CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT
By outlaw torn
Heya! I'm going to help teach you about character development, in
other words, how to make a character.
An important thing you need to think about when building a character
is their personality, for example: how do they act? What kind of
people are they? Are they smart, dumb, sad, happy, pretty, ugly?
How are they on the inside? Are they wound up or like a slug?
You are going to have to worry about these things if you want to write
something believable.
Now for some examples: Rika Makino from digimon tamers (season
3) is cold and cruel at the start, as time goes on she softens up
to the other kids. Can you tell me why that is? Is it because she's
had some bad things happen to her? Is it because she feels all-alone
in the world? And then why she becomes a happy, cheerful girl? It
is because she learns what it is to have peoples her who cares,
and then her personality softens up.
Example: Henry Wong (as he's known in the American version) is a
cheerful laid back character from the start. He's sort of like a
hippy from the 70's; the guy who wears funky clothes and drives
around in a van. Except he's sort of a new-age hippy from being
born in the present, which shows in the way, he dresses. The way
he hangs out with Terriermon, totally open with his problems and
emotions and truthful, even though they're both males is a fine
example of his laid back personality.
Example: Takato Matsuda (goggle head) is an example of a "Mr. Mom"
type person with how he cares for Guilmon. How he teaches Guilmon
everything, from how to eat, to not hang around shady people is
a good example of his mother/father instincts. And not because he's
laid back like Henry, its simply because he's well, like a mom to
Guilmon. And he freaks out whenever Guilmon gets into trouble; this
shows his high-strung, wound-up nature. Showing that he's energetic
and looking positive, well, in most situations. And that he's wound-up
because he's always worrying about things, like a mom.
Example: Jeri Katoh is sort of like the blonde girl who hangs out
at the corner store, looking for a guy, but since she's so full
of energy and happy, she winds up scaring the boy off, leaving her
alone and wondering why he got spooked.
Another thing about some ones personality is how they dress.
Example: Rika Makino dresses in jeans and a T-shirt all the time
because she doesn't like the way girls are "supposes" to dress.
So she's kind of like a biker, a Rebel, plus she's wearing steel-toed
boots, which is almost just like a biker.
Example: Henry Wong dresses in plain clothes, but not just "street
clothes" like Rika, because Henry has his own style and likes his
vest. Which is bright orange and is the most "Swishy" thing I have
ever seen. His black pants show that he is very plain and bland.
But he wears his vest because that's what makes him stand out.
These are two largest style examples that there are, if you really
want to go into exact stuff you can look at how Takato dresses,
in a hooded sweat-shirt and a pair of slacks, this shows his energetic
as well as his wound up style.
Remember, you have to make a character stand out from the rest in
some way to make them real and like able. What kind personality
they have and the clothes they wear are only a few, other things
include thing like the color of their eyes and how they talk are
other, even a deep-voiced person can be nice and cheerful.
I hope that this lesson has been helpful to all of you, good luck!