Problems with fitting the character.

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Warlocal
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Problems with fitting the character.

#1 Post by Warlocal »

How do you guys cope when you end up with a character you really like, but you just cant fit her/him into then story?

Because I am really having trouble with this character:

Heroine #2: Izumi Riyo (WIP)
Gender: Girl
Age: 15
Background: Born in a poor family, she didn’t have much, but her family always made sure she had everything, she received good education and manners, she was always a quiet and timid girl, but she always helped those that she could help, she was highly regarded in her neighborhood for helping out. However one day she returns to home to find out that her family was being evicted so that a tower block could be built. She and her family were homeless for a year, still she didn’t back down, she started to watch people, she could tell who was who, she developed the ability to never forget a face, soon she would be able to do even more, she would be able to read a person just from looking at her face. As soon as her father managed to get a job, they managed to move into a house it was small and moldy but it was a home, the company noticed Riyo’s dad enthusiasm and gave him a better position in the company, and soon he started to become important in the company. Riyo life was improving, but again her precious life was taken by a storm when her father was murdered by a rival faction in the company. After that day Riyo and her mother have been living with her mother’s sister, she became even quieter, during the first two years she was as cold as liquid nitrogen, however she suddenly started to help out others again, however she would barely speak, but it didn’t matter, everyone was happy she was coming back to society. One of dad’s coworkers, in an act of compassion for the family insisted in founding Riyo’s study. After a dealing with her initial reluctance she joined a ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
School
Personality:Cold, Rational(Classical Kuudere), Capable and Suspicious of others.

HiddenCreature
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Re: Problems with fitting the character.

#2 Post by HiddenCreature »

You either modify the story, or save that character for a more appropriate story.

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Re: Problems with fitting the character.

#3 Post by Enigma »

Why doesn't the character fit? I think it'd be easier to help if we knew that.

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Re: Problems with fitting the character.

#4 Post by mediawriterdude »

How do you guys cope when you end up with a character you really like, but you just cant fit her/him into then story?
When I have this problem, I generally save the character for a different story. I prefer character driven stories where I can play around with opposite personalities teaming up for... whatever. :D

When in doubt, though, try having the character do a brief "walk-on", interacting with several other characters in an unrelated scene to see if they truly aren't compatible. If the scene is really good, you can keep the cameo. If the character doesn't fit the theme, style, plot, or pacing of the story - then consider a new story set in the same universe or however you generally work.

Remember: A good character may merely exist, but a great character can carry a story - IF it's the right story.

(Opinion: Try creating a typical yandere male and place both characters in a locked room - see what happens! After you finish your current project, of course!)

Good luck! :)

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Re: Problems with fitting the character.

#5 Post by Kuiper »

Some ideas can be merged (and some of the best stories are the result of merging ideas), where you take multiple character ideas and end up putting them in the same body. (So instead of having a cat lover and a punk band drummer as separate characters, you create a single character who spends Saturday morning at the animal shelter and Saturday night playing at a local show.) You could very well develop 20+ different character ideas, and end up including all of most of them in a story with only 5 characters. That's the nature of multidimensional characters.

That being said, you shouldn't use ideas just for the sake of using them; the goal is to create characters who are deeper and more interesting, rather than just an amalgamation of random traits you pulled from a list. There's also the fact that frequently, chasing one idea will lead to the discovery of multiple new ideas, leading to a counter-intuitive cycle where the more ideas that you use up, the longer the list of ideas grows. It's simply impossible to fit everything in. That's good. That means you have fodder to add to your "ideas.txt" to save for several months from now after you're done with your current project. I am ruthless about binning ideas that don't fit what I'm doing, and the result is that I always know I have ideas.txt waiting for me if I ever hit a dry spell or suffer the dreaded "writers block."
Necrobarista - serve coffee to the living and the dead
Idol Manager - experience the glamour and dangers of the pop idol industry
Cursed Lands - a mix of high fantasy and gothic horror

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Re: Problems with fitting the character.

#6 Post by RotGtIE »

You character has an astounding amount of personal baggage, and your story doesn't have room to spare or the ability to handle the extra weight. There is just way too much shit going on in her life, especially shit that appears to have been carefully constructed around her to make sure nothing bad that happens to her is her fault in any way. Because of that, she actually has very little character going on. Reread her background again, and tell me how much of it really describes HER, and not the whirlwind of events whipping AROUND her. The most you've got once you peel away her past is "She's quiet, timid, and always trying to be helpful. She was determined to make the best of her situation, but then she became cold and distant." Now, that's a start, but it's only that. And usually, that start is what can help you explore a character's history and the development of their personality so that you can have something to work with.

So what's the problem with the background? It's just too much shit and very little of it interacts with her in a mutual way - it just dumps on her as if it was purposefully done to create drama in her life where there otherwise would be none. One example of the extraneous suffering you've inflicted upon her is the reason for her family being evicted - you already established that her family is poor, so why did you feel the need to clarify that they were evicted due to some nonsense about someone building a tower block? Why wouldn't it have been sufficient for her family to be unable to make the payments? If the reason, and let's be honest here, is "that would make her parents look like shitty irresponsible people and reduce audience sympathy for them," then reconsider what you're doing. Later on, you have this girl becoming an icy person, but again you give her the reason of her father being murdered over a corporate rivalry, which grants her an excuse for growing cold while still allowing her to be that way, again suspiciously looking like it's for drama's sake alone. And who gets murdered over a corporate rivalry anyway? What the hell company was he in, the mafia? In addition to being there for the obvious reason of creating drama in her life, it's just too implausible to take seriously, especially after all the bullshit that's already been thrown at her. By this point, I'm almost surprised that the Illuminati isn't appearing in this story as her deliberate tormentor.

And then at the end, somehow she suddenly comes into an incredible amount of good luck in the form of...a rich uncle. Yeah, you said "dad's co-worker," but you're basically bringing in a rich uncle out of nowhere and with no motivation whatsoever, having him dump an incredible act of altruism on her. A teenage daughter of some guy he used to work with. I don't know anything about your story, but it sounds like this part was tacked on because in the main story she is enrolled in some kind of private school or is in some other situation which would be impossible without the kind of resources that you wouldn't have if your family was poor and your dad got murdered. That's a problem, too, and it's happening along the same vein as the rest of your problems - you're not developing your character. She's being pulled by circumstances into your plot rather than being any kind of agent in it herself. And there's no way for her to really turn that around with all this shit tossing her about like a sailboat in a storm.

I want you to take this sentence, which you wrote, and really analyze it. Remember, this is all one sentence, and it reveals a lot about how you think when you write.
After that day Riyo and her mother have been living with her mother’s sister, she became even quieter, during the first two years she was as cold as liquid nitrogen, however she suddenly started to help out others again, however she would barely speak, but it didn’t matter, everyone was happy she was coming back to society.
Seven. You've whipped up and strung seven clauses together before you felt it was time to pause and throw down a period. You start with a thought, then you tack something on. Then you tack something else on. And then another thing. Then another. And then one more thing. Your mind is building a bridge the same way The Lemmings do - by laying out a brick while standing on the last brick you just laid down. You aren't stepping back to look at the bigger picture when you design parts of your own sentences, let alone elements of a character's personality and history. That's why you've ultimately created a monstrous pile of events that can't even be dragged kicking and screaming into a story that maybe needs a little flexibility in its characters.

Take a step back, peel away all of the unnecessary bullshit that you slapped onto your character like she was wearing a shirt made of velcro, and stop to seriously analyze what the most important traits about her are. Start by asking yourself very broad questions about her personality, answer some of them, and then see if you're curious to know more about her. If you aren't, step back and try again. If you are, find yourself a plausible answer, step back and see if it fits with everything else you've built about her, and then if everything checks out, go for it again. You can still build that bridge brick-by-brick, but make sure you stop and look at what you're doing every step of the way. You gotta ask questions often and make sure everything fits together in a believable way while being interesting enough to keep someone's attention. And believe me, people can be pretty interested in some really mundane stuff. You don't have to pile on a bunch of crazy shit to make a character or a story interesting enough to read. In fact, lay it on too thick, and your audience will become incredulous or unable to relate and they will lose interest because you tried to make everything TOO interesting.

Use moderation, step back and take in the big picture early and often, ask the kind of questions you think your audience would ask, answer them competently, and you'll build a character worth reading about. It won't be any trouble at all, then, to find a place for that character in your story. If you've made a good character, all you have to do is put them into a situation - ANY situation - and what they do will make the events that unfold a worthy read.

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Warlocal_TMSGDC
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Re: Problems with fitting the character.

#7 Post by Warlocal_TMSGDC »

RotGtIE wrote:You character has an astounding amount of personal baggage, and your story doesn't have room to spare or the ability to handle the extra weight. There is just way too much shit going on in her life, especially shit that appears to have been carefully constructed around her to make sure nothing bad that happens to her is her fault in any way. Because of that, she actually has very little character going on. Reread her background again, and tell me how much of it really describes HER, and not the whirlwind of events whipping AROUND her. The most you've got once you peel away her past is "She's quiet, timid, and always trying to be helpful. She was determined to make the best of her situation, but then she became cold and distant." Now, that's a start, but it's only that. And usually, that start is what can help you explore a character's history and the development of their personality so that you can have something to work with.

So what's the problem with the background? It's just too much shit and very little of it interacts with her in a mutual way - it just dumps on her as if it was purposefully done to create drama in her life where there otherwise would be none. One example of the extraneous suffering you've inflicted upon her is the reason for her family being evicted - you already established that her family is poor, so why did you feel the need to clarify that they were evicted due to some nonsense about someone building a tower block? Why wouldn't it have been sufficient for her family to be unable to make the payments? If the reason, and let's be honest here, is "that would make her parents look like shitty irresponsible people and reduce audience sympathy for them," then reconsider what you're doing. Later on, you have this girl becoming an icy person, but again you give her the reason of her father being murdered over a corporate rivalry, which grants her an excuse for growing cold while still allowing her to be that way, again suspiciously looking like it's for drama's sake alone. And who gets murdered over a corporate rivalry anyway? What the hell company was he in, the mafia? In addition to being there for the obvious reason of creating drama in her life, it's just too implausible to take seriously, especially after all the bullshit that's already been thrown at her. By this point, I'm almost surprised that the Illuminati isn't appearing in this story as her deliberate tormentor.

And then at the end, somehow she suddenly comes into an incredible amount of good luck in the form of...a rich uncle. Yeah, you said "dad's co-worker," but you're basically bringing in a rich uncle out of nowhere and with no motivation whatsoever, having him dump an incredible act of altruism on her. A teenage daughter of some guy he used to work with. I don't know anything about your story, but it sounds like this part was tacked on because in the main story she is enrolled in some kind of private school or is in some other situation which would be impossible without the kind of resources that you wouldn't have if your family was poor and your dad got murdered. That's a problem, too, and it's happening along the same vein as the rest of your problems - you're not developing your character. She's being pulled by circumstances into your plot rather than being any kind of agent in it herself. And there's no way for her to really turn that around with all this shit tossing her about like a sailboat in a storm.

I want you to take this sentence, which you wrote, and really analyze it. Remember, this is all one sentence, and it reveals a lot about how you think when you write.
After that day Riyo and her mother have been living with her mother’s sister, she became even quieter, during the first two years she was as cold as liquid nitrogen, however she suddenly started to help out others again, however she would barely speak, but it didn’t matter, everyone was happy she was coming back to society.
Seven. You've whipped up and strung seven clauses together before you felt it was time to pause and throw down a period. You start with a thought, then you tack something on. Then you tack something else on. And then another thing. Then another. And then one more thing. Your mind is building a bridge the same way The Lemmings do - by laying out a brick while standing on the last brick you just laid down. You aren't stepping back to look at the bigger picture when you design parts of your own sentences, let alone elements of a character's personality and history. That's why you've ultimately created a monstrous pile of events that can't even be dragged kicking and screaming into a story that maybe needs a little flexibility in its characters.

Take a step back, peel away all of the unnecessary bullshit that you slapped onto your character like she was wearing a shirt made of velcro, and stop to seriously analyze what the most important traits about her are. Start by asking yourself very broad questions about her personality, answer some of them, and then see if you're curious to know more about her. If you aren't, step back and try again. If you are, find yourself a plausible answer, step back and see if it fits with everything else you've built about her, and then if everything checks out, go for it again. You can still build that bridge brick-by-brick, but make sure you stop and look at what you're doing every step of the way. You gotta ask questions often and make sure everything fits together in a believable way while being interesting enough to keep someone's attention. And believe me, people can be pretty interested in some really mundane stuff. You don't have to pile on a bunch of crazy shit to make a character or a story interesting enough to read. In fact, lay it on too thick, and your audience will become incredulous or unable to relate and they will lose interest because you tried to make everything TOO interesting.

Use moderation, step back and take in the big picture early and often, ask the kind of questions you think your audience would ask, answer them competently, and you'll build a character worth reading about. It won't be any trouble at all, then, to find a place for that character in your story. If you've made a good character, all you have to do is put them into a situation - ANY situation - and what they do will make the events that unfold a worthy read.
Yeah, I think i am going to scrap her, what you said was enough to make me realize how much she doesn't suits the game. anyway thank you.

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