Thursday, January 19, 2017

Building character, how to make heroes and villains, writing tips #2

Creating characters is by far, the most difficult thing to do when writing a story.



when you want to create a character you need to make sure that they aren't OP (for those of you who don't understand video game terms, that means Over Powered.). Readers want to be able to relate to the characters they are reading about, characters like hiccup (from How To Train Your Dragon)

(yes, the books, not the movies, everyone knows that him in the movies is completely unrealistic....)

or someone like Hermione Granger, a smart character who studies a lot (from Harry Potter)

 (yes, i know this is the movie version but i couldn't find a picture of her from the books.)

or maybe the kind of character that provides comic relief is tough situations like Zaphod Beeblebrox (from The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.)



Villains are also extremely difficult to make, why are they evil, what do they want, who are they trying to defeat?


do you want a serious villain, focused on killing the main character like Voldemort (from Harry Potter)



or a funny sort of villain like Princess the Destroyer (from Bad Unicorn.)



Now, when creating a character you want to first think of their appearance.
normally an author would say, "No! you start with their personality!" and that's also true, you must keep their personality in mind when designing their looks. Are they constantly happy and bubbly? for that you will want to use bright and pastel colors like pinks, yellows, whites, greens.

are they dark, mysterious, or even the villain? then you might want to use dark colors like dark reds, blues, blacks, grays, and other deep colors, unless you want the villain to not be obvious.


also, does you character have some kind of minion?

Image result for minionnot that kind of minion! (*cough* copyright *cough*)

companion?
Related imageImage result for pikachuImage result for dog

and does your character have any close friends?

(no more pictures provided, i have already gone past the point of no return.)
Image result for sweating laughing gif (okay, that was cheating.....)

try to keep all these points in mind when making an interesting character.
I hope some of this helps you, and keep and eye out from the next tip!
Let me know if you have any questions in the comments!

4 comments:

  1. love all the great advice! Since I'm an aspiring author I'll be visiting you often :)

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  2. I enjoy thinking about other characters that have already been written and what I like about them. Thanks for listing lots of them here!

    ReplyDelete