Minor Character Blues

So I've got a character. She's on the other side to the heroes, she fulfills two very important plot details and, during the second one, dies due the side-affects of our hero's actions.

Two problems: Firstly, she's got next to no personality. She's got a striking visual appearance and a good name, and many of the other minor characters have fairly strong personalities (if not deep — they are just minor characters). The original plan was to make her a mute, or some kind of epic stoic, but that was dashed with the death scene. Any suggestions on character types you like? The only real information that I can share about her is that she's a merc.

The other problem is that I'm not sure how I want to pitch the death scene. Should it be a tragedy? Should it be the minor villain getting her comeuppance for the actions of her superiors? Should it just be something that happens, such is life, ect? All my characters react in differnt ways, and I'm not sure how I feel about her, given her lack of personality traits.

Is there any details you could give us?

At the very least, the tone and genre of the work would be a big help.

Edit: Hey Cygan Angel! Fancy seeing you here!

There's a strong sense of post-apocalyptica, fairly grim, somewhat dark, and knowing me there'll be a strong dichotomy between tragedy and cynical humour. But I try to conciously down play the tragic elements when I write, otherwise I get self-indulgent.

Genre is sci-fi (lite) and I can't really say more, though I wish I could. It's a collaborative work and a little hush-hush. I think.

edited 1st Jan '11 3:44:13 AM by Nicknacks

You're surprised to see me here? This is like, THE place to go if you want to find me.

Tragedy and cynical humour, eh?

My suggestion: Play it up as a that's-just-life thing. Lammpshade that, point it out; make it tragically humorous, with emphasis on the tragedy, if possible.

I SHALL MAKE HER BOWELS DROP OUT OF HER STOMACH IN FRONT OF ALL HER FRIENDS BECAUSE IN LITERATURE I AM GOD AND CHARACTERS ARE MY PUNY PLAYTHINGS! BOWELS!

... or I could not. Whichever.

I've thought about that, but that's more my writing preferences. Black humour though, is an entire different beast. Perhaps just letting characters express their varying opinions and leaving it to the receiver to decide if they care will work.

edited 1st Jan '11 3:53:54 AM by Nicknacks

Perhaps.

There is not really very much more advice I can offer you without knowing more about your writing style and/or the setting.

I have given you the best advice I am able to right now. I hope you found it helpful.

Hmm . . . If you don't know how to give her a personality of her own, you might try giving her an interesting interaction with one or more of the more important characters. (I'm thinking of a webcomic in which a character who was created solely to be killed off was defined by her obliviousness to the pranks another character tried to play on her.)

That's an idea feotakahari, I'll try that. Could be nice and organic.

Though if that doesn't work I could always merge the character with another, since I've been notified that I've got too many characters floating around at the moment. Damn, some of them had great names/personalities.

Any details you could give us about this lady - her appearance, her actions, whatever - would be welcome. The more you know about someone and their place in the grand scheme of things, the easier it is to build them a personality.

One good tip is to consider how your character goes about her actions, why she does them, and so on. Consider what sort of character archetypes - the Psycho for Hire, the Reasonable Authority Figure, the Obstructive Bureaucrat - would be likely to do what she does, and then ask yourself how you're going to turn them into a person with believable goals and motivations.