Young Writers Society

BEFORE YOU START READING- I literally just signed up, so I don't know if I'm doing any of this right, but I would like some help.

I'm completely stuck on what type of person my character should be, SO, everyone post some possible characteristics or maybe help me build my back story? Something along the lines of that!

Here's a little back story- Silas Craig is a 19 year old senior in high school. He was held back in 2nd grade. He keeps to himself most of the time and usually takes out all of his feelings by drawing.

Unfortunately, only you can decide what type of person your character should be. We can help with realism for your character, but when it comes to who they are and why they are like that, we can't really help.

Start writing him and see where you go from there. Figure out how he'd react to various situations, and what sort of situations he encounters in every day life.

Some questions to help you:

1- How does he relate to people?
2- What's his sense of humour?
3- What's his family life like?
4- Any friends? How close are they?
5- Any major life events that altered his personality? When did they happen?
6- You mentioned he draws out his feelings. Are his drawings normally dark or light?
7- What's his self worth?
8- How does he react to stress?
9- How does he react to good news?

That's just a small sampling. Most of these questions can be asked by sticking him a setting of your choice and just writing to try and figure out who he is. It can take awhile to figure out a character's voice, and it often evolves as you write. Completed/really long drafts are your friends, as are copious amounts of character sketches to figure them out.

Write. Figure out who he is. Keep writing. Rewrite the story as you dial in on his voice. Repeat.

Eventually, he'll come out. You just have to keep writing till you find him.

^^ Rosey's pretty much got it covered.

Be careful to make contradictions in a characters values! They're what make the story turn!

Example: The most important thing to Darth Vader is power.

Conflicting value: The most important thing to Darth Vader is his son.

Make these two values rub the wrong way and your readers will love you for it.

People as a general rule don't actually hold conflicting values. Wanting a lack of internal conflict is biological. If beliefs look conflicting, then it's because the person looking doesn't have the justification system the person holding the values does.

Conflict, especially internal, produces a high amount of anxiety within a person, therefore we naturally try to avoid conflict because it makes us feel threatened. So in a person's natural state, they will avoid conflict. This means they will justify every belief they hold and rationalize it so their logic makes perfect sense to them (whether or not it makes sense to others is a whole other story).

They will also firmly believe they're right in what they do for similar avoid-anxiety reasons. Feeling wrong also makes people feel threatened. Therefore you can present overwhelming evidence that a person is wrong and they'll still fight you with counterarguments because they don't want to admit they're wrong. This is called certainty bias, and it's why getting people to change or even admit a mistake is so difficult. You have to go against all of their previously-held justifications in order to change their mind.

The example Black gave isn't a conflicting set of values. It's a choice the character has to make that will impact them a lot (Vader kills his son, keeps his power, but loses one of Padme's children, or betrays everything he's worked for since before her death to protect the last trace of what they had). This is a totally different situation when it comes to building a character. Just as important, but it is not conflicting values because, as I pointed out, conflicting values are hard pressed to exist long term. People will sway one side or the other, and usually pretty quickly.

Building a character is static. It is the character as they are in the present moment. You will have all of their biases and what they believe is right, wrong, and how they treat others. This is a very important baseline to have, because it determines where the character is at the start of the story (or at any given point in the story).

Characters making choices is dynamic. It's how they evolve into a different person throughout the plot, because they are shaping their future with the choice. This is where possible conflicts in values come up. For example, a character holding two values:

1- Extreme loyalty to a group of people
2- Strong desire to finish what they start

Neither of these are naturally conflicting. You can rather easily hold both at the same time without feeling like you're fighting two extremes. However, they can put you in several conflicting situations.

An example would be the character thinking their group is in trouble, but they are moments away from finishing what they start and would loose all progress if they went to check on their group.

What they chose depends on a few factors, such as if they think the group can take care of themselves for a little longer, the importance of finishing what they start (if they're moments away from preventing the world from being destroyed vs if it's just the first or second step and getting there was relatively easy), how guilty they'd feel if they lost the group they were loyal to, how guilty they'd feel if they had to restart, ect ect ect.

And there should be consequences to whichever choice they make. There might not be a right or wrong answer, but whichever side they chose can and should impact the rest of the plot. They will lose something no matter which option they take. Is it a no win situation? Yes. Are no win situations present in every day life? Absolutely.

It makes for a better story to have internal conflicts, yes. But they don't come from conflicting values. They come from the character making choices that impact the plot for a good while, if not the rest of the story. And maybe, just maybe, any problems that arise from their choice never get solved.

You can show characters evolving through their choices, too. You can start with one value more important than the other, and they slowly switch to the other value. Neither one could be particularly right, but it will reflect what the character has been through before the choices, and how previous choices they've made have effected their life.

For example, if the villain keeps getting away and the character feels responsible, they're far more likely to finish what they start and believe their friends will be fine. They might kick themselves when they realize their friends aren't fine, but that's a consequence they have to live with. If they keep being put at risk of losing their group, and their group is really that important to them, then they're more likely to pick making sure their friends are okay as the story progresses because they can't take that risk anymore.

Or it can go the other way. Start with loyalty but the stakes for stopping what you start keep getting higher, till they hit the point they either lose or finish, maybe losing there too but it could be less of a loss if they finish, or less of a loss if they go save their friends one more time.

It's all in the character themselves.