developing a character

[yukiotome]

There is this book I bought.... i feel very interesting.
Well, according to it... these were the ff. question so that i can develop a character:
1. what is the character's characteristics?(name, age, sex, era, etc)
2.What are the character's principal traits? Main strengths and weaknesses.
3. How does the character speak? How does the character look? Does the character possesses big, strong hands or small shiny hands?
4. What dominant impression will your main character create?
5. Describe the character's friend and family. How does the character relate to them? Will they figure in your story?

About the hands, here is the excerpt about it, "Young writers usually write what color a character's hair is, or eyes(which is me *bang*) But they don't say much about the hands. Compared to a hand, eyes and hair are uninteresting(which is very interesting for me ^.^;;). Give a hand instead. Because by comparison, a hand does so much work and gives so much more care and comfort."

okay maybe other would say, so what? but i'm really curious on other opinion about it. ^^ and another thing, i also know it isn't really a necessity to list the questions but maybe others can use it as a reference. ^___^
....so, here is a question for everyone, do you agree or disagree about it and why?

-----I'm not really sure if this is the right forum thoughZ...

[number473]

(Looks like the right forum to me ^^)

The reason hair and eye colour are important is because they are very important characteristic that help us to recognize other people, and so also characters in stories. If you think about a friend of yours that made a big change to his or her hairstyle you'll know what I mean. When you describe the physical features of the character you give the reader clues about the personality of the character. The reader will automatically understand these things using what they know of character stereotypes (which may also be different in different cultures). There's nothing wrong with describing more of the features of the character, and the more that you do, the easier the reader will be able to picture the character. Of course, in a VN there is usually a sprite which shows the character, too. I wouldn't say that describing the hands is particularly important unless there was something about them that stood out.

[Jake]

The reason hair and eye colour are important is because they are very important characteristic that help us to recognize other people, and so also characters in stories.
...
I wouldn't say that describing the hands is particularly important unless there was something about them that stood out.

Conversely: Your hair and eye colour are principally determined by genetics, over which you have no control, and which character-determining events of your life and experiences largely do not change in the least. I have the same colour hair I've always had, regardless of the fact that I chose to pursue a career in IT instead of art.

However, your hands do change to reflect the way you use them; I primarily use my hands for typing, so they're fairly agile, but pretty soft, 'cause I don't do a lot of manual labour. Had I elected to try for a career in art, I'd probably have harsher skin from all the chemicals involved in printing (one of my favourite forms of visual art) and probably the agility and control would be limited to the first couple of fingers rather than spread across all of them. My nails would be more likely to take on colour from inks or paints, there'd be more of a reason to keep them well-trimmed to avoid accidents, and so on. Not to mention that I'd probably have to take up some kind of manual labour job to pay the bills and they'd get stronger and more worn as a result.

I would agree that writing about your characters hair and eye colour is pretty pointless when compared to writing about the way they behave and the experiences which have shaped them. There's nothing implictly wrong with noting that Jane is blonde and has blue eyes, and it may be helpful to your character artist, but basing her entire character around it is incredibly shallow, and doesn't bode well for the rest of the story IMO. Characters are called 'characters' because they're primarily defined by their character, otherwise they'd be called 'appearances' or something... and hair and eye colour have very, very little to do with character.

(Yes, it's useful to be able to use them to recognise individual characters... but that will be the case so long as your artist gives characters distinct colours, no matter what those colours actually are.)

[yukiotome]

The reason hair and eye colour are important is because they are very important characteristic that help us to recognize other people, and so also characters in stories.
...
I wouldn't say that describing the hands is particularly important unless there was something about them that stood out.

Conversely: Your hair and eye colour are principally determined by genetics, over which you have no control, and which character-determining events of your life and experiences largely do not change in the least. I have the same colour hair I've always had, regardless of the fact that I chose to pursue a career in IT instead of art.

However, your hands do change to reflect the way you use them; I primarily use my hands for typing, so they're fairly agile, but pretty soft, 'cause I don't do a lot of manual labour. Had I elected to try for a career in art, I'd probably have harsher skin from all the chemicals involved in printing (one of my favourite forms of visual art) and probably the agility and control would be limited to the first couple of fingers rather than spread across all of them. My nails would be more likely to take on colour from inks or paints, there'd be more of a reason to keep them well-trimmed to avoid accidents, and so on. Not to mention that I'd probably have to take up some kind of manual labour job to pay the bills and they'd get stronger and more worn as a result.

I would agree that writing about your characters hair and eye colour is pretty pointless when compared to writing about the way they behave and the experiences which have shaped them. There's nothing implictly wrong with noting that Jane is blonde and has blue eyes, and it may be helpful to your character artist, but basing her entire character around it is incredibly shallow, and doesn't bode well for the rest of the story IMO. Characters are called 'characters' because they're primarily defined by their character, otherwise they'd be called 'appearances' or something... and hair and eye colour have very, very little to do with character.

(Yes, it's useful to be able to use them to recognise individual characters... but that will be the case so long as your artist gives characters distinct colours, no matter what those colours actually are.)

wow,,,, you really nailed what was written on the book... could you be the author???lol

[IxIoN]

I would say that the most important thing is the first impression. If you want the characters be lovable, make them do something really funny or something really amazing (if you want that character look cool). If you want it hatable, then its easy. Just make them do something really, REALLY bad. If its a love story, something like he is trying to take away with cruelty the girl he loves, and he knows that he is in love with her. That is really hatable in my opinion.

You can even make it lovable at first then hatable, to make the story evolve. Or even can make them like a mistery then realize how the character really is.

In other words, there is a lot of ways to make a good devoloping. Just have the image of how the character really is.

[yukiotome]

i do get you but... my real main point in here eventually is about the no. 3 which is about the hands.... i was thinking that do others use this kind as well.... or is it the first time they heard it..... i'm really curious cause it's my first time seeing this kind of way of making a character... since as far as i've researched, only this asks you to describe the chara's hand

[IxIoN]

i do get you but... my real main point in here eventually is about the no. 3 which is about the hands.... i was thinking that do others use this kind as well.... or is it the first time they heard it..... i'm really curious cause it's my first time seeing this kind of way of making a character... since as far as i've researched, only this asks you to describe the chara's hand

Well, I read it. But it doesnt make sense at all. There are things more important to be there in that list than the "hands" in my opinion. I didnt make myself clear. I was trying to point out which ones are more importante. Sry XD

[Jake]

There are things more important to be there in that list than the "hands" in my opinion.

I suspect (I would hope) that the point isn't so much that you should specifically think just about your characters' hands, more that you should think more about things which define their character than things which don't really have much bearing on their character at all. Hands is just a good example, because hands are actually more relevant to character than things like eye colour, and will get you considering things about the character's life and experiences which eye-colour won't, but most beginners will focus on things like eye colour and ignore things like hands without thinking about it. You only have to look through the WiP category on this forum to see many character lists 'detailing' a dozen or so characters that don't have any personality but all have eye-colour, hair-colour and blood-type (or some equally-trivial set of attributes).

So long as you're developing your characters in terms of their character, you're probably on the right track. There's a reason pen-portraits and character-sketches - despite the misleading names - rarely even make note of appearance.

[IxIoN]

Oh, now I get it. But there are differents methods of making a characters too. You can begin with a book but then you will develop a new style. Like for example Tanaka Romeo's Cross Channel. He make the character development in a certain and different way, making them from lovable to laughable then to hatable. I find it really interesting.

In my point of view, more than the blood type and hands, it's more important the way the characters interact. The dialogue. Something I'm making a real big effort on and it will be seen in the demo V. 2.

But it's only my opinion.

[Wintermoon]

In pure prose, I rarely pay attention to the appearance of the characters. I tend to forget details like hair color and eye color immediately after reading them. However, I have been known to pick visual novels purely based on the appearance of the characters. If I have to spend a lot of time looking at a character sprite, then I want that character sprite to be pleasant to look at.

Different medium, different rules.

[curry nochi rice]

actually, I also detail out the character's eye and hair color, height, weight and even vital stats so the artist can precisely estimate what to draw... their personality is written in the character synopsis instead....

[Dark]

Just remember, people re going to be seeing the sprite a lot, so they'll get the basics. Just focus on the subtle details that matter to your actual story, and don't get bogged down with the unnecessary information.

Be sure to make sure that your character has a voice to. Generic bland characters are never fun to interact with.

[Glasskitten]

How thoroughly peculiar. I mean, I can see wanting to map how a character's lifestyle has affected their appearance, but why hands? Is it normal for people to pay attention to others' hands in real life, aside from my father's fixation on a lady's fingernails being tidy and my own quasi-fetish for huge, pointy mutant claws? It's never even occurred to me that there was any non-skeletally-related variation in many settings, such as if everyone is attending the same high school with almost the same curriculum.

[Jake]

How thoroughly peculiar. I mean, I can see wanting to map how a character's lifestyle has affected their appearance, but why hands?

Because a majority of things people are likely to do involve using their hands in at least some capacity?

It doesn't seem so peculiar to me...

It's never even occurred to me that there was any non-skeletally-related variation in many settings, such as if everyone is attending the same high school with almost the same curriculum.

Well, when I was in secondary school (more or less the English equivalent) I often had scars on my hands from a modelling knife, where I'd slipped while modelling and cut myself, and sometimes had paint on my fingernails which had dried on and not come off with a wash. People who spent their afternoons reading novels wouldn't have such marks. People who went out playing Rugby at the weekend would be more likely to have very short fingernails and rough skin from all the grabbing and falling and so on.


As I said earlier: I'm pretty sure with this kind of thing it's not the hands specifically that are important, it's the thinking-about-your-character-in-terms-other-than-the-superficial. Hands are a convenient and easy mental exercise to make you do that.

[curry nochi rice]

if you're developing a character, you must take, IMHO, must take the personality, background and relationships first...if you really want to detail it, it should look like a resume or a biodata...


in my own, my characters start as a name (any idea that comes to mind), then i think about her personality then the appearance. third is her relationships with others and how do people get along with her...

take mine for as an example