Creating believable characters

Hello again, WW.
After seeing this next to your last post, I thought I might as well check it out

Hey!

Here is a review, as you requested!

First paragraph: "A character is "well designed" when it feels like the character is real. Any character has to be thought-through thoroughly before it can be considered "well designed", even if it's just a side character."

I think your opening paragraph cold be stronger, but it is, in essence, correct. WELL-DESIGNED. Not well designed. You need a hyphen to connect those.

Second paragraph: "The proses of creating a well designed character is very different for everyone. Myself I run simulations of different scenes and scenarios in my head to test if there are any gray areas about this particular character, and keep doing that till I can't think of anything else to test the character on."

I think you mean PROCESS. Not proses. Remember to use spellcheck. WELL-DESIGNED. No well designed. You need a hyphen, again. And it should be WHAT I DO, MYSELF, IS RUN THROUGH DIFFERENT ....etc. Overall, this is a nice paragraph, but it really is saying an awful lot of nothing.

Third paragraph: "I have heard many say (and I agree with them) that a good, well developed character is, in a sense, alive. And for that to be true the character must have a solid base to make decisions upon. This "base" is created by the characters personality and history. Most poorly developed characters could become very alive, if only their creators had payed more attention to their "base"."

THE MOST POORLY...etc. I like this paragraph. I like it a lot. And you are definitely correct.

Fourth paragraph: "There are a lot of people who think that all you have to do is say "My character is funny, but often a little shy" then poof, you have a personality. Unfortunately it's not that simple. Most of a characters personality is based off of it's history, but there are some traits that will not go away no matter what life throes at them. People tend to come up with those strong underlying traits; but it needs the small traits that come from experience, otherwise your character will always either be 1) doing stupid stuff without thinking, 2) to timid to ever try anything new, or 3) always seem dead."

THROWS...not THROES. I like this paragraph, too. It is also very true.

Fifth paragraph: "There are plenty of people who don't pother with their characters past till it is needed. But as I already mentioned, that will create a weak character. All of our decisions are based off of our experience(and sometime lack of experience) and desires, so without these, your character will never seam real."

BOTHER...not pother. UNTIL...not till. Instead of "But as I already mentioned," try AS MENTIONED PREVIOUSLY....etc. SOMETIMES. Not sometime. This paragraph is great, but I feel like you are repeating yourself a bit.

Sixth paragraph: "So in the end, all you need is 1) overall personality traits, 2) history, 3) desires, and once all of those are in place, simply smush 'em together and make sure everything works right. Then ta-da! You have a real, believable character!"

I liked your conclusion. Very cute.

OVERALL: I liked this piece. I liked what you wrote. I think you should invest some time using SpellCheck. Reading your work out loud can also help you catch your mistakes.

Now, may I give you some personal advice about characters? In order for characters to be any good, we have to think that they are interesting, believable, and we have to care about what happens to them. If you have all three, then you got a great character. How can you accomplish this? Well, you can make this happen by presenting a character through appearance, action, dialogue, and thought. Those are 4 ways to do it. And there are so many aspects of those for categories that I could just go on and on about, but I won't If you are interested, though, PM me and I will be happy to share my knowledge with you. Also, I would like to add that your characters must be credible. They must have purpose. And if your characters are credible by way of being appropriate and individually unique, and if they cause the reader to want to identify with or cast judgement on the character through a sense of the character's purpose, then that means that ultimately, your character has gotta be complex. That makes sense, right? That means that conflict is at the heart of the plots. A character needs something to drive them. And your character has to somehow change or develop somehow between the beginning and the ending. Let me now if you have any questions.

I enjoyed reviewing your work.
PM me with any thoughts, comments, questions, or concerns!

Good luck!

Hey there! Polinka here;)
You look like my saviour. I was literally just looking around to find how to make characters more 'rounded' and real.
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Little grammar mistakes:
- I'm taking a class on another site about creating believable characters, and the first assignmtent assignment was to write out a discription description of what and how to make a believable character. So I thought I maight might as well post it here aswell. as well.
- The proses process
- payed paid
- throes throws
- to timid too timid
- pother bother
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I really like your idea of simulation! Sounds like a great tool, I might use it sometime. Also, when you talk about what makes a character - I really like what you've said in there too, but I also think that relationships with other characters is what makes them unique. Isn't it what makes us who we are, in a way? I find it really easy to see what a character is like by the way he/she talks or acts towards other people. History and personality are very important, of course. But also, relationships?
I also find it useful to fill out one of those 'personality sheets', where I fill out name, age, height, weight, desires, siblings, hobbies, favourite colour etc. about my characters - that makes them seem more real to me too.
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Overall, thanks so much for the tips, this is a coherent and easy-to-read piece. Just touch up on those grammar mistakes, and it'll all be good!
Keep up the great work!
~polinka

cool!