Creating a Believable Character

We’ve all been there, if we need to create a character to role-play as, write as, or write about we get stuck. Sometimes we don’t realise what we’ve done until it’s too late, and that character is damaged beyond belief. Some people use online forms and answer questions to check their characters, others use a regimented form. You get people who will throw in random weaknesses – possibly that their character will never come across, and those that just don’t care.

But it can be easy to create a believable character without basing them on a real person, using a boring system or using online questionnaires. There are lots of people out there that have managed, and this article aims to make it possible for others to do the same.

Stick to your guns

There is a lot of debate about whether sticking to your guns can create a realistic story, plot, character, world etc, or whether one should start from scratch with weeks of research, and writing something or someone they know nothing about.

When it comes to characters it is easier to write about something you are more familiar with. If you are a young writer who hasn’t experienced a hard gruelling job, it might be easier to stick to a character who hasn’t too. Conversely if you have spent years working the dead shift, you could use that.

If you don’t write about anything familiar, you write as a boy when you are female, or something more extreme this can affect the realism. That isn’t to say you shouldn’t – it can be a good experience to create a character that is nothing like yourself, it’s just harder to keep to them. Although this has nothing to do with creating a balanced character it does help with the afterwards.

Creating an imbalanced character

Much easier than the topic of discussion you don’t really need much practice to create one.

In the RP world (and in writing) there are two main types of badly composed characters. Drama-kings/queens who are usually characters for which everything goes wrong for, and make a big thing out of nothing; mary-sue/stu who are perfect characters – they have the highest IQ, the best sports record, are physically perfect etc.

You might believe it is difficult to get it that wrong, but many hero’s of stories have had/have a bad life, or are the dashing prince who can do nothing wrong.

Creating a balanced character

First thing’s first – the basics.

It’s usually advisable to at least know if your character is going to be female or male, old or young, what part they are filling in your story/RPs. If you are creating a villain for example, who is really just a bully in school or a hero who just doesn’t want to be.

But this isn’t always the case – so we start randomly.

Do we want a female or a male character? This question is very important, because it can really affect everything else that happens to your character or what they like – how they achieved their goals. Even how they might think. And without a good basis you can’t even start making a balanced character!

But let’s move on from the basics anyway. Chose a gender, chose a general age etc – these things are the ground work, but don’t usually influence how balanced a character is. This is done through a characters weaknesses and strengths, their history and family, their culture and beliefs. Even how they look in comparison with how they act and their gifts.

The balancing act

Lots of things can bog one down when explaining the ins and outs of making a believable, balanced character, but let’s try to keep this simple.

In order to make a balanced character you have to avoid making an unbalanced character. It is far easier to keep in mind what you shouldn’t do than what you should do.

It is easier to avoid making a perfect character than a drama-king – most heroes or villains tend to have some sort of trouble in their childhood or life – particularly heroes. It’s all about the image of things – just look at Harry Potter, or James Adams.

So to avoid making a perfect character…

1. No matter how good-looking your character is they will always have at least one flaw – this doesn’t need to be anything drastic if you intend to flaw them in their personality or perhaps abilities, but there should be at least one problem – maybe a tattoo that they hate, or a small scar where they fell over.
2. Balance their gifts and ruinations. For example if your character is extremely academic and good at sports give them some short comings like they have asthma and are complete jerks.

   There are people out there that are good looking, great at sports, in top sets for all their subjects and are lovely people – but these people have often given up something for all of this. Maybe they work 24/7 and have poor social skills, or have a horrible home life in which they try to avoid so completely they do everything they can to keep themselves out of the house. Or they have a drug habit. Who knows? But nobody is perfect.

3. Nobody has wholly good personality traits. Just because somebody is generous to a fault, humble, always polite and completely fair on the surface, your character needs some sort of flaw – in reality this is always the case.

But the flaws your character has should always be explainable and make trouble for them at times. Maybe their perceived good points become flaws later on in the story. But as soon as you have an imperfect character, who has flaws that can be seen, you are well on the way to making a balanced character.

But then you get people on the opposite end of the scale. They are ugly, have no redeeming features and make a big deal out of everything. It is easier to spot one of these characters and far more annoying – but it is always easier to correct. Nobody wants to write about a character like this consistently – it doesn’t feel good and becomes tiresome.

1. Does your character need to be ugly? They can be average looking or slightly dumpy – they don’t need to be a twisted, gnarled figure of a human being unless this is a major point to your character.
2. Do they need to be completely vile? Do they need to be completely evil with no line they won’t cross?
3. Do they need to be so utterly emotional that dropping a pencil puts them in floods of tears?
4. Does everything need to go wrong for them? Just a couple of bad things in a row can seem like the earth is falling apart for a teenager, or a divorce can have a bad effect on one of the partners. You don’t need your character to put your character through a messy break-up, kill their dog, chuck them down a flight of stairs, put their brother in hospital and give them a incurable illness to make people feel sympathy for them.

If you can avoid both of these bad types of characters you are even closer to a balanced character than you think. Just try to balance their flaws and strengths, and make sure who they are can make your story more forward. And remember not all characteristics need to be black or white – they can be both.

Of course it is important to make sure that any characteristics, occupations, behaviours fit with the age and gender of your character. An eleven year old girl isn’t going to be a professional footballer who wears her hair in a mohawk and has size eight feet.