Character Making

[razorrabbit]

How do you make your characters? How do you know what and how much you need to put down? Is there any premade templates you use? Does what you include or how much change on what you're going to role play?


I ask these pretty obvious questions for a few reasons, one as someone who sticks to fandoms I've noticed the amount of information or specific information that is put down changes between fandoms (I mean things that may seem little, having a hard time explaining what I mean sorry) and two I am the type of role player that needs to use my characters before fully understanding them so things like personality I can't exactly put down because I've had many a time where my character back hands me and goes in a whole new direction. Though I can tend to figure out more about them with little things that may seem unimportant when making a character i.e. favorite hobby or color.


So yeah all those questions above, how do you go about it? When do you know what to cut the line on? How much does it change depending on what you're making the character for, if at all?

 

[Lady Warlock]

Hmm... the answer to this is very complex and I'm not sure if I am going to be much help or not, but I am going to give it a shot.


I tend to get as detailed as humanly possible when making my characters. I start with their backstory which includes where they came from, what their initial family was like, what they went through in their childhood, who they were friends with, what kind of things they did all the time and what not. I like to start here because the backstory is going to answer a lot of the other questions involved with creating a character. A person's history shapes their personality. For example, if you had a loving family and loving friends, chances are that you are also a loving person. If you went through a traumatic experience, then there can be some remnants of post-traumatic stress disorder that leak into the personality depending on when the trauma happened and how severe it was. If a character struggled with acceptance and making friends, chances are that they are a more withdrawn personality type. Backstories can also create some hobbies because it can list things that they do a lot and may enjoy doing. Another reason why I like starting with the backstory is that when you are writing a backstory, you are writing for the character so if they are going to change dramatically, you can begin to see that change surface within the backstory as you write it. Writing the backstory helps you understand your character more because you can use their past reactions to situations that they have already been through to guide what they are going to do in the present.


I hope this helps a bit.