Finding a personality for a character with none

My usual approach is to write the character in context, and build a personality out of his actions. However, I've never done this with a core cast larger than four protagonists, and it's not working too well for the current story, since anytime he could do something, one of the other four protagonists could do it instead, so he's feeling rather generic.*

P.S Well, other than "scrap the character and shrink the cast." I need him for plot reasons.

My first approach for any character is deciding on their job, discerning how they handle or view the job, and how they act off the job. And then everything just kinda sprouts organically from there, with me asking why something is or why this character does something.

But then, I also tend not to view any particular character as 'protagonist' or 'secondary character', I just make sure they're developed enough to hold a plot.

I haven't really experienced this all that frequently, as I tend to write character personalities first before I develop the plot (Which can lead to problems of it's own, come to think of it), but if I had to guess I'd suggest starting with template personalities. Myers Briggs test, the four humours, Dn D Alignment, whatever. From there, character quirks can be more or less picked by your level of interest in them or even at random, within reason of course. A good tip is to come up with a list of personality-defining features that might not come into play in the actual work—what their political party is (If it isn't a contemporary piece of work, include what it would be if the story was), what their favorite food is (It's best not to include this in the actual story unless it's a running gag, and even then I wouldn't encourage it), their views on foreigners or minorities, the things that make them act irrationally, et cetera.

After all that, the best tip I can give you is to write with them. Not neccesarily in scenes that would be included in the plot—just random slices of their lives. It helps, trust me.

edited 14th Apr '12 12:14:05 PM by FakeCrowley

Some characters become what they are because they are responding to the nature of the story's background and how it interacts with their own. Samuel al-Faddil enlisted in the military at 12 and went to active duty at 13; at 27 his fifteen years of active duty must be accounted for before anything else when deciding how he'll react. Sanderson became who he is because he was in a police department doing an important job badly, because he didn't have the funds or the approval to do it correctly. His growing cynicism and eventual burnout were a reaction to what was going on around them.

Others have their purpose decided because they're more device than character. The nameless People's Liberation Army colonel in In The Service who can't manage to believe the TSAB's military having gender demographics which match those of the population at large was a sexist asshole because I needed a sexist asshole to illustrate a point; no organization comparable to that the main characters are a part of exists on Earth. Rudolf Galland had a dead brother, killed by a member of his current unit, in his backstory because I needed to point out that the capture and rehabilitate ethics of the TSAB carry their own set of problems. The guy who broke his fist by hitting a Combat Cyborg in the face just for being a Combat Cyborg exists to illustrate the resistance to transhumanism in the Bureau, and he was elaborated on later to point out that he's fighting a war he's already lost when there's purely artificial life running around.

A lot of the time though, I just write something down and it comes out. I can't explain it, it's not actually a process. Kate Sentri's being laudably eager to close with the enemy, even when she ought to know better. Sanderson's use of black humor as a defense mechanism for both himself and people around him as things get increasingly bleak. These things simply surfaced.

Ask yourself what personal reason could compel this character to do what you want him or her to do. Start developing a personality from the answer.

I actually had the same problem with a tritagonist in a main cast of ten characters.

I simply made said character a wierdo who tends to just say things that are completely inappropriate for any given conversation, but knows when to shut up. Mainly because nobody in the cast was like that yet, and that sort of personality is a reflection of my younger self.

Give them whatever personality is funniest.

...

Okay, seriously. Here's a quick list of questions that I'd try to answer:

• How heroic is the character? I've never actually charted it out, but if I did I'd probably be able to gauge a character based on a scale of heroism vs. anti-heroism, or paragon-hood vs. renegade-ism. Or...something like that.
• How nice is the character? Will they comfort a friend who's crying, or laugh because they're expressing their feelings?
• How brave is the character? That goes beyond just having enough courage to face off with a Big Bad; do they have the courage to come face-to-face with life's little problems, or unforeseen complications?
• How smart is the character? (Consider Good Is Dumb, for example.)
• What does the character look like? I know it seems antithetical, but hear me out. A character with a distinct look can have lots of different reactions to it; someone who looks like a scarecrow with glasses may react to their looks with indifference ("I won't be bound by social mores and image issues") or even pride ("Gaze upon my rail-thin arms and despair!").
• Barring all those, how do they react to danger/adversity/conflicts? As a wise man once said, "In their last moments, people show you who they really are."
• What personality works best for gags?

Hope that helps you out.

Maybe he has an emotional reason for being the "voice of cold pragmatism." Find out that reason and you have his character.

edited 14th Apr '12 7:11:41 PM by JHM

I propose you simply modify your usual approach. Write another story in the same setting, with the character you want to flesh out as the main character, and from there build him/her. Basically, write that character's backstory.

An unique and interesting backstory does wonder to a boring character. The way I usually do with developing my characters(protagonists or not) is to flesh out their backstories simultaneously. How a person is brought up and what he/she has to endure in life play a crucial part in shaping his/her worldview, personality and quirks. An unique backstory also keeps characters with similar personalities from each other. Even if two people happen to share the same trait, they would not behave the same way given a particular situation.

Another thing to look into is that never, ever make a character whose personality can be described with just one or two words (funny, nice, rebellious, etc.). Such a character tend to be vapid stereotype and/or caricature. A real person has more nuanced layers to his/her personality than meet the eye.

De-bland-ifing a character can be tricky, especially if you have all the plot and other characters figured out, and you want to make one character more intriguing without shaking up the established cohesiveness of the group or altering the plot or setting too much. But I find that characters are more interesting if they clash with something else. So I would often look at the existing cast, and figure out what personality the new character could have that could clash with the personality of an existing character, not necessarily to create conflict, but to insert a different point of view.

I'd just like to say that I think I've figured out what I'll do.*