User blog:Perchan/How To Make Likeable Characters

I actually sent this to a user, but I liked it so much (and it was really friggin' long) that I decided to blog this.

First, about your characters in general. They need to be believable, they need to seem to be people you could meet at any time in any place. This is essential. You might have the best story line ever, with well-scripted plot turns, perfect foreshadowing, and excellent craft in general, but if your characters are flat, if your reader cannot tell one character from the next, your reader just won’t care about the story.

The main character is the hardest one to make—it's a given that writers always fall into the fact that the supporting casts are more interesting. First, start off with the personality; that means you need to make that character human. It doesn’t necessarily mean that the character needs to be a human being or act exactly like one. Exceptions where a character has an inhuman personality can only be made interesting if human nature is understood first.

First it's important to differentiate between how a character behaves with other characters (the image they give of themselves onto others) and what they really are on the inside. Often, people use masks to hide their real selves mainly for two reasons: in order to hide their inner feelings and secrets, or to be accepted by others. While many authors like to make their characters without any “masks,” this trait could certainly give more depth to your characters.

Another trait is that they have to be likeable! Making a character likable is a real challenge. This is where study comes in. Look around you. Look back into your own history. Who were the people that you just plain felt good being around? Can you distill some of the things they said and did? Can you find a way to incorporate those traits into your character? Keep in mind that the likableness of a character is more than just the way they think or act, but it has a lot to do with how you have the other characters in the story react to him or her.

Your character will “show up” in his or her speech. Will the character be a quick-thinking action-oriented person who speaks in one to two-syllable words, with short sentences and paragraphs? Or will the character be of a poetic bent, speaking in a flowery way? I would strongly advise that you make a general outline of your character's personality—something you'd like, and look over these following questions in order to figure out what you really want.

Does your character treat everyone the same? Is your character nicer/meaner/funnier/etc. with certain people? If so, why do they act differently?
 * How is your character when alone?
 * Are the feelings your character expresses on the outside really what your character feels?
 * If your character could have unlimited power/anonymity, would your character remain the same person?
 * Does your character have a burden/secrets that he/she isn’t able to share?
 * What is your character's greatest desire?
 * How much would that character give to accomplish it?
 * Who does your character love? (friends, family, lovers etc.)
 * What does your character enjoy to do in his/her spare time?
 * What are your character's hobbies/interests/likes/dislikes?

Then, flaws come into play—your character flaws in order to be a person. Characters that have the same flaws as the audience are considerably easier to identify with than their less flawed counterparts. Some flaws can make your audience identify with the struggles of your character. Other flaws will make your character unique and interesting. Making your characters outgrow some of their flaws can make interesting plot points. However, it is important to avoid giving a character just a single flaw or fake flaws. Characters will and should always have many flaws no matter what, even if those flaws are eventually overcome or controlled through development.

You do need to know what drives your character. What is it that your character is driven to achieve? What does he or she want? This is one of the most essential needs when building a new character. In fact, this is the one thing that you should not neglect no matter what level every character may have in the story. Even the walk-ons need to have a reason for being, and that reason is to accomplish or to obtain something. Do you have a concept you want to use for their drive? If so, that's great, and if you don't, I'll help you think of one.

Now, backstory! The backstory is what your character did before "getting here." After all, when you are writing a story, your characters exist before it, as does the rest of the world you are creating. Planning a sensible backstory for your characters helps strengthen their personality traits and establish their way of life. If your character's story and life is solid enough, they won't feel to the reader as "just a face" that was put there to fill a slot in the plot. In turn, having your character's backstory clearly influence their decisions (even if it is not clear to the audience what the backstory is) helps your readers relate to the character.

Anyway, that's that. Powers and abilities seems the easiest, but it's actually essential. Think about your character's personality and history. Their powers will almost always reflect how they are as a person, or what they've been through. I'd say "evil wizard cursed them" is cliché and overdone; so try and think about how their backstory and personality melds into their powerset. I would avoid using a Dragon Slayer; as everyone uses one for their main character, but if you can make it plausible enough, it can work.

Be creative with your magic and powers! It's not the uniqueness of the magic that keeps people interested in the character, it's how you use it. Hell, you could make regular elemental magic badass if you research it a bit. People say that the reason why they keep changing main characters is because their magic bores them—that's why you need to be creative! Research even for a little bit.

For example, Rubies. Ruby is a form of crystal, yes, but should its main powers be just crystal? No, that's why you have Crystal-Make, so then how to make it unique? Look up the special properties associated with Ruby, and see what you find. It's a gem used to augment magic, specifically fire magic, but it can also be used for healing and spiritual defenses. Nice work, five minutes spent with Google and now you have a working concept for a plausible magic. Yes, it's possible to create a magic that instead empowers certain types of other magic, that the user heavily specializes in, and guess what? You can still make it deadly by making a few offensive spells, and BAM would you look at that, I've just made a magic which isn't pants-on-head retarded and interesting. Just put in a LITTLE effort, hell just a few minutes' worth of research, and you'll have everything you need.

Also, don't just slap random magic on because they're cool; simply using them all together without thinking about what effect they'd have or how to use them in a serious battle (aka strategically) is pretty much a waste of time. It doesn't matter if you're a walking god; if your opponent knows what they're doing then they'll have dodged it and countered it with something far more effective in a single post. The result to your character? Almost blind and pretty much drained of magical energy. You'd be much better off using an ordinary technique than whoring your strongest abilities.

Again, this is all up to what you really want; and what works for the character.

I hope this helped; even a little. If you have any more questions, just ask.