Community Creates a Book's Community

[Viniciuskk]

Heya guys Last month, I read the book "Flores de Sangue" (Blood flowers), by a brazillian writer, and was amazed at how every character's personality was masterfully planned. Every of them had unique traits and habits, but this thread isn't about the book, but rather, the method the author used to create the characters, which can be very helpful to everyone here.

He simply asked each of his friends to create one character, describing where he/she was born, his/her traits, what he/she likes to do, skills, height, color, clothing preferences, etc... It's a simple, but very effective way to get unique characters for your story, especially if it includes people from many different places.

I wouldn't be surprised if someone else here also did it here, but just in case you guys hadn't thought about this, here's the idea! :p

[TrickWithAKnife]

That is an interesting technique, depending on how imaginative your friends are.
Otherwise you might end up with a bunch of either Mary-Sues, and whatever the male equivalent is, or the standard emo character where everything has gone wrong for them.

[mugenjohncel]

I won't accept anything less... I better be the main protagonist in this story... I'm too handsome to be a side character

But I already foresee this is bound to fail here in Lemmasoft for this forum is 90% protagonists and 10% masochists... and each and every single one of the protagonists here is expected to put up a fight to reach the coveted Harem ending... it might end up being a gruesome horror survival story...

"POOF" (Disappears)

[merdeamour]

This is a method commonly done in writing sites, although I've never tried it. I've always thought the scenario would be like TrickWithAKnife said, which is a lot of cliché characters. Actually, if someone were to ask me for a character profile like that, I'd probably answer with a generic, normal person's profile xD (I never seem to plan my character's profiles very thoroughly--they just come to me while I'm writing).

[Viniciuskk]

or the standard emo character where everything has gone wrong for them.

Oh... I've got a "writer" friend who actually did this for his story...

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Yes, there might be lots of overly powered protagonists and harems, mugenjohncel, but you gotta just edit the characters, nerf them as you please, but keep their traits!

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I'm not sure, but I think the author put some restrictions to the characters, because obviously, they need to fit his world. For example, in Blood Flowers, there are 12 schools of magic (elemental, temporal, martial, etc...), lots of countries each with it's own accent, mineral resources, industries and companies. He also created a sport called Speed Cross, where the runners mount on very fast motorcycles and use spells to help them go faster or prejudice others. It's simple, but it's as famous as Soccer is in our world. (Lots of viewers, people arguing about it, etc...)

And of course, you gotta be selective when asking your friends, otherwise you might just end up with the emos TrickWIthAKnife said

[Ionait]

I think perhaps you could ask your friends for this stuff in such a way to avoid Mary-Sue responses by making the wording just right or something, or setting a scene or tone for things. I imagine the questions could be as simple as, where were they born, to, how would they react if this person tried to pick a fight with them at the pub?

But I do fear the cliches! I used to run a D&D game with my friends, and one of them swore he was a genius with his character, that he was so unique and cool, and he was proud of himself for the idea (and that's fine to show pride in your hard work!) But the character was this... Prince of a brawn-praising kingdom who was defeating in combat by a usurper, and now journeys to gain strength to reclaim the throne. Never heard that one before? Right? >.>

I was very happy with his story for the D&D campaign though. It allowed me as a DM to slip in all sorts of characters from his past to provide clues and whatnot, which was cool. I guess it all depends on the setting.

[Gear]

That's how all the characters in The Time Stones were initially built. They were expanded and have evolved over time, but each one is the product of a different writer, which is why they're so different from each other.

[J. Datie]

Actually, that's not a bad idea. I mean, obviously there's a chance you'll end up with a big pot of Mary-Stew, but who says you need to use the characters as is? You could just pick and choose which character traits work best with the story and toss out the ones that don't work. Granted, some people might not be too pleased with having their characters picked apart like that, but if you make sure they know it's just character ideas you're looking for, and not "hey, make a character and I'll write a story about youthem!", I think it'll be OK.

[Viniciuskk]

I'd like to try to do this on Lemma. Anyone up to design a character for me? :3