Difficult Characters

Which of the characters you're writing right now is the hardest for you?

At the moment, probably Garon.
His character is a bit affinity-based when it comes to his interactions, so what he does and says wouldn't be the same if he was saying to one or another. Now while that's normal for any character, for Garon it's a bit tricky since he's far less expository and more subtle oriented. Basically, his emotions and feelings aren't exactly conveyed the best by his words or at least directly, so trying to keep up with his manner of speaking, especially when with a more bombastic, talkative Swift can be difficult to judge at times.

I'm going to start a Pokemon fanfic where the main trainer, a girl named Idunn after the Fire Emblem character, was raised by a Zoroark who gets captured, sparking Idunn to try and save it. My issue is that she would be incredibly hard to write, as you could guess. And, not to mention, she would be a thief who uses her 'brother', a Zorua, to steal. I don't know where to start with her, honestly.

Pure Essence said:

I'm going to start a Pokemon fanfic where the main trainer, a girl named Idunn after the Fire Emblem character, was raised by a Zoroark who gets captured, sparking Idunn to try and save it. My issue is that she would be incredibly hard to write, as you could guess. And, not to mention, she would be a thief who uses her 'brother', a Zorua, to steal. I don't know where to start with her, honestly.

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I would suggest you start by examining how her worldview would differ from normal people.

My original gal, Annie. Not only is it tough to write a completely original story thanks to the worldbuilding and faction building, but I decided (er, well, really she did) that the main character would be this really happy, peppy, social, and goofy character. Sometimes it's difficult for me to relate to that, so it can be really hard to write her. I write her best when she's depressed about something which, though easy to be in that world of death and chaos I created, doesn't happen to her very often.

I don't tend to struggle with characters very often. Usually, I can relate to them in some way or understand their actions, but I almost never relate to Annie and her constant smiling. She's just so unlike myself, but she's been a fun challenge because of it. And writing my Sonic fanfic with Dahlia has been helping me understand these peppy characters more.

From an RP perspective, right now the hardest character for me to write is Hael in Yokai Academy. His personality and mannerisms come easy, but it's really difficult at times to play an antisocial character is a setting and medium that are built on interacting and working with others. I'm getting the hang of juggling those things now though.

In my other projects, I can say too much about it, but in one thing I'm working on right now the protagonist is an ordinary house cat and, as such, does not speak or have overtly human thoughts/mannerisms. It can be really difficult to work with silent protagonists in the writing stages, even in visual mediums like comics.

gimmepie said:

I would suggest you start by examining how her worldview would differ from normal people.

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So her worldview is that Pokemon Trainers disturb a peaceful balance and make the wild creatures they capture forget their past life. She also believes that poor people aren't able to become trainers due to their need of Poke Balls, Pokedexes, food, etc. She also disapproves of the evil teams too, believing they take advantage of society, despite having good intentions. She technically captured her brother in an old Poke Ball because if she didn't someone else could catch him like her caretaker.

Of all things, she disapproves the most of figures that hold a lot of power such as Gym Leaders, Professors, and Champions, because they each show a flaw of society: Gym Leaders show how deeply rooted Pokemon Trainers are, Professors come from long lines of them showing that it's much harder for most to stand out, and because Champions hold so much power despite being a strong trainer and nothing more, it proves that the people in power don't deserve it for the most part.

Pure Essence said:

So her worldview is that Pokemon Trainers disturb a peaceful balance and make the wild creatures they capture forget their past life. She also believes that poor people aren't able to become trainers due to their need of Poke Balls, Pokedexes, food, etc. She also disapproves of the evil teams too, believing they take advantage of society, despite having good intentions. She technically captured her brother in an old Poke Ball because if she didn't someone else could catch him like her caretaker.

Of all things, she disapproves the most of figures that hold a lot of power such as Gym Leaders, Professors, and Champions, because they each show a flaw of society: Gym Leaders show how deeply rooted Pokemon Trainers are, Professors come from long lines of them showing that it's much harder for most to stand out, and because Champions hold so much power despite being a strong trainer and nothing more, it proves that the people in power don't deserve it for the most part.

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So she's probably passionate, caring and very staunch in her beliefs/dislike of her system. Throw in a few "filler" elements like hobbies or quirks to round her out and you have a character.

i'm currently trying to sit down and write one of my original stories that i had been meaning to write for a looong time now. but, gosh, the main character is harder to write than i thought he would be. in my head, it's so easy to see his mannerisms and behavior, but it's hard to put that on paper. also, he has a past that i'm unfamiliar with. he comes from a family of a certain religion and it's been frustratingly difficult for me to do research on it for some reason. it sucks because i finally had the motivation to jot down this pretty long story and now i'm losing it because i'm getting so easily frustrated about these things :(

an illegible mess. said:

i'm currently trying to sit down and write one of my original stories that i had been meaning to write for a looong time now. but, gosh, the main character is harder to write than i thought he would be. in my head, it's so easy to see his mannerisms and behavior, but it's hard to put that on paper. also, he has a past that i'm unfamiliar with. he comes from a family of a certain religion and it's been frustratingly difficult for me to do research on it for some reason. it sucks because i finally had the motivation to jot down this pretty long story and now i'm losing it because i'm getting so easily frustrated about these things :(

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If this is a real world religion, find an actual religious leader to talk to if you're having trouble. I think you'd find most would be more than happy to share with you as long as you're not doing anything to misrepresent them.

My main character in the RP "Trainers" is actually pretty hard to define. Usually, I've had quite well defined characteristics for my characters, but her? I had to re-make her once, and I still am not entirely sure what her point is, or that the way I write her attitude fits together with her history and family well. Hm. It's tricksy. Perhaps it's because she's quite different from myself.

My character, Faye, in Guild's of Atria is actually a tiny bit hard to write out. She's the quiet type and shows her kindness and goodwill through actions rather than words. She's also an emotional mess and can't tell how she's feeling. It makes it harder to write out certain situations that depend heavily on emotions. It's a challenge sometimes.

Ryuu from Youkai Academy is also a hard one as he's someone that is supposed to speak in old English... except that I tend to forget about that.

Pure Essence said:

I'm going to start a Pokemon fanfic where the main trainer, a girl named Idunn after the Fire Emblem character, was raised by a Zoroark who gets captured, sparking Idunn to try and save it. My issue is that she would be incredibly hard to write, as you could guess. And, not to mention, she would be a thief who uses her 'brother', a Zorua, to steal. I don't know where to start with her, honestly.

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Besides what gimmepie has already mentioned: hopefully she does not end up becoming a sort of Plasmoid.

The main hurdle in writing characters with a relationship to authority and to their world as you see in Idunn, IMO, is that unless you make them the "stereotypical" rebel who is going through a phase or who simply "knows" what Pokémon Training Anarchism means because they read a few memes (not even the in-universe Wikipedia page on the subject) it's quite difficult to ground them in a strong enough truth that their relatability won't break from the world around them. You have to build them up on a foundational lie, say for example "Pokémon Training is bad because old people tell everyone else what to do" then make the work to twist the lie ("the old people are precisely retired Trainers who grew up with both education and real world experience, so better them than some paper pusher").

So if you have this person who could be "very staunch in her beliefs/dislike of her system", has built up this personality from a narrative lie, then the perfect quirks and hobbies to add to her characterization would be something like visiting parks, libraries and museums.

Not only are things like museums usually free or near-free access to information (breaking the barrier of "power dictates knowledge") but also you could give it a spin to it where it is part of an unconscious mental process on her part to try and understand why "power" works that way - after all, what else do libraries and in particular museums are but ostentatious public flexes of your power to simply hold something of importance and not only do nothing (evil) with it but at the same time flaunt that nothing is expected to happen to it, unlike a Pokémon fight where I imagine at least in competitive circles, injury is a given?

Sapphire Rose said:

My character, Faye, in Guild's of Atria is actually a tiny bit hard to write out. She's the quiet type and shows her kindness and goodwill through actions rather than words. She's also an emotional mess and can't tell how she's feeling. It makes it harder to write out certain situations that depend heavily on emotions. It's a challenge sometimes.

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Can not speak much for everyone else in the world, but from my understanding people who "can't tell how they are feeling" is because they lack the richness of interpersonal experience to see their behaviour reflected on other people, who then give it names. It seems to fit well with her means to communicating emotionally with other people is mostly via action, perhaps never stopping to ask "are you ok?" but rather assuming that people are ok, or assuming that people need help.

I could see such kind of character growing a "Poisonous Messiah" Syndrome ("you HAVE to be hurt! And if you are not, I'm going to make SURE that you are, because if you are not hurt you can not be SAVED").

As for myself, honestly the only thing I'm writing right now is Sabres in the Sandstone, and since 85% of the cast there literally is not mine I'm kinda forced to say that the most difficult character I'm writing at the moment is the Cadrícean Cobalion. Writing a quadruped is already hard when it comes to combat, and having to write a character that is so different to the Cobalion that I think most fans relate to (the one in the Keldeo movie) can put one at odds with potential readers; but writing his personality and mannerisms is also difficult because he lives a special duality: he wants to remain in obscurity, he shuns the spotlight, but at the same time he wants to remain informed and he wants to gain an insight of "the bigger picture". And because he's so isolated from half of the world (the human world) even if he tries, he does not even know what compromises can he make - the closest he can get is, well, challenging Trainers to ssee what do they show him.

Well, I haven't actually started yet because he's my NaNo story char but... I know Dallas will be the hardest for me. I've never written a guy with ASD before. So, that's going to be really challenging. I'm willing to take my chance at writing him because I need to explore my horizons more. I only know the female side of Autism, being mostly female myself. ;w;

starseed the auticorn said:

Well, I haven't actually started yet because he's my NaNo story char but... I know Dallas will be the hardest for me. I've never written a guy with ASD before. So, that's going to be really challenging. I'm willing to take my chance at writing him because I need to explore my horizons more. I only know the female side of Autism, being mostly female myself. ;w;

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If you ever need help feel free to PM me. I have first hand experience xD