How to Make Those Characters 3Dimentional
So this is also probably the hardest part of your book: making convincing characters. And not just any characters, but dynamic, diverse ones. Ones you don’t just write as, because if you form every character to your own personality, you’ll have a book of Mary/Gary Sues with no good conflict. Unless you’re insufferable. But then again, that’d make the book a bad soap opera then, wouldn’t it?
So you’ve basically gotta create new humans, from scratch.
No pressure.
But I’ve found a good system to flesh these 3Dimensional Characters out to at least have an idea of the person they would be, and from there, you’ll learn your own character well enough to know what they would and wouldn’t do as the story progresses and they become their own human.
PAGE ONE: The Overview
So I say “page,” but that’s because I’m one of those psycho writers that handwrite their work first. I’m into the torture aspect of it. You can use excel or paper or a word doc or whatever your vice is. The idea here, though, is you’re not gonna wanna go further than, say, a page and a half of formatted info.
When you first make your character, you’re gonna want to have an “overview” of the person they are, by — oddly enough — stereotyping them as hard as you absolutely can.
This also isn’t going to be a personal page, full of date of births and physical features; that’ll come later. This page is solely for giving you the bare bone foundation, the skeletal support beams and cement of your character so you can reference it both as you build them, and later on as you’re writing them. This is all you will want to put in The Overview.
Character Full Name
Simple enough, no explanation needed. This is so you can find the reference.
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator Personality Type
Hear me out. Some swear by this system, some call it a farce; no matter how you personally feel about the MBTI, I think it’s a great way to get a base idea of your Character’s traits. Diplomatic Vs Analytic, throw in their intro/extrovertness and strengths and weaknesses, and you have a good base idea of how your Character will react to those plotlines. I personally suggest the website 16Personalities for this, as it’s a good, simplistic yet informative overview of these personality types. Find your favorite strengths and weakness and list them.
Myers-Briggs Personality Subtype
Oooooooh yeah, subtype. My big issue with MBTI is…it’s a box. Not everyone is a direct shadow of an outlined personality type determined by someone in *checks notes* 1962. People are more nuanced than that. Which is why, if you wish to, you can add a subtype, to further develop all the possible ways of your Character reacting to a situation, and who they are as a whole. Find your favorite strengths and weakness and embellish the information from your main type with it.
3 Strongest Qualities
Yeah, we’re going that route. It’s boring and you may roll your eyes while writing it, but hey — it’s effective. These are going to be 3 of 6 core basis of your Character. All other personality traits pale to these 3 strengths
3 Weakest Qualities
For the love of all gods above and demons below, take this point seriously. Your Character needs to have weaknesses. And not the mundane stuff like ‘ooooo they’re bad at math,’ no. Make them flawed. You can tear this straight from the 16Personality page on your MBTI of choice, or reference this for a good idea of how every positive strength can also lead to their downfall. I also suggest Nathan Bransford for the crafting section of your story. Go check out his writing advice, it’s immaculate.
Cognitive Bias Type
As your Character is confronted with the drama of your plotlines, it helps to know how they’d react to information that totally fucks their world view. Here is a good explanation of 20 different cognitive bias types that you can use. Keep your Character’s personality loosely in mind: while their cognitive bias doesn’t have to be an exact reflection of them, it hurts the storyline if your open-minded Character suffers from the Ostrich Effect and refuses to acknowledge information they see as bad.
The Seven Deadly Sins
Not in a religious sense — or an anime one — but the Catholics got a point: we all suffer from our vices. Your Character needs to as well. From most to least likely, list the order of these vices your Character would suffer from: Pride, Gluttony, Greed, Lust, Sloth, Wrath and Envy.
Guilty Character Trope
Look, character tropes get a bad wrap. And I think it’s because there’s so many instances where people forget to make a character more than their trope. So here, instead of going “oh haha he’s the big older brother!” or something of the sort, you’re going to combine two Character tropes for your character. Not only will it force you to think outside of the box/not limit yourself to thinking within the trope — but it’s kind of fun. It helps you utilize the character trope in the way it’s actually supposed to be used. For example, some of my character’s tropes are:
Hotshot Damsel: reckless dumbass who very often needs saving
Sacrificial Sacrifice: heals all — but who can heal them?
Reluctant Comedic Relief: fine I’ll save the day, but I’m gonna complain about it the whole time.
The idea is to assign them their place in the story — and also what kind of grief they’ll be giving it. You don’t have to do this, but like I said, it’s kinda fun, so.
The Inserts — Author’s Choice
Nothing is wrong with using other media to figure out where yours would fit. This is where I want you to look at those things that inspire you, and shove your little OC in there, see where’d they fit. What cabin would they be in at Camp Half-Blood? What morals align with them if they were a Jedi? There’s Hogwarts houses, the Factions from Divergent — you can even throw in video games! I’ve even messed around and thrown all my characters into DnD classes. The point of this play around area is to compare your work to those of media you’ve already consumed; the sense of familiarity is a safety net you can always fall back on when you feel confused.
PAGE TWO: The Interview
You’re going to have to know your Character beyond these stereotypes, though. A book full of them is either going to come out flat or prejudiced, and we don’t want either of those. That leads to The Interview, where you’ll figure out more about their personal self. This will be a tiring creative writing exercise, so make sure you’re prepared.
These will be split up into 7 sections: The Basics, Growing Up, Past Influences, Beliefs and Opinions, Relationships with Others, Likes and Dislikes, and Self Image. And these uh…well, I’m not gonna lie to you. The system I use has 100 questions. But I came out of this in the 8 times I’ve done it feeling like I know these Characters like the back of my hand. Not as OC’s, or literary devices — but friends.
Here is a link to the 100 questions I use in my “Character Interview" — and if you have any issues accessing the link, you can also find the subject here posted on my own tumblr for easy access.
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where did u learn to draw? if it was from a website could u please link it? esp if its abt male anatomy bc i SUCK at drawing men. ur art is truly stunning!!🥰🥰
Totally get what you mean about drawing men, I’ve always found guys more awkward to get right. But I’ve improved a lot after churning out so many naked avengers, practice really works with male anatomy, and with as much reference as possible. I dunno about you but I’m a copier, I can nail a likeness but take away my reference and I’m fucked. Marvel provide a tonne of reference and I’m fortunate to live with a huge partner who doesn’t mind if I pose him for Thor and sometimes Cap. Nobody has ever taught me to draw really. The best help I’ve ever had was learning how to use a critical eye doing life drawing in college. People always hate it when you tell them the best way to improve is life drawing and practicing - but it’s the truth.
Here’s a website my partner uses to generate random images of life models. He’s a designer and really skilled at comic style art, but struggles with anatomical proportions so he draws from life to warm up all the time.
https://quickposes.com/en
With regards to drawing dudes I’d suggest a couple more things:Have a closer look at comic book art. They’re full of testosterone pumped characters that fucking OWN a page like a punch in the face, great examples of confident mark making. There’s also a lot of really bad anatomy you can use to test your critical eye; when bad proportions work and when they don’t work at all.Personally I think you can find the most beautiful examples of crafted male anatomy in renaissance marble. There’s a fun activity where you look through a load of renaissance sculpture of women and try to spot the ones where the models they used were actually male. (Here’s a hint - the breasts look like they’re stuck on with an ice cream scoop). Renaissance printmakers, too, cause etchings and woodcuts use crosshatching to make them 3dimentional and it’s a great way to learn where and how to apply shadow.
Michelangelo and Albrecht Durer. Practiced on his pillows.
All this depends on what you want to do and how you want to improve. If you want to message me or leave more anon asks with what you’ve got already, or something you want pointers on I’d love to see and an more than happy to help. I have more artist referance books than I know what to do with, and a lot of thoughts to go with them.
Forgive my quarentined and intelectually starved ass the longest answer known to this blog.
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