Post by Willow on Aug 4, 2012 13:47:24 GMT -5
I just wanted to throw out this small notice to anyone into character design. They’re just small notes, suggestions, to make your character’s design work with them. Basically, when it is or isn’t okay to do something. Technically you can design your character however you want - it is YOUR decision. But here are things to keep in mind. While I could go into much larger detail of WHY THESE THINGS ARE BAD this is just a short rant on common devices people use just because they find it ‘interesting’.
While these are definitely not the only over-used traits in character building, these are my 'big three'. I'm working on a second list, but this is what I have written up so far. I don't consider myself an authority on anything, but I think this is stuff people should keep in mind when building a character.
And yes, I am guilty of some of these traits with my older characters, but I'm working on fixing it.
- Gas Masks, Skull Masks, etc. : Is the world taking place in an plague-ridden world (gasmask)? Are they from a tribe / ancient civilization (skullmask)? Or is that just their quirk, collecting funny face masks? If it isn’t one of these things, then STOP. It’s okay to have a character who just happens to like gas masks or whatever, but when you have MULTIPLE CHARACTERS all with the same ‘quirk’ for no actual reason, it’s probably just your own interests bleeding into your characters a little more than necessary. The also goes for ridiculously elaborate tattoos and similar traits. Army tags - is your character in the army? Do they have a relative that was? Do they just REALLY LIKE THE ARMY? No? THEN WHY DO THEY WEAR ARMY TAGS?
- Bipolar / schizophrenic / depressed / etc. : The whole point of creating a character is to create a new REAL person to fill your story with. So, as with real life, it’s fine and even interesting to have the odd mental health issue. However, if that trait isn’t going to affect your character’s day to day life, and doesn’t affect their choices, the plot, or even their relationship with other people, then why have it at all? If your character just has a random bipolar fit just because you can’t find a way to move the plot along, then back it up and look at the situation again, because something clearly isn’t working. People with these issues are almost constantly affected with it, and if you ‘forget’ for a few chapters that your character frequently hallucinates and can’t handle normal conversation just because it’s interrupting your plot, you need to drop it.
- Rape / Childhood Abuse / Dead Parents etc. : Ah, the dead parents. A lot of people can be accused of using this just because they’re too lazy to create parent characters and maintain them. Other times it is actually PART OF THE PLOT (Harry Potter, The Graveyard Book). Without these key plot points THE REST OF THE STORY WOULD HAVE NEVER HAPPENED. So if you are just going to casually mention at a random point that the character has been raped 4 times by their big brother to evoke sympathy but not actually affect their development and how they handle relationships, then STOP.
While these are definitely not the only over-used traits in character building, these are my 'big three'. I'm working on a second list, but this is what I have written up so far. I don't consider myself an authority on anything, but I think this is stuff people should keep in mind when building a character.
And yes, I am guilty of some of these traits with my older characters, but I'm working on fixing it.