Character Sharing And Advice Thread

A traumatic backstory is one fairly easy way to explain why a character behaves differently than everyone else. Why they, and not everyone else, was willing to step out of line and become the hero or the villain. Pivotal characters in many types of stories must behave differently than the mass of humanity, and you generally have to come up with some reason for it. Something deeply embedded in their psyche that gave them extra determination or extra weakness, or whatever it is that sets them apart.

Some stories, that's not what you want. You want an Everyman / Everywoman, someone who really is as ordinary as you can get. Depends what you're telling.

For the most part, however, it's a case of Write What You Know. If you don't know jack about how to work out a traumatic backstory, then at the very least try to make your backstory realistic.

Shion Kusanagi — le 17 ans. The world is hers for the pickings. Amongst the Nipponese students looking down the sidewalk, you would find these grizzly, determined brown eyes looking up at the sky, looking back at you with this sheer rawness. If you offer her an inch, she'll take the whole damn ruler and slap you on the head with it for good measure. At this stage in her life, the larger-than-life misfit seeks nothing less than to make something good of herself and fly out from the cage of high school.

She is loud, rough-around-the-edges — inclined to do the mischievous (It's not her fault, mm'kay?), but she got a big heart inside and her unparalleled zest for life has her making the most of things, when the opportunity arises. Shion is known for doing things at her own pace, and dislikes being pressured into decisions and taking action. This independence comes from her upbringing, where her lone mother struggles raising Shion and her brother Satou in less-than-ideal conditions.

Shion likes to learn new things. But not in this painful, meticulous environment shared with 1,500+ other students, called school. In class, half of the time she'll tune in to what the teacher's saying ("Blah blah blah l'Hopital's rule blah blah") and the other half she'll contemplate myriads of more interesting topics. Or doodle in her workbook. Hey, you ought to see that sketching on p. 73. She can be brilliant in her schoolwork at times, but most times she wouldn't bother putting time for studying/fuku-juku. That's boring.

Otherwise when not in class, Shion loves going on (mis)adventures with her best friend Lo Wang. They'll go off chatting, or in street races, or all around making mischief when nobody's looking.

Shion isn't much liked by the 'normal' kids; they shun her for her non-conformist attitude — not helping is the reputation she has for being all-around mean, nor the constant rumours and gossip from ear to ear. She doesn't like them too. They get to her sometimes though, leaving her to wonder sometimes whether she has been born wrong, like an ugly duckling or something. Ja, well, c'est la vie.

What you lookin at mengs? You all a bunch of fucken assholes. You know why? You don't have the guts to be what you wanna be. You NEED people like me. You need people like me so you can point your fucken fingers and say, "That's the bad girl." So.. what that make you? Good? You no good. You just know how to hide.. how to lie. Me, I don't have that problem. ME, I always tell the truth. Even when I lie. So say good night to the bad girl! Come on. The last time you gonna see a girl like this again, lemme tell you. So c'mon. Make way for the bad girl. There's a bad girl coming through! Better get outta her way!

At home — there is meek, 14-year old Satou for her. He means everything for Shion, and she loves him more than anything else. If Mama is a providing, overworked mother, Shion would be the effervescent mother for Satou — providing the fun and love where it is all but been exhausted from Mama. Here is where Shion can safely show her tender side; whether Satou needs a hug, or someone to look up to, or talk with, Shion'll be there for him. In an ever-progressing insane world, it is the sanest choice.

If Life were a mellow elementary school run by well-meaning education Ph.Ds, her report card would say, "Shion is someone fun and lively to be with, but she needs to look after herself better and keep in tune with the rest of society."

edited 25th Feb '11 8:10:44 PM by QQQQQ

—head tilt— Wait, that's Shinji Ikari...

Good observation. Well done. (Placeholder pictures to imagine their appearances. I'm too lazy to put in outward description at the moment.)

edited 18th Nov '10 6:45:50 PM by QQQQQ

Whoa, lots of new posts while i was away.

So anyway here is another character

Name:Janice Perry

Age: 20

Birthplace Unspecified town in Mississippi, U.S

Appereance : Average height, a little pale. Small frame, small breasts and narrow waist. Straight light brown hair and long braiged pigtails. Often wears a long brown trenchcoat and black sunglasses,

Personality Lawful Neutral. Down to Earth, calm and a tad lazy. As an assassin, Janice's heart goes where the money is, nut she will refuse an offer that harms women and children.

She is quite bright, but slacks off often, resulting in her living space to be really messy. She can be kind of a hypocrite sometimes.

Even with her polite and friendly demeanor and calm personality, her patience wears off rather quickly and is prone to anger fits.

In her current time, snipin's is NOT a good job mate, as the opportunities are fleeting and most of the paycheck is wasted on gun maintenance. Janice finds herself stuck with her current situation, hoping one day to get a nice house in the big city and find herself a secure job but unable to even rach it. This frustrating thought has been making her grumpier and grumpier as the days go by.

Two of her relevant interests include comic books, and getting wasted at the bar.

Relations: Janice, on the contrary of most people with her job, is an open and friendly person and always looking forward for a good reltaionship with other people. But she is also quite frightening when angered.

The thugs that hang around the bar she frequents hold a great deal of respect to her thanks to her sssertiveness, courage againts adversity and one hell of a liver. That and she killed a couple of thugs once

She is rather uncomfortable speaking about sex and doesn't seem to find anybody attractive at the moment. She hates to be flirted on which makes her dislike Zenjiro and his constant attempts to hit on her. She seems to be developing a good friendship with Kojiro given their similar interests (like comics and technology) and not to mention she worked for his parents once.

When amongst a group, she is usually the peacekeeper. But given her short temper, she often just sparks team conflict further.

Abilities: She is an expert marksman, possesing amazing skill with both handguns and her sniper rifle and knowing good spots for sniping. She is very experienced at the moment of convincing people and fares well when treating with superiors contrasting with Zenjiro's more cocky attitude towards it. But in another interest of her, medicine, she isn't too bad either, knowing a thing or two about first aid and and a few illnesses.

Backstory: Janice was the youngest of 4 siblings born in a town in Mississipi, a state long forgotten after the Black Rabies outbreak of 2535 which desolated the southeast and left it in a deep economic and cultural regression.

Janice was the Unfavourite of his overly prejudicious and moonshine addicted father, being the only girl of 3 boys, and despised for it.

After being denied shooting lessons by her father, Janice decided to practice by herself at a nearby swamp, as she was interested in hunting her own food.

After his wife left with another man, Janice's father's dislike for his daughter grew even more, after presuming it was all Janice's fault. His drinking habit got worse as well as his abuse against Janice.

Unahppy with her lack of education, Janice used to sneak away every evening to nearby library, where she taught herself about maths and letters. After coming upon images of towers of steel and glass and ships that reached for the stars on her television, Janice decided to investigate more and soon learned about the enourmous world she was missing, and since that day, her dream of leaving Missisipi and arrive at that new world began. Unfortunately, his father soon found out about her escapades and kept her under strict control (at gunpoint to be exact)

After several more years of physical and psychological abuse by her family, she decided to run away from home. After her father threatened to kill her if she left, a violent fight between the two broke out, ending up with Janice killing her father with a bullet to the head. Realizing she couldn't hang around town any longer, Janice took a hunting rifle, took one of his brother's motorbike and drove far far away before the law got up to her.

After losing the cop's tracks and after having found out her skills at shooting, Janice set up buissness as an assassin for hire, in an attempt to leave her dark past behind and hopefully, one day, make enough money to move out from The South for once and for all.

Sadly, after a long line of bad paid jobs and several opportunities denied by her strong sense of morality, she started to give up hope on her dream and she might just have if it wasn't for an unlilely visit by Three silly looking agents from Karma corp who tumbled upon her drinking place and made her an offered her the chance to change her life.

Phew, took a while. So what do you think?

edited 19th Nov '10 7:41:03 AM by heartlessmushroom

So, what happened while I wasn't here?

I started an argument about Rape as Backstory.

Janice seems very Shonen-hero esque. (Not saying that's a bad thing.) Heart of Gold + Temper + Struggle For Cash = Ninties Shonen Hero. Kind of reminds me of characters like Vash the Stampede and the crews of Cowboy Bebop and Outlaw Star. (Of course, those characters were all based on Old West bountyhunters, so . . . yeah.)

I'm more interested in the character now than her backstory, though. Like we were mentioning before, tragic backstories are kinda dime-a-dozen, so we look to see where the character's going...not where they've been.

@QQQQQ: Love the character and loved the way you describe her.

Just a bit more information on Hermia. Well, she practically thinks herself as a princess, so that's why she wants power. She thinks she deserves it. The other characters at first didn't like her because she stole a super-powerful sword from them, and gave it to their enemy. And fought against them and tricked them. Although she was actually tricked to trick... Other characters have every right to dislike her, and I don't intend her to be a likable character. But her good qualities show up in the later of the story. She is decisive and a natural leader but can be too overly dominating sometimes. Some of her childhood experiences before her kidnapping forms an important part as well. Only I don't haven't decided on it yet.

But I am a bit worried if she's turning into a Mary Sue, because I don't like Mary Sue a bit. The later part of my plot in book 1 mainly revolves around her. Or maybe like she's the one who caused all the trouble. But what she did fires back—literally—- at her.

Any ideas?

If you're worried about your character being a Sue, then one possible solution is to take a major character/event in your story and completely remove the character from it. Have a Complete Monster that needs comeuppance, have another character handle it. Got a Tragic Hero that needs development? Allow someone else to take care of that. In general, if you treat other characters like protagonists in their own right, you needn't worry too much about Suedom.

1. Do any or all characters carry the Idiot Ball or alter their established characterization to facilitate this character/group?
2. Does the plot revolve around the person/group's actions, actions inspired by them, or actions on their behalf?
3. Do the circumstances of the plot exist only to showcase the character/group?
4. Does the person/group alter Real Life or in-universe logic (even if it seems justified or Makes Sense In Context)?
5. Is their morality made sympathetic or triumphant to the audience or other reasonable characters?

These are some things you may want to look at if you're worried about it.

I just make sure that I would not want to bang the character immediately.

it is a good rule

Depends on how high your own standards are.

I just make sure that I would not want to bang the character immediately.

If I took that as my guide, then I'd only be writing men. And possibly REALLY deeply disturbed women.

Wait...

Also, quick note: Life's been pretty tough for the past week or so. It's really been kicking my ass, and I haven't been as active here as I'd like.

Anyway, things are getting more stable around here now, so I should be more active again, starting now. Assuming nobody pushes me down a flight of stairs again, of course.

So... yeah. Starting right now, I'm determined to start posting here with my old regularity, and offering up my old levels of advice again. To get me back into stable habits, for one; and to help out you wonderful peoples.

Anyone who wants me to provide feedback on a character earlier in this thread, please nudge me, tell me, as I'd prefer not to have to dig through ten pages of posts and reply to everything that looks like a concept.

Also, if you could provide a link to it, that'd be great.

Rie

Okay, ch00beh.

You describe Rie as a cold-hearted bitch. That's great and all- in fact, that's more than great, that's fun- but is there anything to balance this out? Or is she a character we're not really meant to empathize with?

Hmmm... What's her relationship with Ender and Cobra like? Are they particularly close, or no? How does she react to her lifestlye- is she retreating further into her psychoticness? Or does she just not care, and is staying in the same mental state?

Hmmm... Is there a reason she doesn't want to sleep with anyone else? You mentioned in the profile that she's probably only slept with Ender... But is that the truth? Is she not attracted to anyone else?

More afte ryou've answered these.

Ender's the only guy she was close to, which is why she reacts so much when he dies (and when he seems to come back to life). They were reaaaaaally close. Brother/sister close. I don't actually know what drove them to be so together, though. Might have something to do with Ender's telepathic powers, which would put a really bad spin on things.

Whenever she goes emotional, she manages to pull woobie status. Somehow people do sympathize, even though I don't explicitly write her to do so. I mean, she is a main character, so yeah, she's supposed to be sympathetic. Hmm. I'm trying to think of what she's done so far that has made her sympathetic.

I think the description of "cold-hearted bitch" makes her seem to extreme. She's really just uncaring and emotionless. Which yeah, makes her cold, but not necessarily a bitch. She just doesn't care if she hurts your feelings when telling you the truth, but she won't go out of her way to make your life a pain, even if she thinks you're really dumb. In fact, she's pretty good about making choices to minimize the chances of her acquaintances getting mortally wounded.

Cobra hated Ender. He killed him once. Cobra is also one of my least favorite villains ever, so I've barely even touched him. He was made at the same time as Ender, simply so I could go LOLOLOL RIVALRY. So basically, they're not close. At all. Cobra actually enjoys killing people, whereas Rie doesn't mind it if it needs to be done, although her priorities are occasionally skewed. (She once killed a flight attendant on an airship so she could steal her room, and because it would make Ender facepalm)

Okay, I think I found a segment which causes her to be slightly endearing. In the following passage, she is slightly drunk and at a buffet.

Rie exited the line and made her way to an empty table when she noticed a little girl eating copious amounts of pudding. The way the girl ate was almost mechanical in her precision. No wasted movements, perfection in cleaning the plate. The ghost was reminded of something or someone familiar...

Pudding. Yes. That was it. Hypermetabolism loved pudding. Lots of calories in the form of carbohydrates that could be burned quickly and efficiently.

Rie turned around mid-step to look at the dessert table, almost losing her balance again. Oh. That power killer was pretty great.

When she regained her composure (it was pretty quick), she noticed that the dessert table was empty. Sober, she probably wouldn't have looked at it in the first place and would have just started on her lobsters. In her current state, it was only logical to get some dessert before everyone else made a stupid line.

Rie went for the table, picking up a second plate and started piling the deliciously sweet, calorie-packed cakes and puddings on it without having to wait for a slow elderly couple or a uncoordinated child. She was in and out within thirty seconds, now armed with a plate in each hand. Upon turning around, she stopped.

The table she was going to sit at was taken.

Forgot to mention that she's got a genetically tweaked hypermetabolism to compensate for her powers, so yeah Q Qetc, she does get hungry a lot. Also a "power killer" was a shot that I made up, with a myth behind it that it gave someone with super powers a heart attack. The little girl is not my character, but she happens to be a vat-grown mecha pilot genetically engineered for "perfection."

although her own best friend has described her as "a cold hearted bitch"

Your line, not mine.

Hmmm, so you haven't put much thought into Cobra? You haven't gone near him? Do you think there is anything you can do to change that? Like, write something from his point of view?

Uncaring and emotionlessness is good; I like those traits in a character. Would you describe her as cold and logical? How far is she ruled by her emotions? Do her emotios ever triumph over her logic?

Also, could you expound on Rie's relationship with Ender as much as possible? I'm thinking that that's a fairly integral part of her character...

Those words are a characters', so that means take it with a grain of salt, haha. And yeah, she is cold and logical. Emotion almost never rules over logic, but she can usually apply logic to back up her emotions when they happen. Usually she knows exactly why she's feeling something.

Cobra is going to be one of the big bads orchestrating the ruse that Ender has come back to life in the current topic. This is the Worst Kept Secret I have. It's because I have to keep Mandelbrot's identity super secret, so everything else I spill to lighten my burden

Let's see, Ender/Rie. They hung out a lot back in their experimental-child days, or well, as much as one can hang out when you're locked in a cell and put through experiments and combat training and such. Rie's mentioned that despite his snarky, prankster personality, he never lies to her because she can't lie to him if she ever wanted to (psychic powers wooo). Unlike every other time, she actually laughs and smiles when she's alone with him and does things to deliberately mess with him. It might be a feeling of safety since they've known each other for basically their entire lives.

They were separated for a while, though. Ender went rogue after one of the experiments killed Rie, or at least, i think that's the timeline. The forum that I wrote that bit of history has disappeared, so I can't scrounge it up, nor do I even want to look at my writing from back then. So anyway, he thought she was dead when he left. I'm guessing it was about a year before she went rogue herself and managed to find him, and there was some sort of touching reunion, I guess. The past sure is weird!

Random aside: Ender thinks it's funny when guys hit on her, so one time when she clung to his arm to avoid a suitor, Ender explicitly called her "sis." She turned around to the bar and ordered the strongest thing she could find.

But yeah, honestly, their relationship isn't really explored too much. I should probably do some flashbacks at some point to think about it.

So, do you suggest I keep the backstory out of the way unless it is invoked somehow? Because backstory is gonnna pop out somewhere aliong the way isn't it?

I've noticed something, these 3 characters are smart in their own way but certain quirks they have wouldn't make them good leaders, with the exception of Kojiro perhaps, but he can be quite bossy. The head of their current team, an alien named Zed, is more experienced, Large and in Charge, A Father to His Men and overal Genius Bruiser compared to the General Ripper of the rival team. Honestly I think Zed feels too sueish by the moment, i need a flaw that doesn't conflict with him being a good leader.

Also, I think I need 1 or 2 stupid or average characters to the mix to balance things out. The closest I currnetly have to an Idiot Hero is "The Hero of the opposing team (which I havent thought out yet) and Nadeeda, and she is more idiot than hero. Mr Kawaii is goofy but pretty average for a human being but stupid compared to a robot. What else would you suggest?

(Im also thinking of revamping Zenjio and Kojhiro' profiles)

@Halitzel

Your characters makes a good villain and yes, making her Complete Monster could help de-sueify her.

edited 19th Nov '10 8:08:18 AM by heartlessmushroom

The leader makes really bad jokes at inappropriate times that everyone hates with a passion.

Like terribad.

Like, get-angry-at-him-andpunch-him-in-the-face bad.

In other news:

It's three in the morning, and I'm going to bed. I'll get around to everyone tomorrow morning. Or today morning, rather.

I like how my default anti-sue methods nowadays are "bad jokes" and "decent looking at best"

Yeah, that would work Ch00beh, given his incredibly alien sense of humor and all.

A trick I like to use to de-suefy character is give them a specific vice and have them stick througout the story. For example, Zenjiro's vice is Lust, Kojiro's is Pride and Janice has Sloth and a drinking problem.

Phobias also help, but, should evryone have a phobia?

edited 19th Nov '10 8:34:38 AM by heartlessmushroom