rabcor wrote:Really cool to have a character creation template like that, thanks!
I'm glad you liked it!
-- The idea behind it is "Food for Thought," to make you really think about what makes the character take the actions they do.
On "ally" characters, i had never thought about it but the few times i had tried to write a story i always inevitably added them...
They create balance in a story, and are quite often used to show what is considered "Normal" among the characters. They're the yardstick the other characters are measured by.
But one thing that made me stop to think a bit was the ambitions part.
Should characters really always have ambitions? not having an ambition can be a part of a unique character, since they usually do have ambitions. And many real people don't have any ambition, neets like me should know. They often need to find it first or chance up on it. Some people spend their entire lives looking.
Very true, many characters Don't have an ambition at the start. This is often used as a way to show the character in "Situation Normal." However, those that remain without an ambition are more often than not an
Ally character. Main characters, on the other hand, Do tend to Change their ambitions, or adopt 'temporary' ambitions at Crisis Points in either the story, or the episode.
Most of the strongest characters indeed do have ambitions (every character in Hellsing certainly does...) but what if you want to make a weak character like Mayuri? she's a bit of an oddity if i think about it, her only purpose in the story is to lighten the mood, and the atmosphere as far as i can tell, and she does exactly that pretty damn well.
Think: Is she a Main character, or an Ally character? (Keep in mind I have not read this manga.)
There's also characters with changing ambitions.
-- For example, Guts in berserk, especially if you read the manga he's a very well developed character. His initial ambition is simply to survive (quite common right?)
Very much so. However, this 'initial ambition' is in fact, Guts' '
Situation Normal' or Core ambition.
He gets picked up by a group of bandits and his ambition turns to wanting to be strong enough to fight with them.
Yes, and this happened at a Crisis Point.
Then later on after various events, he loses all ambition...
Also at a crisis point. He had just been Betrayed by the one person he trusted most in the world.
He goes blindly fighting for money, deliberately fighting anyone who might be stronger than him, trying his best to win while he wants to die, so he just gets an ego flaw of being suicidal but no real ambition.
Not True! He did indeed have an ambition: Suicide. However, his 'Core' ambition: Survive, would not allow him to simply cut his own throat, or not defend himself.
Then he finally gets defeated but not killed, and is forced into a mercenary band and now his only ambition is to serve the one who defeated him as best he can, to fulfill his promise of doing that if he were defeated.
A temporary ambition which feeds into his Core ambition. If he does not 'Survive,' he cannot fulfill his promise.
Various things happen and his ambition turns into finding his own dream (or "his own ambition") to become an equal to the man who defeated him.
Another 'Temporary' ambition, that feeds into his Core ambition. If he does not 'Survive,' he cannot become an equal to the man who defeated him.
More things happen and the ambition he finds is revenge, and his other ambition is defiance, defying death (survival all over again).
Remember, Survival was his Core ambition all along. Revenge is actually an 'excuse' to carry out his Core ambition; if he doesn't take revenge, he won't Survive -- they will eventually hunt him down and kill him. They even said so!
Just for the protagonist to reach a real ambition that's less shallow than just "survive" you have to read several volumes of the manga. The old anime series didn't even get that far and that was 25 episodes (then canceled because it caught up to the manga, but as you can see, enough story had been written to make a 25 ep anime out of it when the protagonist finally got a real ambition.)
What makes you think 'Survive' is a shallow ambition? In Guts' world, sudden death happened
all the time. Battles, wars, and casual violence were a daily occurrence. Then add all the psychopathic monsters that liked eating people. Living past the age of thirty was pretty miraculous for someone that could actually fight. Normal people, on the other hand, were dropping like flies.
That's character development i believe, in my opinion you shouldn't always set a characters ambitions in stone when you create it.
I agree! In fact, nothing should be set in stone or characters will not have room to 'grow'. However, a character's Base ambition is the Center Mark that all later ambitions come from -- a 'Jumping Off' point.
For example, in what i'm writing my protagonist ... will get her ambition, to do what she can to work against slavery...
WHY she adopts this ambition is likely coming from her core ambition: 'To Help People,' or 'To Make a Better World.' That
this is her core ambition is pretty obvious in just what you wrote.
-- Remember, your Subconscious is also helping to build this story, and one's subconscious doesn't always inform us of what it's
really thinking.
I don't think it's always good to write down a character on paper defining them completely before you add them or use them, because if you stick to that sheet too closely you may have ruled out all possibilities of character development
am i wrong?
I agree, sticking to 'the plan' isn't always the best way to go about completing a story, but WRITING a Plan can often jog things loose and make you consider options that hadn't even occurred to you, simply by bringing them to your attention and making you Think about them.
Also consider: Writer's Block.
-- If a writer gets lost in their story; can't figure out where to go next, simply reading over their notes on their characters and/or world-building, can snap them back into the mindset they had at the Beginning, when the story was fresh and new. (It's a trick I use all the time. Because writing a whole Novel can take six months to a Year, or longer, things can get muddled or just plain forgotten along the way.)