User blog:DragonBladeJutsu/DragonBladeJutsu's Blog: Making a Believable Character: It's all about Character!

Characterization
Characterization is the way a writer reveals his or her character's personality through actions, dialogue, or thoughts… and it's pretty important. A writer's skill can be judged solely on his or her ability to show characterization.

Why is a personality so essential especially here?
Believe it or not, personality can determine the out comes of a battle. Why? Let's give an example. So let's take a very prideful character and I mean a seriously prideful character, named Souta. Souta is strong and prideful. He gets hurt in battle, he refuses to let himself be treated by a medical ninja. Souta is weakened by his untreated wounds, then he is defeated. Had he accepted help he may have conquered the enemy. MIND BLOWING!!!

Okay so how do I go about finding a personality?
Examine your character. What qualities do they possess? Are they cynical and sarcastic? Wild and willful? Optimistic or pessimistic? Modest? Prideful? Realistic? How do they react to certain situations? Are they more likely to save themselves or their friends? These are questions to ask yourself. Plan out a character on a scrap piece of paper that lists their defining qualities and attributes. Make a chart with their good qualities on one side and their bad ones on the other. (You MUST have a few bad qualities so the character is believable) If you get stuck try writing a paragraph or two featuring your character doing something they enjoy or maybe having a conversation with another character or perhaps doing battle. How do they respond to the situation? This helps define their personality.

What is a believable personality?
A believable personality is one that has good and bad traits. The character NEEDS to have a few bad qualities and a few weaknesses or else it's a Mary Jane. (A Mary Jane is a perfect character) Perfect characters are the absolute worst and they tend to make the reader want to puke.

Avoiding perfect characters is easy; give your characters weaknesses and vices. They don't even have to be ones either. Maybe they're overly pessimistic or vice versa. An overly pessimistic person would always expect the worst of everyone and thing. They may over think things, stress out over tiny errors, and basically depress everyone. An overly optimistic person will be just flat out annoying and overly peppy.

Giving your character a fear also avoids the perfect character. If your character has a fear of spiders have it that they hold up everything by twenty minutes when they see a spider. Exaggerate the fear so it can be humorous and a set back.

Match it up!
Now for some real magic! Take a list of your character's most defining traits-maybe four or five in length- and think about what type of person your character is. Are they a courageous and determined shinobi? Then a good matching trait would be stubborn. Are they a kind caring person? Place empathy, merciful, and compassion as a traits too. These extra traits add and round out a character so it is, well, a person of good character!

Match the bad
Match your bad traits too! If someone is overly pessimistic add a lack of empathy or inability to read emotions and some melancholy and maybe a hint of darkness and you have a really depressing person!

If your character is someone who is neat and would be the type of person who strives to get good grades add a tendency to over react to little things, over think everything, squeamish around disorder, and a tendency to over stress themselves. This adds in the disadvantage of over reacting and stressing over tiny things, like someone's shirt is on backwards or their tools aren't clean or sharp enough. However this can be used, not only as comic relief, but as a premonition later on in the story.

Try matching up traits!

Backgrounds matter
Always make up a back story for your characters. Back stories can provide reasons for why a character is one way or another. Maybe they were attacked by a swarm of bees when they have a crippling fear of bees.

(This will be extended in a later post on the topic)

What makes a character (and a story) so amazing
Some character's personalities have unique, and sometimes surprising, traits. Those traits are actually sometimes the reason we so love certain characters. They round out the character as a whole and make them unique. Let's explore shall we?

Beloved Heroes/Heroine (And what defines them)
Katniss Everdean from the hunger games has a pretty unique character. Unlike other heroines, she is brash, harsh, and always looking out for what will help her, and her family, survive. She is one of those characters that in real life we'd hate but in the pages of the Hunger Games we just can't help but love her. In real life, we see her and immediately judge her as mean or selfish but what humans won't explore in the real life but will in a book is character. Her spirit is unwavering, her will is unyielding. These traits we wouldn't want in those around us in the real world but they define and emphasize her role in the book. We enjoy her sarcasm, her bravery, her occasionally irrational moments because we relate to them in our own world.

Harry Potter is, at first, an innocent, naïve, and brave. Later he develops a bit of an ego. His ego gets him in trouble and he matures and learns from it to become the Hero we know and love today.

Percy Jackson has a sense of humor, enough said. He brings a teenage twist on fighting monsters that often hits home. He also extremely loyal to his friends. (Falling into Tartarus kind of proves that)

Fault in our stars main character (I feel like a jerk for forgetting her name. Someone in the comments tell me what it is) has a lot of spunk. Her take on her situation is humorous and slightly ironic.

Jonas, from The Giver, is very different from your everyday character. He is actually slightly personality deprived in the beginning. He in fact has no driving force, no plot, not real story until he experiences love for the first time. I am not talking about the Disney love or sappy love story love or puppy/first crush love, I mean he experiences emotions for the first time. That love gives him a personality and a driving force. (Read The Giver, it's amazing)

Help?
Characterization is confusing! Need help? I am open to any questions or comments placed down below in the comments section. Need help like right now? Go to our chat and ask our amazing community for advice!

Coming up on DBJ's blog…
Making a Believable Character: Back stories! DragonBladeJutsu (talk)