Post by caution on Apr 10, 2011 22:02:35 GMT -5
Creating a character can be a daunting thing. There's so much information you need to put together, so much to think about - not just in profiles for creation either! Here I'll help you with pointers on creating great characters with plenty of depth and personality.
First thing's first! names. Names can be challenging for some people. Especially when no double-ups are aloud. The trick is to decide what gender you want (this is easy. it's male or female) then pull up your handy dandy, nifty name generator! I like to use this one because it gives you the origin, meaning, and alternatives!
I'm going to use 'NEASA'. It's Irish (nifty!)
So here we go!Name: Neasa
Age:
Gender: mare
Breed:
Color:
Eyes:
Markings:
Personality:
History:
Parents: _____x______
Mate:
Offspring:
With the age I tend to go through and see what everyone else does and do the opposite. So. . . I usually end up with fairly older horses, because everyone makes spunky two and three year olds! Neasa is an old woman in the Irish myths, so Neasa will be an elderly mare for me.Name: Neasa
Age: 11
Gender: mare
Breed: mustang x furioso
Color:
Eyes:
Markings:
Personality:
History:
Parents: _____x______
Mate:
Offspring:
So Neasa is an old mare and she's a mottly cross breed. What a wonderful thing! I love mixing things up! Next up is her appearance!Name: Neasa
Age: 11
Gender: mare
Breed: mustang x furioso
Color: Bay
Eyes: brown
Markings: broken blaze, three socks
Personality:
History:
Parents: _____x______
Mate:
Offspring:
I usually will find stock images and go off of that, but today I've decided to be plain and simple. A bay with a few white markings and plain brown eyes. A simple mare alright! Well, this is the very, very basics. From here we can go to our next step - the personality! Now, since I chose a plain mare I'm going to give her a bold personality. Beware of Mary-sues/Gary-stus!Mary Sue: A female character in a book, movie, poem, story, or rpg that is 'perfect'. For example she never loses her temper, everyone loves her, nothing bad happens to her, and she's always sweet, gentle, and quiet.
Gary Stu: The all-star in movies, he's the popular guy dating the cheerleader that makes the homecoming winning touch-down! He's perfect, too. He's also a no-no.
So how do we avoid Mary's and Gary's? Very simple. Sit down and pick THREE traits that you want to be bad. Great examples for this are the seven deadly sins! Pride, sloth, envy, greed, wrath, etc.
[/li][li]Greed
[/li][li]Wrath
that's my choices.
Name: Neasa
Age: 11
Gender: mare
Breed: mustang x furioso
Color: Bay
Eyes: brown
Markings: broken blaze, three socks
Personality: Neasa is a bold mare. She has a strong temper and an intense sense of pride, causing her to be shallow. She isn't all bad, however. While she can be vicious, self-centered, and greedy she has her moments to shine like polished steel. She loves spending time with foals. She has a soft-spot for the young, and so never lashes out at them. She mis-carried her first foal and ever since then has been anguished over babes. She doesn't tolerate mares, however, and tends to stand alone or boss others around. She's willing to fight for what she wants, but is too cowardly to start the fights. Shallow, greedy, rude, sometimes loving. . . Neasa has big issues. Mentally unstable, she believes she hears things, whispering in her ears. Something is there, telling her that everyone hates her. Convinced that the voice is the voice of reason and truth she is distrustful of everyone and envelopes herself in secrets. Who can blame her, though? She's never been let in on any secrets herself, so why share hers? Jealousy is a deep thorn inside her heart.
History:
Parents: _____x______
Mate:
Offspring:
Okay, okay, so. . . Neasa has more faults than brownie-points, but she's balanced. Paranoid, rude, spiteful. . . She's a handful of a mare - and she's not as pretty as she thinks she is - which is why she hates mares. She's jealous!
Next is the most daunting part - the history! While History and Personality are unnecessary for acceptance here, at mustang, they're necessary to keep your characters straight and believable! The history is crucial in creating the character as who they are today. Since history generally includes such things as parents, siblings, mates, and offspring it's important to list these first, then write the history.
Name: Neasa
Age: 11
Gender: mare
Breed: mustang x furioso
Color: Bay
Eyes: brown
Markings: broken blaze, three socks
Personality: Neasa is a bold mare. She has a strong temper and an intense sense of pride, causing her to be shallow. She isn't all bad, however. While she can be vicious, self-centered, and greedy she has her moments to shine like polished steel. She loves spending time with foals. She has a soft-spot for the young, and so never lashes out at them. She mis-carried her first foal and ever since then has been anguished over babes. She doesn't tolerate mares, however, and tends to stand alone or boss others around. She's willing to fight for what she wants, but is too cowardly to start the fights. Shallow, greedy, rude, sometimes loving. . . Neasa has big issues. Mentally unstable, she believes she hears things, whispering in her ears. Something is there, telling her that everyone hates her. Convinced that the voice is the voice of reason and truth she is distrustful of everyone and envelopes herself in secrets. Who can blame her, though? She's never been let in on any secrets herself, so why share hers? Jealousy is a deep thorn inside her heart.
History:
Parents: Uther x Morgana
Mate: Caliban
Offspring: none
Now that we have that we can write the history! Histories are stories, tricky stories, but stories none-the-less. Think of them as introductory posts if you need to! In my history Neasa is going to be raised by her father, not her vain mother, she has no siblings, her mate is her fathers beta and she loses her foal. Lets see how I can work that out into an in-depth reason why she is the way she is.
Name: Neasa
Age: 11
Gender: mare
Breed: mustang x furioso
Color: Bay
Eyes: brown
Markings: broken blaze, three socks
Personality: Neasa is a bold mare. She has a strong temper and an intense sense of pride, causing her to be shallow. She isn't all bad, however. While she can be vicious, self-centered, and greedy she has her moments to shine like polished steel. She loves spending time with foals. She has a soft-spot for the young, and so never lashes out at them. She mis-carried her first foal and ever since then has been anguished over babes. She doesn't tolerate mares, however, and tends to stand alone or boss others around. She's willing to fight for what she wants, but is too cowardly to start the fights. Shallow, greedy, rude, sometimes loving. . . Neasa has big issues. Mentally unstable, she believes she hears things, whispering in her ears. Something is there, telling her that everyone hates her. Convinced that the voice is the voice of reason and truth she is distrustful of everyone and envelopes herself in secrets. Who can blame her, though? She's never been let in on any secrets herself, so why share hers? Jealousy is a deep thorn inside her heart.
History: Neasa was born to a pair of leads in a further land than Mustang. Raised by her father, she learned to hate her mother on a deep level, furious that the appaloosa mare would spend more time fawning over stallions, betraying her father, and pampering herself. She became cynical at a young age. Detesting everything her mother stood-for, including the same gender she shared, Neasa turned her back on her mother and her fathers teachings. Shutting her mind to the wills and cries of her herd she fled with her fathers Beta, Caliban, as a two-year old. Pregnant with her first foal at two and a half, she thought she had it good, traveling with Caliban - who slowly, but surely, won her bitter heart - only to lose him to weather disasters. Traumatized by Calibans death she failed to take care of herself and lost her foal before she could carry it to term. Ever since she has been traveling aimlessly, seeking nothing more than a place to lead and pamper herself. Slowly allowing her faults to devour her and drag her down the same, vain path as her mother.
Parents: Uther x Morgana
Mate: Caliban
Offspring: none
My history is oddly short for this lesson, but that's okay, because this is a lesson. I included all the crucial points, added details, and brought her around to today. My tricks include planning out a list of key-points in my characters lives. Did mommy/daddy abuse/neglect them? Were they only children or was their sibling rivalry going on? Was the herd ransacked by outsiders, weather, predators, or did the character simply leave? There are countless main events one can have in a characters life!
Don't be afraid to ask other members for help or to think outside the box! Bubbly, cheerful characters can exist, just don't make them perfect. Bitter, forlorn characters exist too, just, again, don't leave them without a bright side! Go crazy with it, but be believable and with personalities contradiction and conflict are fine! It's called hypocritical to be like that. So use that to your advantage, because Hypocrites are fun to role play!
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