Lesson 1: The Simple Characteristics

Lesson 1: The Simple Characteristics

A Lesson by TopHatGirl
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The basics of character creating.

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      So, you're starting a piece of writing. Hooray! Well, as any person knows, a good piece of writing mostly needs a good character. Well, most mistakes people make is giving your character a name first. You shouldn't really do that, because then you start to build a different personality around that name. You wouldn't really name a character Bob then make him a handsome prince, would you? So, forget about the name for a second. First, the basics. Think about these things when creating a character:
  
                   Female of Male? (Important-especially if your writing in third person. You would want to know whether or not to but he, or she.)
 
                    Age? (Less important, but still up there. We would want to know if the guy was 93 and could jog a mile in thirty seconds.)

                    Species? (Is this person human, faerie, dragon, other?)

                     Unusual quirk? (What makes this certain character unique? Can they walk through walls? Been asleep for fifty years? Wear hiking boots with every outfit, even formal wear? Maybe not a basic, but important.)
 
                 Once you know these things, you know more about your character. You can form a relationship with them. But you still aren't down to the nitty-gritty of he/she. Get more in depth with your character in the next lesson.


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Comments

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Posted 10 Years Ago


I love this! It actually reminds me of something my favorite English professor said to our class...she had told us to forget about creating the title for our essays/papers, to save that for the very LAST step in our writing. She explained that if we made the title our "step 1" there was a good chance we'd be setting ourselves up for a more challenging writing process...that we'd end up trying to shape our writing to fit the title, instead of the other way around. Our title would be given more importance than the work it was meant to introduce.

It would be like sitting down at the dinner table to eat but you haven't even started cooking anything yet...

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Posted 11 Years Ago


Good!

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Posted 12 Years Ago


EXCELLENT! This is good :)

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Posted 12 Years Ago


Great tip! I have a tendency just to invent a character without sketching out the background. I'm not sure mine are well developed because of that.

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Posted 13 Years Ago


love this!!!!

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Posted 13 Years Ago


Thanks for the help. I was going and reading old fictions of mine and noticing that my characters didn't have much of a backbone or base. They were kind of stale because I didn't release very much information about them other than their names and gender. Thanks a lot.

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Posted 13 Years Ago


A basic set up but it works! :D I liked the not naming the character first, but i'm horrible about that ^^;. But the quirks are a good thing because it makes the characters more relate-able (at least from what i have found). You don't want a superhero character that is just plain perfect because it would just get boring! :D Great post it helps with the muses that chatter to much.

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Posted 13 Years Ago


I like that you put the "unusual quirk" bit. I think that it's those little things that your characters do that may not always jump off the page that make the character real to the reader. Over time those small details add up and create a person that you can relate to and learn to either love or hate.

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Posted 14 Years Ago


Everyone creates characters differently, but I think this is a pretty basic template that anyone can go by. Also, I like what you said about not naming them first.

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Posted 14 Years Ago


Very helpful :)

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Characters-The Vital Organs In Any Writing


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Added on December 22, 2009
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TopHatGirl
TopHatGirl

[Redacted], NV



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Hi, I'm TopHatGirl! If you're here about my character lessons or to get some advice, email me instead of messaging at [email protected]. This is because I don't go on this site as much anym..
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