Character-Roleplayer Correlation

I am a firm believer that the best and easiest way to make a character flow naturally without spending a long time pondering their actions, is to put a little bit of yourself inside the character you're creating.

Having just a single aspect of yourself be a prominent personality trait in your character gives you a much greater understanding of how your character would act or feel in a variety of situations simply because you as their writer have some way of relating to them. If you write a character whom you have absolutely nothing in common with for an RP then you might find it's much more difficult to write said character effectively.

So the questions I have for you are as follows:

• Do you often find your characters can relate to you as their writer and vice-versa?
  
• Do you see any small part of yourselves in the characters you've written, even if you didn't mean for this to be the case?
  
• Is there any other RPer on the forum whom you think actually mirrors their character in a surprising way now that you think about it?
  
• If you do this sort of thing actively and purposefully, then why not share what characters you relate to and how you found writing said character?

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At this very moment I feel personally that I can relate to my Unova character, Ryker Ward. He's a lazy and apathetic sort, but he has a strong sense of family and is willing to go to great lengths for those close to him. Something I aspire to manifest in myself quite regularly.

Deceptio said:

• Do you often find your characters can relate to you as their writer and vice-versa?
  
• Do you see any small part of yourselves in the characters you've written, even if you didn't mean for this to be the case?
  
• Is there any other RPer on the forum whom you think actually mirrors their character in a surprising way now that you think about it?
  
• If you do this sort of thing actively and purposefully, then why not share what characters you relate to and how you found writing said character?

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1. First part of that question: that's a perspective I've never taken, mostly because I do not personify my characters to such an extent that they consistently break the "fourth wall", that they have that dramatic irony, that they would be aware that they are a figment being written by me, the writer. So to answer the first portion of your question as it is worded: no, never. Conversely, yes, here's why:

2. I as the writer, I can relate to my characters in some way. I have to. To the reader and as another human being, we as a people know only as much as we have learned and experienced, have the mental capacity to comprehend and analyze, and the skill in which to clearly and effectively relay or communicate it all. If any of these parts fail in the process, you may find a disconnect between what you hoped to achieve and what the audience could tell--assuming the reader is in some way keen on what you're writing, for lack of a better word. Was that irony?

If you plan to have a character with human characteristics and you are writing them, it would do you well to put in some recognizable trait that strings them together, otherwise you will be struggling to write them. It is comparable to writing a character with a specialized, real-world profession you plan to work into the plot, but hardly knowing anything about that profession. Continuing is a struggle. You have to learn up on it, a kind of interaction with material that will educate you on the matter. Same thing here: Our understanding of people is by our interaction with them.

You know yourself best. You live with yourself everyday. You can easily write a quirk, mentality, or position of yours into your character. To write beyond yourself while still retaining a string of traits that are easily comparable to you as a writer, you also know your family and close friends well. They are not like you, yet you can relate to and draw parallels from them. Going even further, many people write characters that would otherwise be conflicting with how they perceive themselves. That character may be derived from experiences with people whom they disagree, personally feel a rivalry with, or have felt the end of their antagonistic behavior, actual or perceived. Mirroring traits or even fantasizing how those people go about their lives and then using that conjecture into a character is, all in all, a relation--just not between you and your character in the way most people initially think.

Hell, I've even written a character that is hardly like me, but most of the supporting characters they interact with are in many ways similar to me, and so the main character's reactions are greatly shaped by that inversion. That's a spin for a number of people.

There, my shiny two cents, though I expounded beyond the question.

3. I will say that majorly, anyone who doesn't have the wherewithal and/or the desire to perceive beyond themselves will most often write a character that is an idealized version of themselves, with circumstantial details adjusted to the setting of the role-play. There is nothing wrong with that despite one popular belief, but it is an observation of mine. On the whole, I don't know anyone well enough to say that, yes, this person writes characters on a specific forum that is otherwise not like them, except this one thing. In truth, you can find anything in any character and pin it correctly to the author if it's general or universal enough, don't you think?

4. Almost every character I have ever made has something to which I relate. Every character I make in this way, I enjoy. That said, I am not attached to any of my characters in role-play, because role-play is such a temporary endeavor that most often relies on the dedication of others, when you think about it. It's just another writing challenge to me, with a little something familiar thrown in to keep me on track.

Jauntier said:

*Snip*

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In response to the first question, I didn't mean to imply that the character has some metaphysical ability to relate to the writer... moreso that if the character had such an ability, would they be capable of relating to you, in a sense. Perhaps it should have been worded better to be fair. I meant it to be taken in a more imaginative way... if your character could relate, would they? However I appreciate your perspective and opinion, as well as the eloquent answer.

As for the third response, this was more of a lighthearted question... however the response embedded in a deeper line of thought is something I appreciate as well.

Good answers all around though, very interesting to read someones more in depth thoughts on the topic so thank you for taking the time and effort to make a wonderful first response. I look forward to seeing how other opinions that surface correlate and contrast with your own.

Deceptio said:

In response to the first question, I didn't mean to imply that the character has some metaphysical ability to relate to the writer... moreso that if the character had such an ability, would they be capable of relating to you, in a sense.

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Ah.

In that sense, possibly. I champion a sense of humor similar to mine (understandably so; humor is just something you either do or don't understand, and react accordingly), and since I understand my kind of humor best, my characters all share it. But if my character is too much a deviant in other ways, I imagine they'd not even bother with me, if not to try to antagonize or even victimize me, in which case the ball is in my court how to react. The more lighthearted characters, maybe, if they are more social or open to being social, and if they aren't clingy or patronizingly "cheerful." If my character is more or less a clone of me, we'll get along romantically perfectly.

Thank you for your time with and appreciation of my original post.

Deceptio said:

• Do you often find your characters can relate to you as their writer and vice-versa?
  
• Do you see any small part of yourselves in the characters you've written, even if you didn't mean for this to be the case?
  
• Is there any other RPer on the forum whom you think actually mirrors their character in a surprising way now that you think about it?
  
• If you do this sort of thing actively and purposefully, then why not share what characters you relate to and how you found writing said character?

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1. Let's see. As a writer, I find it much more colorful and less monotonous in my part to write characters that are varying to some degrees. Yes, while some of my first few characters were basic mirrors of me, I have since grew as a writer and I tried to explore more varying personalities

2. Despite of number one, however, I always think that my character has something of me in them, whether I intended it or not. Seeing as I am their writer, it is really hard to separate something as essential as who you are in everything you write.

3. I don't think so, mainly because I have not yet met any of them in person to be a fair judge.

4. Well, Coul Remson in Redux is something I think resembles me the most. We're both academicians at heart and would love to travel around the world. We're also not really close with our families since we went away from home to study.

Dennis Plum in Outbreak a few years back is me on paper, really. An asthmatic writer who doesn't believe in any form of god is the best way to describe myself with as few words as possible. I had fun writing him and I hope I have as much fun as writing Coul.

- Do you often find your characters can relate to you as their writer and vice-versa?
I definitely feel that my characters and I relate to each other. I find it much more fun if I'm able to relate to the character in some way as that really keeps the character and the RP as a whole, interesting and engaging to me.

- Do you see any small part of yourselves in the characters you've written, even if you didn't mean for this to be the case? Like I said, I, for the most part, base a decent amount of my characters on myself. This way, I feel more engaged with my character and actively get excited about writing.

- Is there any other RPer on the forum whom you think actually mirrors their character in a surprising way now that you think about it? Wish I could answer that but I'm much too new to this site to be able to haha

- If you do this sort of thing actively and purposefully, then why not share what characters you relate to and how you found writing said character? I definitely find my character in Redux to be the most like me. I modeled it a lot after how I would act if I got to start a Pokemon journey one day, including the want of being to see what the world was like outside my home town and the blissful ignorance I would have regarding what the world was actually like and not the rainbows and sunshine world that gets portrayed by a sheltered life.

Deceptio said:

• Do you often find your characters can relate to you as their writer and vice-versa?
  
• Do you see any small part of yourselves in the characters you've written, even if you didn't mean for this to be the case?
  
• Is there any other RPer on the forum whom you think actually mirrors their character in a surprising way now that you think about it?
  
• If you do this sort of thing actively and purposefully, then why not share what characters you relate to and how you found writing said character?

Click to expand...

1. Sometimes? I don't go out of my way to create correlations between myself and my characters but there are often similarities that pop up in some way, even subtly.

2. Looking over all the characters I've played, there's a few that I have absolutely nothing in common with but there's others where I can clearly see a few similarities. I have quite a few characters who have dedication to a specific craft/hobby as their most defining trait for example, which is something that many people would associate with me.

3. I can definitely see similarities between Foxrally and most of his goofier characters xD

4. Well I don't intentionally make characters I'm similar too, but I will say that it's much easier to write a character you can relate to than one you have nothing in common with.

Deceptio said:

• Do you often find your characters can relate to you as their writer and vice-versa?
  
• Do you see any small part of yourselves in the characters you've written, even if you didn't mean for this to be the case?
  
• Is there any other RPer on the forum whom you think actually mirrors their character in a surprising way now that you think about it?
  
• If you do this sort of thing actively and purposefully, then why not share what characters you relate to and how you found writing said character?

Click to expand...

1) I am glad to say I am not a hotheaded assassin with tourette's, or a crafty trainer, or an eccentric five-year-old, or a childish goddess, or a cowardly boogeyman, or a psychopathic spider-person, or a nasty elf - so I have that going for me at least. I really don't go out of the way to make connections between me and my characters, I've learned that doing that can end up in... unwanted results.

2) Now that I think about it, I do however put a little of me into each character. I always enjoy making people laugh and enjoy themselves, so this obviously extends to my writing. A lot of my characters are comedy-oriented or humorous, for example Nerites or The Boogeyman, and even the more serious ones like Sophia or Jairo I've been using to crack a few jokes.

3) Hmm... Well, the only person I can relate to their character to a certain extent is Deceptio, mostly because a lot of the characters I've seen him play are well-spoken and ambitious, for example Rowin or Renegade. But even then, there's so much variety in everyone's characters that it's difficult to pinpoint anything.

4) Do you want to know how it felt to play as a ****ing Ryan

no you don't

It's not really possible to write a character without placing some amount of yourself into said character. And if you try to . . . you're going to fail, or the character is going to turn out absolutely terrible. Writers write what they know. Yeah, you might make some magical assassin that's the child of a god and smites people left and right, and you might think that you haven't placed yourself into the character, but there's no doubt that, somewhere in the character's personality, history, appearance, et cetera, there's going to be some parallels, in one or all aspects mentioned.

So yeah, I always see some amount of myself in my characters. I'd be shocked if I didn't.

As for the third question, I haven't tracked any of the newer roleplayers enough to be able to properly answer it, lol.

And due to what I explained above . . . my answer to the last question is that I relate to every character I've made, in some way, shape or form. So it's, quite frankly, not possible for me to detail it all. But I do know that, if you try to make a character purposefully unlike yourself or who has abilities or knowledge beyond your own, you're going to have a bad time writing them.

I really like the variety of opinions we have so far in this topic. It seems that a lot of people think that the idea of relating to ones own character is more of a conscious choice. As in, you put what you want into your characters... but it normally isn't necessity or impulse.

However I also see a few people claiming that every character one writes automatically attributes certain aspects of their writer.

To pose a new question.

• Have you ever started to write a character one way... but accidentally gravitated to writing them in a way that fits you or your style more personally?
  
• Do you find it easy to write a character that differs from you greatly? Or do you feel that you can draw on other sources of information for a character rather easily?

Deceptio said:

• Have you ever started to write a character one way... but accidentally gravitated to writing them in a way that fits you or your style more personally?
  
• Do you find it easy to write a character that differs from you greatly? Or do you feel that you can draw on other sources of information for a character rather easily?

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1. In slight amounts, pretty much every character I've ever written has changed slightly from SU to IC. I think that's just a natural part of the writing process and a normal part of a character development.

2. Usually no. I have a lot of trouble writing people who are overly friendly or goofy. As much as I loved Giron from Titans, he was hell to write because his personality was just so radically different from my own.

Deceptio said:

I really like the variety of opinions we have so far in this topic. It seems that a lot of people think that the idea of relating to ones own character is more of a conscious choice. As in, you put what you want into your characters... but it normally isn't necessity or impulse.

However I also see a few people claiming that every character one writes automatically attributes certain aspects of their writer.

To pose a new question.

• Have you ever started to write a character one way... but accidentally gravitated to writing them in a way that fits you or your style more personally?
  
• Do you find it easy to write a character that differs from you greatly? Or do you feel that you can draw on other sources of information for a character rather easily?

Click to expand...

1) Deeeefinitely. Almost every one of my characters differed from the SU to the IC. Keeping in mind that I am absolutely terrible at personality sections, it's very difficult to convey the entire personality of a character into a paragraph or two. A few examples are Sophia from Gunpowder, who is known to be hot-headed and violent; but who I originally planned to be more assassin-like and mysterious. Another example would be Sahn from Dust, who I first envisioned as brutish and simple-minded; but eventually did a 180 and made her calm and stern.

However, the biggest challenged I've faced would be Mira, my secondary character for the same aforementioned roleplay. Mira went through an... interesting cycle of identities. From upbeat and naive, to flirty and charismatic, to hyperactive and impulsive... Ind the end, I literally told myself 'screw it' and wrote her without taking into account the personality section of the SU, and I ended up with an organized model student, which I liked much more than the previous options. I guess it goes to show that personality doesn't really come from an SU but from the IC posts with the character.

2) I don't really know how different my characters can be compared to me, honestly. I always love adding in comic relief, but it's more a thing with my style rather than something related to the characters. In contrast to gimmepie, making characters or situations that are extremely serious has never been my forte (I even find myself adding humour to them, blegh).

Deceptio said:

• Do you often find your characters can relate to you as their writer and vice-versa?
  
• Do you see any small part of yourselves in the characters you've written, even if you didn't mean for this to be the case?
  
• Is there any other RPer on the forum whom you think actually mirrors their character in a surprising way now that you think about it?
  
• If you do this sort of thing actively and purposefully, then why not share what characters you relate to and how you found writing said character?

Click to expand...

When writing characters, I feel I have to put some of my own personality into them, because if I don't, I find it quite hard to keep them tied to the personality I set for them... So yes, I guess I am like all of my characters, in one way or another. Which is upsetting considering most of my current characters are villains and/or antiheroes. :P

As for small parts of myself in my characters, if I have a strong emotion towards something, It tends to bleed through into my writing. Once I was writing for a character called "Blaze" She was originally planned to be a rival for my character Delta in Begin again, I can't recall if I ever posted anything about her however. Anyway, She was going to have some history very similar to my own, albeit not exactly the same.

RPers who mimic their characters? Well there's this Jay guy who has this character Rowin, who is super cray and totally fly. <3

Delta: Adventurous, Obsessive, Bisexual, Emotional
Blaze: Humourous, Hot-Headed, history.
Sadarys: Lover of magic, always the odd one out.
Krall: Quick tempered, Smart
Albus: Kind hearted, honourable
Sheog: Insane

Deceptio said:

• Have you ever started to write a character one way... but accidentally gravitated to writing them in a way that fits you or your style more personally?
  
• Do you find it easy to write a character that differs from you greatly? Or do you feel that you can draw on other sources of information for a character rather easily?

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Yes. A lots of times. When I started RPing, I have always wanted to write very unique characters but it gets hard when you don't have much experience in writing people. When I'm not satisfied with what I wrote, I usually accidentally write more of me into those characters.

As what I said above, it's harder to write characters that is different from me. I used to google how other people would react given certain situations in accordance with their personality. Reading a lot of material improves this though.

Deceptio said:

So the questions I have for you are as follows:

• Do you often find your characters can relate to you as their writer and vice-versa?
  
• Do you see any small part of yourselves in the characters you've written, even if you didn't mean for this to be the case?
  
• Is there any other RPer on the forum whom you think actually mirrors their character in a surprising way now that you think about it?
  
• If you do this sort of thing actively and purposefully, then why not share what characters you relate to and how you found writing said character?

Click to expand...

1. i nearly always find myself making characters that share at least a small number of characteristics with myself - simply because i don't feel confident i can reliably convey an accurate representation of what someone different would be like. i struggled to come up with a representation for my Secret Santa character too, for example. it's also the reason i never roleplay as male characters. i realise that there really shouldn't be that big a difference, but somehow i can't bring myself to, haha.

2. basically answered this in the previous question, but i haven't really done it unintentionally. i just hope it doesn't make all of my characters feel boring or same-y to the other writers.

3. i don't know. i suppose i'm one of the people that thinks there's nearly always some trait of the writer visible in their characters. but to agree with previous answers, i think Deceptio does a good job of this, haha.

4. i guess. i haven't written with these characters very much or at all yet, though.

Deceptio said:

To pose a new question.

• Have you ever started to write a character one way... but accidentally gravitated to writing them in a way that fits you or your style more personally?
  
• Do you find it easy to write a character that differs from you greatly? Or do you feel that you can draw on other sources of information for a character rather easily?

Click to expand...

1. Yes. When you find that a character is becoming a chore to visualize their role in the story early on, you should intentionally adjust them to better accommodate your wherewithal. But I've also unwittingly written a character that strayed in a major way from what I originally intended, either because I under-researched a specialized role I hoped they'd take on, like a profession or position, or I found that during character interaction, I had written them in such a way that was too narrow, vague, or adventurous in the scope of things.

2. In many aspects, yes, I can write a character that differs from me greatly, although what I consider "greatly" may not be to the extent that someone else considers "greatly." I suppose taking on the role of some cognitively slow yet obsessive serial killer differs from me just the same as someone who is circumspectly optimistic, yet apologizes too often for perceived offenses. One's way more commonplace and moderate than the other, yet neither are what I ever am, see.

But if it comes down to it, if there's reading material on a subject and I can freely access it online, I can spend some time forming a character influenced by that material. This is usually for stories that have a setting in or are modeled after a real-world era.

Do you often find your characters can relate to you as their writer and vice-versa?

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Depends on the character. For the most part, not really. At the moment Jeb is really the only one I can really relate to in more than one way. I can relate to Drake from Redux but only in one single aspect. Other characters are just whatever. Try to get into their mindset.

Do you see any small part of yourselves in the characters you've written, even if you didn't mean for this to be the case?

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The way that my characters speak and the occasional several hundred word inner monologues over little nonimportant things.

If you do this sort of thing actively and purposefully, then why not share what characters you relate to and how you found writing said character?

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Jeb is really easy to write. Aside from making up lore stuff or writing really drawn out battles, posts with him flow really easily since he's basically me in the magical old west with a different history. And then on the other end of the spectrum is Carol who I gave my habit of overthinking and daydreaming, wishing for things to be without actually putting in any of the effort necessary. She is hard for me to write for, especially with not much really going on.

Do you often find that you can relate to your characters and vice-versa? find I can relate to my characters, but I doubt they could relate to me. I base many of my characters off of some part of me, but blow it out of portion.

I do find parts of myself in my characters, and more often than not I do it intentionally to make it a bit easier to write them.

For over 10 years, I've basically been playing the same character with slight variations. That character is me. It is only recently that I've begun to deviate from this formula. So of course I can relate to her. And she relates to me. The one thing I can write really well is myself. Because I am a very introspective person who has been mostly isolated from the rest of everyone. I know me, I know intricacies about myself that I don't think many others know about themselves. I have written complex diaries on the study of myself for many years. When I make the character though, I have to try to streamline and simplify some of that due to how complicated I find myself.

Of course, I can create other characters based on small pieces of myself. Those who aren't more directly based on me are still ones that I can relate to immensely. I take various different cores of my personality to create them.

Ultimately though, I roleplay to express myself in various settings. It's always me in some way, even when I try to make it deviate a bit. But it does not matter. Because that is what I do best and that is what I am comfortable with.