Venia Silente
Inspectious. Good for napping.
- 1,232
- Posts
- 15
- Years
- on the second floor's nest
- Seen yesterday
Man I've been gone for a while, and I still will be, but I just got this little spare time frame I need to make good use of it.
How do you come up with your characters? Do you design them from scratch or use people you know as their bases? If the latter, how much do you modify their personalities?
Admittedly, I draw the most basic information about my characters from people I know. However I do this only at an introductory level. In most cases, I go around thinking, "O'K... I need a character who is/does <insert‑adjective‑or‑action‑here>. What about my old friend <insert‑name‑here>?" -- then give them an adaption of their RL counterpart's name, and then start developing with only the adjective as a base.
In most cases, the characters turn completely different from their originals appearance, personality and (of course) history wise. There are only minor exceptions which are done intentionally, when I want to theorize about what would a person "like X" behave in a world "like that", extrapolating how do the attributes that brand people in our society would work in a <insert‑fandom‑here> world. I have yet to write about him in Elusive Goals, but I can safely say Syd is one of those rare cases and that I'm actually very proud of how he is turning out.
I think basing characters off of people you know, when done on a very basic and descriptive level, helps you start your story with osme consistency. You know beforehand how to make those "character spin-offs" react to the very first events around them, and from then you have a more solid ground to develop their personality and history in whatever direction you choose, because you can always reach a point where you can say "no, I'm doing this wrong, a character who was like this would think teice before doing that". Once you get some confidence using those psychological tools, you can freely start developing characters from scratch.
But overall I'm just starting to write FF, so I'll have to wait how those characters turn out in the end. I just happen to be fond of them when compared to my previous crap, or to other things I've read.
How do you come up with your characters? Do you design them from scratch or use people you know as their bases? If the latter, how much do you modify their personalities?
Admittedly, I draw the most basic information about my characters from people I know. However I do this only at an introductory level. In most cases, I go around thinking, "O'K... I need a character who is/does <insert‑adjective‑or‑action‑here>. What about my old friend <insert‑name‑here>?" -- then give them an adaption of their RL counterpart's name, and then start developing with only the adjective as a base.
In most cases, the characters turn completely different from their originals appearance, personality and (of course) history wise. There are only minor exceptions which are done intentionally, when I want to theorize about what would a person "like X" behave in a world "like that", extrapolating how do the attributes that brand people in our society would work in a <insert‑fandom‑here> world. I have yet to write about him in Elusive Goals, but I can safely say Syd is one of those rare cases and that I'm actually very proud of how he is turning out.
I think basing characters off of people you know, when done on a very basic and descriptive level, helps you start your story with osme consistency. You know beforehand how to make those "character spin-offs" react to the very first events around them, and from then you have a more solid ground to develop their personality and history in whatever direction you choose, because you can always reach a point where you can say "no, I'm doing this wrong, a character who was like this would think teice before doing that". Once you get some confidence using those psychological tools, you can freely start developing characters from scratch.
But overall I'm just starting to write FF, so I'll have to wait how those characters turn out in the end. I just happen to be fond of them when compared to my previous crap, or to other things I've read.
