Oh boy. Buckle up, because I have a
lot of thoughts on this.
When it comes to what actually motivates me to create a character:
I rarely create new ones because I find that most of them don't stick - they just don't grab me, and I lose interest in them fairly quickly. More on this later.
With the characters that
have stuck - my longest-running guy has been around since 2013 - I find that I'm often inspired by something external. The one that's been around since 2013 was initially inspired by a minor character in a play I had gone to see - something about the acting and characterization really spoke to and evidently stayed with me, enough that I eventually built an entirely new story around them in an effort to imitate them. With another character that's also been around for around a decade, I was also inspired to create them based off of certain character archetypes I was enjoying on a TV series.
I think it makes sense, what with roleplay being a collaborative hobby, and the creative interest being something that pushes both roleplayers collaborating on a plot. If I see someone else's character work and feel moved by it - be they another roleplayer, an author or an actor - that interest tends to push me towards creating something of my own.
What actually makes me
stick with a character, though, is whether I have a clear vision of the story I want to tell through them. Most of the characters I've wound up abandoning over the years are ones I didn't feel like I could tell a substantial or focused story through. So while I do need that initial spark of inspiration, whether a character actually becomes a staple in my roster depends on whether I can see a substantial story taking shape around them, and what I want that story to be.
When it comes to the process of creating a new character:
Falling back on the above, I start with the macro of it all. What story do I want to tell, why do I want to tell it, and
how do I tell it. That last question is what usually transforms into concrete character details: what I want their personality, behavior and motivations to be in service of the story, and how I build their past and shaping experiences around that. The rest of the "smaller" details - like likes and dislikes - will inform themselves from this process.
Finally, on continuing to develop characters, and how much I need to "inform" other writers:
For what it's worth, I'm never done developing a character. Even my main guy from back in 2013 is still in development - I will review and update his character sheet every once in a while, still.
With that being said, though: I don't treat my character sheets as "catch all" dumps where I have to list every single detail about them. It can be overwhelming for a potential writing partner, and it also takes out all the fun of discovering a character through IC writing. I try to strike a balance between giving the reader enough information to understand who my character is as a person, while deliberately leaving some things out.
For one, I don't do characters' personal histories. Like, at all. The only kind of history I incorporate into my sheets is professional history, where it's relevant (e.g., I have a mercenary character who has worked globally for over a decade and is wanted in multiple countries; that feels like relevant information another writer could possibly use to build a plot around). I do this for three reasons:
- It leaves a lot of delicious details to be discovered through IC writing.
- Some things will become apparent in writing, without me having to list it in their character sheet. I have a very tall, meaty character with huge hands - I'm going to mention in writing, repeatedly, that his hands are huge, because anything he holds winds up looking like a toy. So I don't feel the need to put that in his character sheet in advance.
- I trust the rest of my characterization to be informative enough of what my character is like. I don't need to list their past traumas in order to depict someone who has past traumas. I can instead show you their behavioral patterns, what they inherently dislike because of those past experiences, or the beliefs and morals they've developed as a result - all without detailing the experiences themselves.
I strongly believe that characterization emerges through choices and circumstances. A person's core beliefs and how they act, alone or with others, can tell you a lot about who they are, without creating an exhaustive list of their characteristics or paragraphs upon paragraphs of backstory.
Knowing a character and
documenting it are entirely different things.
