitting that level.
5- Always read outloud.
Reading your stuff outloud can easily show how well things flow together. It also forces you to read your words more carefully and slow down to read each word.
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