I'm currently correcting my internship reports, i have to turn these in by the end of this week so i can schedule the presentation this month.
I'm not allowed to post here when I'm depressed, and boy do i hate myself lately, but no one else is doing anything, so I'll just try to not go emo and post about something i been thinking about lately.
I've been wondering what make a character good and what doesn't.
Good character, how to:
First of all, i believe that a character being good or not is a subjective matter, some people have very low standards and will pretty much settle with anything that looks visually decent.
Personally, i think only an idiot would make a character with a design, give it a job, list of likes and dislikes, and call it done, and then claim he has more than 200 characters. If anything that's making extras (the blank people in the background in movies), not characters.
By watching Linkara's reviews of new and old comic, I've come to realize why i like or dislike some characters. Linkara tends to bring up simple points and subjects like: how to properly tell a story, what the hell is a plot, how to not fuck up a character's background, how to give a character motivation, etc. Usually these are basic subjects that every comic writer should know, but oddly a lot of professionals fail at. I've learned a few things from his reviews but i'm sure i've forgotten most of it already.
I tried to compile a list of things in my head a good character should have, although some aspects are optional, some are a must.
Background and motivation
It's important to have your character have a backstory, but that backstory needs to fit who the character is. For example, a character that spend his childhood eating mud and getting kicked in the nuts shouldn't b a optimistic and brilliant scientist for the heck of it. Sure sometimes a person with a certain childhood grows up to become something unexpected, but stretching that too far will just not seem reasonably believable to the reader and unable to relate to the character at all.
There's the other thing though, motivation. What does the character aspire for? does he have a dream? what's his goal in life? a good motivation could justify more than half of the background. Let's take the kid that eats mud and enjoys ball kicks, let's say one day he meets a scientist that feels pity for him and invents a cup to protect his balls and a machine to turn mud into chocolate, the kid could b so marveled by how the scientist made his life so much more awesome that he might want to become a scientist himself to bring that joy to other. still a crappy background, but u could make sense out of it and there's now a reason the kid would become a scientist.
The "that person who helped/saved me when i was a kid was a so when i grow up I'll b a " motivation seems way overused though. another classic background motivation/background is the "this was the dream of that person i loved, so I'll fulfill it!" one is really popular among anime, and if u ask me, not that original either, but heh, whatever works. One character that makes no sense to me is Sasuke from Naruto, worse character in the manga/anime. and it's easy to tell if your character is bad based on how many thing your character has in common with Sasuke.
I also don't get when the background and motivation don't seem to match. Like a girl who had a rough childhood and was molested, and now she wants to become a porn star? i predict little to no character growth there. Again, Sasuke seems retarded in his goals. he seems to want to do what makes less sense possible.
Personality
In general, the personality can b drawn from the character's background and motivation, or at least part of it.
A personality, seriously, a personality is a must, don't b a Sasuke, he makes Naruto seem likable, and that's a fucking achievement. It really seems weird that almost any other character in Naruto is way more interesting than Sasuke and yet Sasuke is a main character. I wouldn't say the character has to b likable, but have a personality, any, just not god damn blank.
A Gary Stu, This is very very important in my opinion. a Gary Stu, or Mary Sue for females, is a character is is just too god dammed perfect, and has little to no flaws. An example would b a Brain surgeon that is a black belt in 4 different martial arts and a 5 star chef, and he's popular as fuck and everyone likes him for no valid reason. These characters are bad because no one can relate to them and everyone ends up hating them.
Honestly, the design is what should come after all this, but never is.
Conclusion?
In the end, if you have all of these aspects polished, will your character b good? Hard to say. people judge by appearance too much, and the character could b only as good as the story he's involved in.
Why bother? well, if anything, just so u don't only say something like "my character is a dragon/wolf wizard that does some delicious pies" when people ask u about ur character.
I'm not allowed to post here when I'm depressed, and boy do i hate myself lately, but no one else is doing anything, so I'll just try to not go emo and post about something i been thinking about lately.
I've been wondering what make a character good and what doesn't.
Good character, how to:
First of all, i believe that a character being good or not is a subjective matter, some people have very low standards and will pretty much settle with anything that looks visually decent.
Personally, i think only an idiot would make a character with a design, give it a job, list of likes and dislikes, and call it done, and then claim he has more than 200 characters. If anything that's making extras (the blank people in the background in movies), not characters.
By watching Linkara's reviews of new and old comic, I've come to realize why i like or dislike some characters. Linkara tends to bring up simple points and subjects like: how to properly tell a story, what the hell is a plot, how to not fuck up a character's background, how to give a character motivation, etc. Usually these are basic subjects that every comic writer should know, but oddly a lot of professionals fail at. I've learned a few things from his reviews but i'm sure i've forgotten most of it already.
I tried to compile a list of things in my head a good character should have, although some aspects are optional, some are a must.
Background and motivation
It's important to have your character have a backstory, but that backstory needs to fit who the character is. For example, a character that spend his childhood eating mud and getting kicked in the nuts shouldn't b a optimistic and brilliant scientist for the heck of it. Sure sometimes a person with a certain childhood grows up to become something unexpected, but stretching that too far will just not seem reasonably believable to the reader and unable to relate to the character at all.
There's the other thing though, motivation. What does the character aspire for? does he have a dream? what's his goal in life? a good motivation could justify more than half of the background. Let's take the kid that eats mud and enjoys ball kicks, let's say one day he meets a scientist that feels pity for him and invents a cup to protect his balls and a machine to turn mud into chocolate, the kid could b so marveled by how the scientist made his life so much more awesome that he might want to become a scientist himself to bring that joy to other. still a crappy background, but u could make sense out of it and there's now a reason the kid would become a scientist.
The "that person who helped/saved me when i was a kid was a
I also don't get when the background and motivation don't seem to match. Like a girl who had a rough childhood and was molested, and now she wants to become a porn star? i predict little to no character growth there. Again, Sasuke seems retarded in his goals. he seems to want to do what makes less sense possible.
Personality
In general, the personality can b drawn from the character's background and motivation, or at least part of it.
A personality, seriously, a personality is a must, don't b a Sasuke, he makes Naruto seem likable, and that's a fucking achievement. It really seems weird that almost any other character in Naruto is way more interesting than Sasuke and yet Sasuke is a main character. I wouldn't say the character has to b likable, but have a personality, any, just not god damn blank.
A Gary Stu, This is very very important in my opinion. a Gary Stu, or Mary Sue for females, is a character is is just too god dammed perfect, and has little to no flaws. An example would b a Brain surgeon that is a black belt in 4 different martial arts and a 5 star chef, and he's popular as fuck and everyone likes him for no valid reason. These characters are bad because no one can relate to them and everyone ends up hating them.
Honestly, the design is what should come after all this, but never is.
Conclusion?
In the end, if you have all of these aspects polished, will your character b good? Hard to say. people judge by appearance too much, and the character could b only as good as the story he's involved in.
Why bother? well, if anything, just so u don't only say something like "my character is a dragon/wolf wizard that does some delicious pies" when people ask u about ur character.
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