RP-Guide - Character Creation and Development

Character Creation and Development
By CountessFayt

((Whether you're writing your own story or RPing, there's a lot that goes into making an interesting and realistic character. I know that some RPers prefer to come up with characters literally on the spot before they start playing. Others prefer to have one prepared and ready beforehand. I'm one of the latter. Some people can pull off just whipping a character up out of nowhere; if you're able to do that well, you have my respect. But for the rest of us, I have some helpful tips! Not very much of this is WG exclusive, but hey, it helps for any kind of RP.

Once again, most of these are based on my experience and personal opinion. You might have different ideas about things that do and don't work. Take it with as many grains of salt as you wish. The most important thing about RP is that both you and your partners are having fun.))

1. What do they look like?

This might sound like a silly question. They're your characters, after all! They look however you design them! Their personality is the hard part! Well, that's true. But how a character looks on the outside reveals something about what's on the inside. How they present themselves outwardly tells the reader something about them, so you need to decide what you want to say.

Looks vs. Personality:

Things to take into consideration are their social status (Are they upper-class? Lower-class?), personality, (Are they bold? Modest?) and attitudes (Are they rebellious? Trendy? Conforming?). All of these factors are going to play into how your character presents themselves. Why would a character that is described as 'shy' sport a bright blue mohawk? If your character doesn't have a lot of money, why does he deck himself out in designer brands? These are both examples of how a character's appearance and personality are interdependent. The more incongruities there are between their appearance and their personality/circumstances, the more you, as the writer, are forced to reconcile within the context of the story. If you're prepared to do that, then by all means!

The more incongruous elements there are, the more you are forced to explain about them. It comes across as puzzling to read about a character whose appearance clashes with their personality and/or environment and have the writer just glaze over it like it's nothing. The first thing I think when I see this is that the writer is just self-indulgent and cares more about mashing together a bunch of traits they think are sexy or stylish than creating an interesting character. This doesn't just go for conscious things like hairstyles and fashion choices. If your character has lots of scars, or an atypical eye-colour, for instance, those are also things that you ought to provide an explanation for. The more exceptional tidbits you add, the more that obligation grows.

I'm not saying that it's better to make your character's design bland or unoriginal. Just to think before you add that extra green streak to his hair, naturally violet eyes, and tattoo on his forehead, and make sure you're putting them there for reasons, and not just because it looks cool. If you're RPing, you never know when your partner's character might ask about these features, so it's important to keep an explanation in mind.

Physical Descriptions:

Here's a staple of crappy fanfiction that I think we're all familiar with: physical descriptions that go on forever.

"At that moment, 'X' walked into the room. He had curly red hair that fell to his shoulders in loose waves, and bright green eyes that gleamed with mischief. He looked to be around thirty-some years. He was around 6'0, with a muscular build that you could see under his thin blue tunic, a pair of loose black pants, polished leather boots that came to the knee on his long legs."

Sure, I guess it tells you what he looks like, but it drags on so long that it snaps you right out of whatever was going on before he walked in. A description like this might work in a character profile, but not in the actual story/RP. Something you should get good at is introducing a character briefly by encapsulating their most important visible traits into a short one or two sentence description that you can neatly fit right into the flow of things. You can fill in the details later as they become relevant. You want quality over quantity.

What are the most readily noticeable things about your character? First, try to forget everything that you, as their creator, know about them. Try to think about them from the perspective of a stranger. You might know that they have a small scar on their chin. But is that seriously something that another person would spot at first glance to the exclusion of more obvious qualities? Probably not. Put yourself in an outsider's perspective and figure out the traits that somebody's going to notice right off the bat.

Second of all, forget eyes. Think about the proximity required to actually appreciate someone's eyes.  Despite how much attention eyes get in fiction (especially romantic fiction), can you spontaneously remember the eye-colour of somebody you know, but aren't particularly close with? Like a teacher or a co-worker?  You probably can say all sorts of things about their other features, but eye-colour is something people don't pay much attention to in real life unless they're up close and personal. Likewise for your characters. In romantic fiction, eye-colour tends to be routinely overemphasized as a physical feature. At least hold off on the flowery descriptions until two characters are close enough to each other to notice.

Another thing to think twice about are overly detailed descriptions of their body, presuming they're wearing clothes when you introduce them. Obviously, if your character has a physical build that's considered 'out of the ordinary', it can be mentioned. For example, if they're considerably overweight, uncommonly thin, or a muscle-bound beefcake. These are all things that are apparent upon first glance. But if you get into too much detail about their wiry build, tapered waist, and slender hips, it begins feeling like somebody's got X-ray vision or something. Besides, wouldn't it be more fun to describe all the details of their body once clothes start coming off...?

You might protest: "But a short description won't say everything!"  Well, no. Of course it won't. That's not the point. It gets across all the reader needs to know upon first impression. Once your character has been introduced and you carry on with the story, you can gradually fill in more detail as it becomes relevant. A skill to practice is to work physical descriptions into the narrative. Instead of taking a break from the action to describe a character, work the description into the action itself. Show how long and luxurious your character's hair is when she's outside on a windy day and constantly batting it out of her face. Show how playful and mischievous his eyes are when they're being lovingly gazed into. Show how voluptuous and curvy his hips are when they're grinding over someone's lap. Notice how I'm saying 'show'. This goes back into 'Showing Vs. Telling'. In nearly all cases, it's better to do the former. It doesn't interrupt the narrative and it imparts the reader richer mental imagery. Instead of reading off a list of traits that pertain to your character, it sounds like you're painting a mental picture of what's going on in the scene your character is participating in.

Little Details:

When reading a description, normally a few traits are given priority. Usually, it's hair, eyes, build, and clothes. Age is included sometimes, but typically it's mentioned in an epithet ("The young woman..." , etc.). But are these always the most important things? Not always. There are other ways to describe a character that provide a better picture of them then a straight up eyes/hair/clothes ever could.

If you introduce your character by his blonde hair and green eyes, what have you conveyed? Um. That he's blonde and has green eyes. That's it. A character becomes more individual the more specific your description is. And by specific, I do not mean 'more'. Quality over quantity, remember? The more specific the traits are, the more distinctive the character becomes. Instead of talking about just their hair colour, mention the texture, or the style, or ornaments. Instead of describing just the articles of clothing, talk about specific fabrics or styles of dress. Instead of describing your character's face as merely 'attractive' or 'ugly', talk about their particular features. Do they have an upturned nose? Full lips? Long eyelashes? Freckles? These are ways to provide a more vivid and personalized picture of the character, as well as to distinguish them from others. If you focus too much on general traits like hair/eye colour, how are you going to distinguish them if you introduce another character with a similar colouration? Specificity is key.

Try including some 'dynamic traits', too. Dynamic traits aren't about what the character looks like, per se; they are about things the character is currently doing. Try mentioning their expressions or their body language. Often these dynamic traits can convey more than static ones. If your character is introduced by his broad, infectious grin, it can communicate so many things about him! That he's approachable? Maybe that he's friendly, or has a good sense of humour? If he's introduced by his stiff posture, that can imply that he's attentive, concerned, nervous, perhaps feels out of place? Or maybe he sustained a back injury? By doing this, you're simultaneously giving a vivid image of what they look like and providing clues about who they are.

You can convey so much more about who a character is and what they are like by describing things like this rather than the usual staples. It also serves to personalize your character and make them more unique!

2. What's their personality like?

Writers craft their characters in different ways. Some get an image of the character's appearance in their mind and subsequently create a personality and background. Others create a personality they'd like to write first, and then they fill in other aspects. Some even think up a history and some background circumstances before they even begin creating a character to fit them. I've done all three, and all of them work pretty well as long as there's a certain coherence between the character's appearance, personality, and background. I've covered the first of these, Now we're moving onto the second.

No Blank Slates:

I mentioned in the beginning that some RPers like to create characters out of the blue for the purpose of a new RP. If you're good at this, then great! More power to you. But I've noticed that very few players can pull this off. From my experience, when you create your character's appearance and nothing else and then proceed to pop them right into the RP, they're just a blank slate.

Here's the thing about blank slates. They don't exist. Everyone has past experiences that have shaped them in some way; if you create a character that has none, they feel like an awkward placeholder until their experiences in the story turns them into an actual character.

Every character is a product of their environment/upbringing in some way or another. Whether they embrace it or reject it, their past affects who they are. Let's say your character had a rough childhood that included domestic abuse. They're going to be affected by that in some way. Does this limit what your character's personality might be like? Not at all. There are as many ways of dealing with a troubled childhood as there are people and nobody is quite the same.  Some people never get past it and express those violent tendencies they witnessed onto others. Some realize how messed up it was and have resolved never to become like that, themselves. Some try to forget about it all together and resist ever talking or thinking about it. You can present your character a product of their environment without limiting your possibilities. The problem arises when it seems like a character's background and their current personality are totally separate entities that barely come into contact. It doesn't matter what the connections are, only that you draw some.

You don't need heavy-handed exposition or flashbacks to accomplish this, either. You can draw these connections just through your character's behaviour, dialogue, or interactions with others. Have your character make observations in the narrative that allude to aspects of their background: memories, offhand remarks, or a sense of familiarity/unfamiliarity with events they encounter.

Character Traits:

Have you ever seen a character profile that reads somewhat like this?

"Sam is generally outgoing and happy, but he gets sad from time to time. He has lots of friends and gets along with people, but he can also be awkward and shy. He's pretty relaxed and prefers to take things as they come, but he's also really nervous about some things."

The only thing this profile tells me is that Sam has different feelings in different situations. Congratulations, that makes him human... but not much else. This is a poor way to describe your character and a poor outline to use to guide his behaviour. Why? It's too generic! It reads like a horoscope, in that it could conceivably describe anyone ever. But you don't want to describe just anyone. You want to describe Sam.

To fix this, the first thing to notice is that a few of the listed traits appear to contradict one another. With contradicting traits all over the place (happy/sad, relaxed/nervous, friendly/awkward), there's no way to predict how Sam will act in a given situation. It gives the player a ridicuous amount of leeway to do whatever they want with him according to the plot demands. This might sound liberating, but it comes at the expense of creating a character with a strong and memorable personality.

Now it's okay for your character to have conflicting traits! Just because you characterize them as a happy-go-lucky person doesn't mean that there won't be situations that negatively affect their mood. The trick is to remember just what situations will prompt that kind of response and stick to it. If you're going to have conflicting traits, you need to qualify them. For example, just because your character is outgoing and social when they're with their friends doesn't mean they can't be nervous and awkward at a job interview where they're interacting with strangers. Since the context is so different, the traits aren't conflicting anymore. In fact, they're perfectly compatible. There's nothing wrong with claiming that your character is social with their friends, but shy around strangers. That makes sense, and it's something that readers can relate to. The problem is when a character's personality changes drastically between clearly similar situations. Which, of course, leads me to the next point...

OCs can be OOC:
   
It's true, believe it or not. Just because they're your original character doesn't mean they can't act out-of-character (OOC). Some RPers have this strange idea that just because they're playing their own OC and not a pre-established character with a canonical personality, they can't possibly act OOC. This is usually just a poor excuse to never give their character a consistent personality and to allow them to act however the player wants them to at the moment.

Just because your character isn't bound by an already established personality doesn't mean they aren't equally bound to the parameters you set up for them -- and it's important to set these parameters. Your shy, modest church-boy isn't suddenly going to take up a job as a stripper without some serious character development in between. (Though this could work as a really wacky plot-hook, given the right circumstances.) Just because the story throws that opportunity at your character doesn't mean he needs to choose it.

Why is it poor writing to have characters act OOC?  Because it throws your readers and RP partners for a loop. In RP, it negates everything your partner thought they knew about your character, which changes how their character interacts with yours. Dynamics are built up between characters over time, and that's what makes their relationship interesting. Whether it's between compatible or clashing personalities, equal or unbalanced power relations, what makes a relationship compelling is allowing your characters to form a unique style of interaction based on who they are. If 'who they are' fluctuates according to your whims, they just become another blank slate placeholder.

Likewise, with fiction, it's hard to get invested in your character when your readers can't get a handle on their personality. If they act differently in every situation, how is the reader supposed to form an opinion about them? How can your readers decide whether they like or dislike your character when you constantly alter their personality to suit your needs? If you do this, the reader will lose interest. What's the point of getting invested in a character if you know the author is going to change them into a different person in the next chapter?

However...

Character Development:

...Just because you don't want your character to act OOC doesn't mean your character can't change. As a matter of fact, they should change over time! Remember, though, the keyword here is 'time'. When your character is the same person at the beginning of a story as they are at the end? Something has gone wrong.

Through their experiences and interactions with other characters, they are going to gradually change. They should learn new things throughout the narrative: about themselves, other people, and the world around them. Over time, they could resolve inner conflicts and overcome issues from their past, etc. Of course, this is all positive character development. If your story has a less optimistic tone, your character might evolve in other ways. If you're writing a story of a darker flavour, their development might go in the opposite direction. They might become more corrupted as time goes on, get pulled into a downward spiral, gain new problems instead of solving old ones, etc. It doesn't matter what direction you take it, just as long as something happens.

The important thing about character development is to pace it out. Don't force it to happen all at once. Something many writers do when they have no idea how to make their character into the kind of person they need them to be by the end is to just give them one big 'Aha!' moment of epiphany where they instantly learn whatever it is they need to overcome all of their inner obstacles in one convenient swoop. Usually it's spurred by a significant event, and all of a sudden they're a totally different character. This can work sometimes, but damn, that event better be pretty life-changing. I find it preferable to have characters muddling through their conflicts over time, examining their situation, and gradually transforming into whatever it is the author/player intends for them to become.

The best type of character development I've seen is when you can just barely notice it happening, and yet after it does... it somehow feels perfectly natural, as if it were there all along.

Now, that's a pretty high bar to set. It's a delicate balance to pull off, but it's a goal to strive for.

What are some things to keep in mind when it comes to character development? One of the most important things is the character's age. There are times in a person's life when they're more open to change and new experiences. This is why 'coming-of-age' stories are so popular. They take place during adolescence, which is regarded as a confusing transitional period for most people, where they're just beginning to find their place in the world. Vast amounts of character development can be enacted within a relatively short timespan when you're working with characters of this age, no matter what your setting is or what your story is about.

With adult characters, development can be more challenging. In order to portray a convincing older character, something to take into consideration is the comparatively huge amount of life experience they've had, and how long it's taken them to become the person they are. Though this isn't necessarily the case, character development is usually more gradual, as the character has had plenty of time to learn and grow already, and may have become set in their ways. After all, it's what has worked for them all their lives, right? Why change? A teenager may not need much motivation to dive into some new adventure or relationship, leaving behind everything else in their lives. An older character will need a damn good reason, because they've had more time to build tethers that tie them to their current life circumstances; they'll have a livelihood, they'll have relationships, they'll have obligations to other people. This is why if you want to achieve character development with older characters, you should make sure they get plunged into unfamiliar situations. That way they can't fall back on their previous life experiences to solve their problems.

Characters Vs. Plot:

    Another reason to put thought into your character's personality before you start a story/RP is to gauge how well they will be able to carry the story you want to write. I mentioned before that characters should drive the plot, not vice-versa. So if you already have a premise in mind that you want to write, you figure out what kind of character would be best suited to fulfilling the plot's demands.

Obviously, issues might crop up later on when you're plotting and you're not sure how to allow certain events to occur without forcing your character to act OOC. But by then, at least, you might have built up enough development in that direction to allow it to happen. But if we're just talking the initial premise, you can't have a plot vs. character conflict. If you're doing a WG RP where the premise is for your gaining character to, say, meet a guy off a gaining website and fly to another country and live with him, you're going to need a character who would actually make that decision. If you've created a character who's got a strong attachment to his home, plenty of responsibilities, family, dependents, etc, how are you going to justify him accomplishing this? You've now backed yourself into an uncomfortable position where either he acts OOC and does it anyway, or you have to alter the whole premise to fit his poorly thought-out personality.

Since a good plot is character driven, you should make sure that your characters are actually strong enough to drive the story you're trying to write. By 'strong', I don't mean they need to be strong people. (In fact, sometimes you require exactly the opposite.) However, they do need to have strong enough traits that will allow them to initiate vital plot events without violating their established personality. Writers often like to say that their characters live in their heads and act near autonomously after a while. It can definitely feel like that once you've begun to understand their thought patterns. But it's also important to know when to yank the leash, so to speak.

In short, if a key event in the story hinges your character doing a certain thing, you need to make sure that your character is the sort of person who would actually do that thing.


Little Details:

So now that you've actually started the story/RP, how do you take your character's personality out of a profile and into practice? It's one thing to say that a character is outgoing and funny, and another thing to have them actually come off that way. This is a difficult section, since there are countless factors that come into play when you're trying to express your character's personality. So I'm just going to make a list of aspects to include in your story or RP posts to bring your character to life.

*Context: Your character has a past, present, and future. They don't just drop out of the sky without past experiences or future expectations. Though the action should focus on the scene at hand, try to drop tidbits about your character's past (Why is he here? How did he get here?) and their future. (What are her plans? What does she intend to do?) People are always engaged in something or other. They have projects that they're always in the middle of. What they're doing here and now is for a purpose. People don't just exist somewhere for no reason, and yet this is what I see all the time in intro RP posts: a character just existing someplace, complacent, no particular intentions, waiting for their partner's character to come along and interact with them. Characters need a context. By giving your character both a past that drives them and a future they're working towards, you're providing the readers a framework in which to understand their present actions.

*Perception: Everybody experiences the world in their own unique way. Two people can look at the same image and notice entirely different things about it. How does your character experience the world around them? What sorts of aspects would they notice? What would they neglect? For example, if your character is a musician, you might want to include more aural descriptions of her surroundings than you would otherwise, to express the fact that she is sensitive to that aspect of the world. If your character is an architect, you might want to tap into his expertise to describe his surroundings. When a layman walks into a house, they might not notice the stability of the structure, the slope of the roof, the insulation of the windows, but your architect will! You should try to structure your descriptions according to your character's unique perception.

*Knowledge: As the player/writer, you know everything your character does. If your character is supposed to be familiar with their surroundings, then you need to be, too. Be specific with your descriptions of the places, people, and events that occupy your character's life. If your character is spending another boring day at work, refer to her coworkers by name. She knows who they are, right? So should you. If your character is reading a book, give the book a title. He knows what he's reading, right? So should you. The most boring RPs and stories are full of descriptions like this:

"Jane sat in her cubicle at work, idly skimming a document. Her coworker typed noisily in the neighboring cubicle, but that wasn't what distracted her. She peered at the clock. Only five more minutes until her shift was up. It was a beautiful day and she couldn't wait to join the celebrations outside."

Meet Jane. She works at 'X' Office and does 'X' Thing beside Coworker 'X' until she can leave work and go party at 'X' Event.

It's vague, it's uninformative, and it's lazy writing. Though the POV indicates that the author has access to Jane's thoughts and feelings, it does not feel like it's being written from her perspective because it's missing all of the details that Jane would know and refer to if she were describing her own experience. It feels distant from Jane, narrated by a stranger who knows nothing about her.

Let's put some effort in:

"Jane sat at her cubicle at Stetson & Co, idly skimming over this week's payroll budget. Ralph typed noisily in the neighboring cubicle, but that wasn't what distracted her. She peered at the clock. Only five more minutes until her shift was up. It was a beautiful day, and she couldn't wait to join in the celebrations for Chinese New Year."

Just by adding a few proper nouns, suddenly the reader learns something about Jane! They know about her situation. They know where she works, what she does there, and who she works with. The choices of names serve to personalize Jane as a character, and most importantly... it feels like you're writing from Jane's perspective, rather than describing her actions as a detached outsider.

*Dialogue/Voice: I covered a lot of dialogue issues back in my first RP-Guide, but I still want to touch on this. In the last guide, I essentially restated a common dialogue tip: Write How You Talk. It's great advice to get your character's speech patterns to sound natural. However, you need to go further. You don't want every character to sound like you! Something to consider is your sentence length. To make a character sound curt and formal, use short and to-the-point sentences. To make them seem more exuberant, mix up the sentence length. Does your character tend to ramble? Longer sentences with more pauses than usual. Other things to consider are their use of 'filler' words. Are they the type who thinks before they open their mouth? Or do they blurt out whatever comes to mind and end up with a lot of 'like', 'you know', or 'um...'?

*Comparisons: Related to the first point, your character's past experiences will inform their future experiences. For example, if your character grew up in a desert, why would she describe the colour of something as 'freshly fallen snow?' If she doesn't see snow very often, why would that simile even occur to her? On the other end, if your character is an avid climber, it's wonderfully expressive to say that he felt like 'he was teetering on the edge of a precipice' in the middle of a suspenseful conversation. Tailor your language to their experiences.

*Expressions/Body Language: I covered a bit of this in the 'Appearance' section, but it also applies here. By describing how your character physically reacts to things, you're expressing a lot about them. What your character does when her lover takes her hand for the first time can express so much more than just telling the reader how she felt. Some things to consider: Does your character seek eye contact or avoid it? Are they quick to smile and laugh? How big is their 'personal space bubble'? Are they good at sitting still, or do they fidget with their hair or clothes?

Body language doesn't only have to do with how they interact with other people. How do they interact with objects? One part of body language that is often ignored is what I like to call 'space management'. Do they tend to 'own' the space around them? (For example: spreading one's legs or arms when seated on a crowded train) Or do they try to disturb as little as possible (For example: crossing one's legs and folding one's hands when on that same train). Another thing to consider is how aware they are of their body when making their way through the world. For instance, if your character is uncommonly tall, would she automatically duck under a low-ceiling, or would she forget and bump her head? How comfortable are they with their environment? When entering somebody's house, do they make themselves at home? Do they handle the objects around them? Or do they keep their hands to themselves unless specifically offered something? When it comes to their own belongings, are they cautious or careless?

Keeping these sorts of questions in mind, you can do a pretty good job of distinguishing one character from another just through their body language alone.

*Habits: Though it's always constructive to have your character's traits pertain to the plot, adding a few insignificant details can help characterize them more effectively. I'm talking about little behaviours, caprices, irrational loves and hatreds, etc. For example... when your character takes a shower, does he wait for the water to warm up, or does he get in cold? Is there this one story they she tells over and over again at parties? Are there particular turns of phrase that he overuses? Does he like to eat peanut-butter and bacon sandwiches? Little details like this can flesh your character out and make them seem more human.

3. What are their flaws?

Have you ever read a story in which a character is flawless? I have, and it's not pretty. Characters like this are colloquially called 'Mary-Sues'. This usually refers to characters with 'special' abilities/powers that are vastly overpowered or exceptional in comparison to the surrounding characters. However, this doesn't only pertain to special abilities; it also can refer to a character who lacks any significant personal flaws.

Writing a flawless character creates a story that lacks a sense of tension, since your readers are virtually guaranteed that the character will make all the right decisions, say the right things, and always succeed at the tasks they set out to accomplish. As well as being completely obnoxious, it also makes your story boring. How can you evoke suspense when the reader knows for certain that your character will prevail? So what can you do to make sure that your character has realistic and potentially plot-affecting flaws?

This seems obvious, but you'd be amazed to see how many writers give their otherwise perfect character a bunch of external problems and then claim that they're authentically flawed. Here's a little tip: 'Ugly' isn't a character flaw. That's just one example of an external problem that some writers think constitutes a flaw. External problems involve drawbacks of a character's appearance, relationships, or circumstances. More importantly, they involve things that the character is not responsible for. A flaw implies that it's something the character could learn to overcome, something that they—at some level—are capable of changing. The reason why it's a flaw is because they don't. What you're looking for in a flaw is an internal problem, something about the way they think or act that produces negative consequences in their lives.

For example…

-That your character has a controlling family isn't a flaw, but perhaps the fact that he doesn't assert his independence is.
-That your character is being pursued by the mafia isn't a flaw, but perhaps the reason why she's being pursued can be.
-That your character is an alcoholic isn't a flaw in itself, but the reason why he drinks, and why he doesn't try to quit can be.

Flaws should be Obvious:

Something I see a lot in RP especially is 'profile-only' flaws. These are potentially interesting flaws that the character theoretically possesses, but they never actually come up during the course of the story. Usually, the reason for this has nothing to do with the story and everything to do with the flaw in question. The problem is usually that the flaw is too specific. It will require a certain event or pattern of interaction to happen before appearing. For example, your character can't cook. That's a flaw, right? Not unless somebody asks them to!

In fiction, this happens less often, since the the writer has complete control of the story and can just construct situations to show off their character's lack of culinary skill. In RP, you might not ever get the opportunity to bring this up! Going with a flaw that's more extensive and will show up in a variety of situations is much better. Instead of just "Can't cook", consider the reason why that's so. Maybe he's stubborn and resistant to learning new things? Maybe she's a workaholic who never makes time to take care of herself? These can make great flaws that have plenty of opportunity to come forth no matter what your characters are doing.

As I alluded to before, all of the best character flaws are significant enough to bear on the plot. Your character's virtues and vices alike should drive them to make decisions that affect the story. The most contrived plots are ones where the author/players just throw a bunch of external problems at the characters and let them deal with it, rather than having the problems shaped by the characters themselves. That your character is, say… financially irresponsible could drive all kinds of interesting plotlines where he's forced to make back money he's lost, preserve his livelihood, or even take out loans from unsavoury organizations. There are so many things you can do with it that his story basically writes itself.  

Flaws are Detrimental:

This is another one of those things that look perfectly obvious, but lots of authors seem to forget this. Your character's flaws are detrimental; they produce negative consequences for him/her. Lots of writers fall into a trap where they realize they need to give their character some flaws, but then play them out as strengths in every situation. The most common and annoying example of this is the often poorly written 'snarky' character who is supposedly needlessly blunt, doesn't take things seriously, and mouths off authority.

You'd think that often gets him into serious trouble, right? Not so! Other characters marvel at the snarker's wit and inappropriate observations. Instead of getting his ass handed to him for calling the king's wife a whore, he just gets sent to the dungeons for a heroic escape. And it's not like there's ever any personal misunderstandings, either. His snarky mouth suddenly disappears whenever the writer needs him to have a serious conversation.

Your character's flaws need to function as such. How is your character's impulsive nature a flaw if all of her hasty decisions are the right ones? How is your character's tendency to jump to conclusions a flaw if his suspicions are always correct? This is a great transition into another issue… characters who make mistakes.

Mistakes:

I see this most often in RP. Players sometimes can be reluctant to let their characters make mistakes. I understand why this is, so I do sympathize. When you're writing solo, it doesn't matter how many mistakes your character makes, because you're in complete control of the other characters' reactions. Therefore, you can easily just write them to make up for their mistakes later on. With RP, you need to rely on your partner to decide how their character(s) are going to react to your character's screw-ups. This doesn't mean that they should never screw up, though.

It's a good illustration of why talking things out with your RP partner beforehand is so important. At some point in the RP, if you think your character is likely to make a mistake, suffer a terrible misunderstanding, or undertake a potentially irrevocable decision, you need to discuss that. You should clear it with your partner beforehand just to allow them to think through their character's reaction so that the mistake can be corrected, your character can be forgiven, or well… whatever else you both agree should happen. If your characters are in a monogamous relationship, for instance, and you decide to have your character cheat, you should inform your partner about it before you go ahead. If your partner's character is the type who'd never forgive something like that, then you're going to have a huge problem if you intend for their relationship to recover.

Creating Realistic Flaws:

If you've got a character and you already know a lot about them but haven't decided on what their flaws will be yet, how do you decide what might work? I find that the trick is to work with what you've already got, by simply taking an already present quality to a negative extreme, or having certain qualities 'work both ways'.

For example, a character who is described positively as a 'devoted lover' might only be one step away from 'possessive', which is a flaw. A character who is described positively as 'prudent' can be interpreted as 'cowardly'. A character who is 'courageous' can very easily be 'reckless'. One who's 'honest' may also be 'blunt'. By taking qualities they already possess and pushing them to a negative extreme, you can come upon flaws that fit well with everything else you know about them.

There are also plenty of words to describe someone that implicitly carry positive or negative connotations. For example: Determined. Have you ever noticed that 'determined' basically means the same thing as 'stubborn'? The only difference is that in the first case it's considered to be constructive and in the other it's deemed detrimental. Plenty of these kinds of qualities can go both ways. If you describe your character as 'determined', he's probably also 'stubborn', too. Bonus!


Angst:

This was originally its own separate section, but I thought I'd put it under 'flaws' since there's a connection between a character's flaws and properly handled angst. Now angst is a hard thing to avoid, since it's basically a RPer's lifeblood for some reason. We all want to put our characters through hell and back. But there are better ways of doing this than others.

If you're character's got a tragic backstory that's bound to create some angst, try making it something out of the ordinary and go easy on the typical fallbacks (rape and murder). There are plenty aspects of an upbringing that can psychologically affect somebody that aren't as… overdone as sexual abuse or their entire family getting slaughtered. (Haha… I have a character like this, I know. Only one.) Try getting creative about angsty backgrounds, and have it fit your character's circumstances and personality. The same events affect different characters in different ways. Something that one character would brush off might emotionally damage another one for life. For example, getting rejected from a musical academy as a child and being unable to pursue her dream as a concert violinist might be something one character is still sensitive about, while another might have found it liberating to stop practicing music and move on to a hobby he's more passionate about.

Another thing about angst is to keep it in check. Pace it out over the story or RP so it doesn't get annoying for your partner. While your partner's character might be a selfless nurturer who never gets tired of helping your character through his issues, their player might resent that their character is perpetually forced into that role. Intersperse periods of angst with moments of happiness to show that your character has a full emotional range. Keeping the angst at a bearable level also allows you to balance attention between the characters. By keeping your character in a constant state of misery, you're keeping all the attention focused on them, at the expense of your partner's. Allow their character time to shine, too!

Something to remember about angst is that the best kind of angst? Is the character's own fault. This is where flaws and angst tie into each other. The angst I most often see in RP is where a the player just throws trauma at their character from every angle (Oh no! Their father died! Oh no, and then they were raped! Oh no, and then their lover left them!) This kind of trauma happens to them, not because of them. The tragedy and righteous indignation that comes when bad things happen to good people gets old really fast. Something I love seeing is when angst happens to a character because of who they are, not in spite of it. It's always more heartbreaking when the characters are at least partially responsible for the woes that befall them. It feels more genuine and hits a lot harder. Also, since it's angst that the character is responsible for, it's a lot easier to solve, because, well… it should be solved eventually, right?

The most annoying sort of angst is when the player just keeps on milking it for all it's worth, well past the point where it evokes any real emotion anymore. Your character should eventually overcome whatever it is that they're angsting about. Obviously, it shouldn't happen so soon that it feels forced, but don't drag it out so long that it becomes irritating for your readers or your partner to slog through the same problems again and again without ever solving them.

4. Backgrounds:

Background =/= Childhood:

When coming up with a character's background, writers often immediately jump to their childhood: their parents, their family, their home, their unresolved Oedipal conflicts, etc. There's nothing wrong with thinking about these aspects of a background, since they can often contain pivotal events in your character's life. However, a character's background encompasses much more than just childhood. If your character is a teenager, this doesn't matter so much, but it especially applies when you're playing adult characters who obviously have had far more life experience than just a childhood. It comes off as bizarre when a character who's over 30 is still dwelling on childhood events. They've had a lot of living to do between then and now! What's happened to them in recent memory is often more interesting than what happened to them 20 years ago, and it makes more sense for recent events to bear on their current life circumstances. Something I can't help but wonder about when I see an adult character so burdened by events from their childhood is… why haven't they dealt with it already? Why haven't they developed any coping skills in the 20-some years between then and now?  Creating a recent history for them (as well as some earlier information) allows you to draw more realistic connections between their past and present.

Shuffling between Backgrounds:

Sometimes you might want to use the same character for two very different RPs. If you're like me and enjoy coming up with fairly extensive and specific backgrounds for your characters, it can be a problem. In fact, some of the characters I have just… can't transfer into certain settings. Certain characters only function in fantasy, some in sci-fi, and others in contemporary. But I always make sure to have a few characters who are more flexible.

One way to do this is to focus on events and not settings. The types of things that shape a character and make them into the person they are don't have to directly relate to the setting. Plenty of events crucial to their character can be recreated between places and times. For example, if your character's a creative rich kid who attended a prestigious art academy, you can easily save that aspect of his background to work in all kinds of settings, though you may have to alter the medium he works with. If a crucial fact of your character's past is that her father died in a car accident, you can transfer that over to a historical setting by just altering the circumstances of his death. (A horseback accident? A carriage accident? A spaceship accident?) If your character's hobbies or occupation are period specific, try researching to find the closest historical analogue, or speculating about how that hobby/occupation may play out in the future.

One thing I tend to be very wary of when I create a character is attributing anything profoundly supernatural to them. It really limits the kinds of plots/settings you can integrate them into. If you're going to make your character a supernatural creature, or have supernatural abilities, those abilities should be inessential to the character. They should be a fully functional character even without those additions. It's incredibly off-putting in RP when a character 'just happens' to be an intergalactic vampire in a setting that doesn't permit that. If your character isn't interesting without being an intergalactic vampire, then you need to go back to the drawing board.

Background and Setting:

How your characters interact with their setting probably warrants a section unto itself, but this is getting far too long already. However, a few remarks should be said about constructing your character's background to interact consistently with the setting they inhabit. Lots of RPers just plunge their characters into a new setting without really thinking about it, which can result in all kinds of unforeseen problems. For example, if you're playing in a setting based on… say, Ancient Athens and your character is a woman. Unless you're writing her as a housewife, courtesan, or slave, there are not many other roles you can have her occupy that won't conflict with that setting. If you write her to be a great warrior, you have a problem on your hands, since it would go against the rules (unwritten or otherwise) of that culture. If you're prepared to have her actually deal with breaking those rules, then great! But it will be a hurdle that you need to prepare for. You can't just glaze over it. In general, be wary of writing too many characters who are 'exceptions' within their society. It can be pulled off well, but usually it's a blaring Mary-Sue alarm. If your character is an exception to a designated societal rule, you need to have a convincing explanation as to why that rule does not apply to them.

Likewise, if you're using a fantasy setting that you've created, you should try your best to play by the rules of that setting. If your setting includes, say, an intense atmosphere of prejudice towards a group/race, why would your character not hold the same beliefs? What experiences have they undergone to make it plausible that they hold more progressive opinions? If your character comes from an impoverished background, why would they be now be situated in a position of power? What's happened in their life that has allowed them to work their way up to the top? I'm not saying that you shouldn't use these ideas, but that if you do, you need to provide a convincing explanation.


((And that's all I can think of for the moment. I meant to include some of this in the last RP Guide I wrote, but as you can see... it got out of control. Feel free to make suggestions in the comments and such. Once again, there is an exception to every rule. Perhaps something I've discouraged doesn't apply to your character for whatever reason. I won't dispute you on that. It's all just tips and guidelines.))