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chocolatea · 3 years

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how to keep people in character: a guide

I have gotten some requests for advice on how to write specific characters, but the underlying principles to keeping characterizations canon-compliant can apply to writing anyone in any series. Better yet, this advice may help you come up with character interpretations that feel both canonical yet original (and distinct from mine!).

You can reduce characterization to three basic principles:

1) Habits and speech patterns

Habits and speech patterns serve as “shortcuts” that immediately connect the character to the canon. The audience recognizes these cues and will associate them to the actual character.

Speech patterns are particularly important to keeping a character recognizable. As soon as the speech pattern of a person deviates from canon with no explanation, the suspension of disbelief will break for an audience. A common issue I see in shipping fics is that people will make a character give the love interest a pet name that just would never leave their mouth in canon-compliant situations.

Habits can be verbal tics (e.g. they say “babe” a lot), bodily motions (e.g. touching their hair or pushing up their glasses), behavioural trends (e.g. eating a lot), or even phrases that come up often. The latter I find is underused but very effective. Here’s the thing about people in real life: they will repeat phrases and stories, sometimes even verbatim, to different people! If you lift a line out of the show or book and re-contextualize it, it’ll immediately feel like the canon.

Habits come with two caveats:

Do not overuse the tics. It can be annoying and intrusive, especially when used more frequently than in canon!

Do not rely too much on these habits for characterization. Your character may come off as a shallow imitation of canon without “substance” if so.

The next two tips will help give your characterization substance and originality.

2) Drivers in decision-making and thought patterns

People in real life often have patterns in the decisions they make or the thoughts they have because of some kind of underlying motivation, whether or not they are cognizant of it. The same will apply to well-written characters in fiction. Try to think about any significant decisions the character makes in canon and why they might exist. (Hot tip: If these motivations are not explicitly stated in the canon material, this is where you can come up with some extremely juicy headcanons!)

Understanding the fundamental drivers behind the character’s actions will allow you to extrapolate and write what they’d do in the situations in your fanfic. These non-canon situations can include relationships! It’s a common issue for romantic relationships in fanfic to feel OOC because the characters act inconsistently with their canon decision-making and thought patterns solely for their love interest.

Examples of common drivers in fiction:

Abstract values such as freedom, revenge, survival, self-preservation. (If you’re writing anything political, try to figure out how they value conservatism vs liberalism, anarchy vs authoritarianism, etc).

Baggage and trauma relating to familial issues or past relationships, which can often result in maladaptive trends in behaviour or hard-lined moral codes and ideals.

Significant relationships that affect their needs, goals, etc. Pay attention to platonic, familial, or romantic bonds that are strongly featured in the canon.

All these examples are interrelated. Often our abstract values will arise from baggage, which then influence relationships, which in turn influence our values. Try to think about how each of these types of drivers may relate to one another for your characters.

Stories tend to have the most layered characterizations when the author has identified two drivers that are in conflict with one another, or one that leads to opposing behaviours. This can also be the starting point for character growth, whether it’s a hero’s journey or descent into a villain role.

3) Cultural context

Cultural context is a subcategory of drivers that I often find is overlooked.

The culture in which someone was raised will often influence their decision-making habits, whether they conform to it or outright reject it. Recognizing the cultural context for a character can be very useful for figuring out cool little headcanons or extrapolating behaviour/opinions in the absence of canon material.

Some examples of how culture contributes to behaviour:

The kind of art and hobbies they enjoy, or at least are on their radar.

Knowledge they would have about certain topics—even mundane things like musical instruments, certain skill sets, etc.

Their judgments on themselves and other characters, as well as the values they’d project onto their relationships.

The actions they would take when trying to conform to social norms of the time period—or even the set of actions that might occur to them!

It’s a pet peeve of mine when characters behave in a way that ignores their cultural context, simply because it won’t feel realistic! Since I’ve been relating this to shipping, I will make this point: what time period and country (or coded culture) is this character in? What are courtship norms like? And, if we’re going to go the nsfw route, what “interests” (haha) would exist?

Here are some quick examples of this analysis applied to two different characters: Hakuryuu Ren (Magi), Daryl Dixon (TWD). These are characters I’ve gotten requests for—let me know if anyone is interested in others!

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#writing advice #character

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chocolatea · 3 years

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When writing emotionally reserved characters…

This list is obviously subjective. There is no “right” or “wrong”, but as an emotionally reserved person, these are some things I thought were worth mentioning! You don’t have to do everything on this list, it’s simply here for inspiration/a bit of help.

Show your character’s struggles with holding in emotions. Just because your character won’t let themself go in public, doesn’t mean they don’t struggle holding everything in.

Find a motive. Pride and/or consideration for those around them can make emotionally reserved people hold back more than would be considered good for them. There are other reasons too. Think of something, perhaps the initial cause and the reason now are different, but try to give them a reason.

Show side-effects. Everything you bottle up shows itself in another way, whether it’s physical or mental. This can be long- and short-term, depending on the severity of the emotions.

Give them coping mechanisms. Everyone who wishes not to show certain emotions has a trick or two to keep themselves in check. Taking a sip of water, not looking people in the eyes, clenching their fists, breathing just a bit too deeply/shallow. There are a few lists of these online, I believe.

Write subconscious signs that they give off, which their close friends or family might pick up on. Just because these characters want to keep their emotions to themselves, doesn’t mean they don’t give off signs. Some manage to keep said signs well hidden from those closest to them, but it’s more common for their environment to pick up on something at the very least.

Perhaps make some characters perceive your OC as unable to feel certain emotions. There’s bound to be at least one person in their environment who thinks the character just doesn’t feel some emotions.

Convey their confusion/bewilderment when they’re confronted with others’ emotions. Most of the time, it’s difficult for an emotionally reserved person to understand why on earth someone else can’t keep themself under control.

Pick one main emotion to hide. This is the one they’re most uncomfortable showing, one they decide they’d rather go through physical and emotional pain than showing. Depending on whether their keeping to themself has to do with pride, your character might not even want to let this emotion surface when they’re alone. Generally these are the “weakest” emotions: sadness, fear, etc.

Let them cover up one emotion with another when they really can’t keep a straight face anymore. Generally speaking, anger is an amazing cover-up for a variety of emotions. Your voice is less likely to break when you raise it, that upset look on your face will suddenly make sense, and the fact that fear made you shaky suddenly seems to correlate with anger instead.

Learn the difference between suppression and repression. They’re two very different words often used as synonyms. I’m not a professional, so I don’t think I can explain it properly, but there are some great articles online!

Try to steer clear of making them unsympathetic. Not every reserved person is unsympathetic, but they can come off as such because they just have no idea on how to deal with emotions or show them to the outside world. Focusing on their internal conflicts, both with what caused them to feel strongly about something and keeping it concealed.

On that note: you don’t have to make them cold-hearted and stoic. Not every emotionally reserved person is the same. In fact, depending on the emotions they wish to keep private, they might be very cheerful and empathetic friends.

Do not, and I repeat do not, let them “give in” to their emotions the moment they’ve found their true love. This isn’t realistic. It’s laughable to any emotionally reserved person. Finding someone they’re really comfortable around is great, and your character might be able to let go later on, but things like that take time to develop. A month won’t suffice; a few years are more likely to be realistic.

Not everyone who is emotionally reserved has some kind of trauma that caused it. Yes, some people become quite guarded after experiencing a trauma of some sort, but other people just are the way they are. No specific reason, no tragedies, they are just who they are. There’s always our society to rely on for steering them in the “right” direction.

Keep in mind that everyone is different. I write from my own experience, as would anyone else, so my post is by no means complete. Try to find different views on the topic – from real people instead of scientific articles.

#writing advice #emotion #character

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