How To: Create Believable Characters

[Twee]

A guide in character creation

Hello all! So this is my first tutorial. I hope it is of some use to you! In this guide, I will show you how to create believable roleplay characters that maybe deviate from the 'norm' a little more.

I will use my own character, Talia, as an example.

Let's get started!

Appearance

First and foremost, you've got to decide what your character will look like. Let's say, for example, you want to create a semi-realistic character in appearance. I will start by creating Talia.

I won't go very in-depth in appearance of characters, because there are already plenty of tutorials covering this side of creation. I'll just go through it quick~.

There's Talia. I want to make her look the part, since I plan to have her be a sweet character - this is best represented through colour, in most cases. If you want to have your character a gentle giant-type, who looks menacing and mean but is actually a complete sweetheart (or vice-versa), there is also that option!

Now I have my Talia. She looks great, all innocently pale, but now let's make her even more believable. Yep - it's time for the bio.

The Basics

Firstly, let's work out the very basis of her biography, the things like age and the like.

Name: Talia.
Gender: Female.
Age: Three.
Species: Wolf.

Easy. Now comes the fun part! Let's give Talia here some personality. I sometimes find that the easiest way to go about creating a basic personality for a character is to start by listing adjectives to describe them with. Again, using Talia here:

• Quiet
• Calm
• Kind
• Loyal
• Easily persuaded
• Follower, not a leader
• Meek
• Impossible to anger.

There we go! Talia now has a very basic personality. It's a little lacking, though, so this is the point where I would put it into a descriptive paragraph or two. Something like this:

"Talia is a sweet young female who finds it hard to bare her teeth at anybody, even the jerks she comes across. Quiet and calm, it's difficult to properly anger her, and for this reason she barely ever raises her voice. Quite meek, she is far from being a natural leader, preferring to follow someone instead. She'd rather not be the one giving the orders for fear of others not believing in her. She is very easily persuaded to do things people want her to do and dislikes watching others fight."

And there we have it. This is what I would call the core of your character. Now you need to ask yourself: why? Backstory time!

Creating Your Character's Backstory

Firstly, let's revise what we know about Talia. She's meek, not liking the idea of being a leader. She's sweet and kind and hates it when her friends fight. Now, as I said before, we have to explain why she's like that. What happened in your character's past to make them see the world as they do today?

The Do's and Don't's of Backstory Creation

Do:

• Make it as detailed as possible
• Include all major events in your character's past
• Include their family's names (even if you made them up)
• Flesh out event information that relates to why your character is afraid/angry, etc.

Don't:

• Use the 'my whole family died' route unless you have ideas on how to make it unique. It's a big no-no in most roleplays, because it's so overused
• Say something happened without explaining it. For example, 'Talia's brother disappeared after they argued'. What was the argument about? Did they physically fight? What was Talia's reaction to her brother's disappearance and how did it affect her? Be more specific in things like this
• Make stuff up during roleplay that wasn't in your character's past. It's okay to revise characters, but try not to do it in the middle of a roleplay, it can get confusing for others
• Jump around time-wise when writing. More on this below

Keep these points in mind when writing your character's backstory.

Now, it's time to write! Let's start off with Talia's birth information and work chronologically - go through her life bit by bit rather than jump around whimsically.

"Talia was born on a warm, midsummer's night in the northern pine forests along with her brother and sister, Talon and Valei. Their parents, Titan and Bea, were a relatively old mating pair at eight years each."

Nice and simple, but summarises the relevant information. Now let's continue in a linear fashion and move onto childhood, then adolescence. Make sure you build everything up to the event that led your character to 'leave the nest'. It could be as simple as they wanted to see the world, or that they were driven out. It's up to you, but you've got to make sure you explain what happened to lead to this outcome! In this tutorial, I'll make Talia's reason for leaving a simple one.

"Growing up in the forests was an easygoing life for Talia and her siblings. Talon would always start playfights with Valei, with Talia cheering them both on, never getting involved due to her smaller stature and weaker nature. As time went on, the siblings grew apart. Titan taught them how to hunt effectively, and the three started off as a wonderful team until Talon grew territorial. It was natural at the age of two to want independence, and Talon had it worse than his two sisters, being a male. Valei wasn't far behind, her bold nature growing sick of Talon's territorial attitude towards every stranger that crossed their path whenever they were hunting. The two would argue all the time, their arguments growing more and more angry every time. Talia would often try and step in, but her quiet, meek voice never got through to them.

It escalated over the course of the coming months from when it started until finally, a physical fight broke out between brother and sister. Talia, being smaller and weaker than the both of them, could only watch as they tore each other apart. She bolted, away from the vicious sounds of snarls and away from their territory."

There we go. This adequately summarises the events that led to Talia leaving her family behind. Now all we have to do is add on any events that happened afterwards, as well as round off any explanation of personality traits that we haven't done already - in this case, I think we've covered most of Talia's.

"Talia has since wandered far from the pine forests, feeling lost and alone without her family. She never found out what became of them, and hasn't picked up the courage to go back as of yet."

Since Talia hasn't been in any other roleplays, she technically hasn't met anybody else yet, so I can leave her backstory as it is.

Your backstory is now finished! Woo! But what now?

What Comes Next

You should make sure to keep adding and adding to your character, including people they've met, where they've been, packs/prides/clans they've joined. Even if you can't fit their full biography in FeralHeart's little bio box, you should still keep a record of the full version somewhere - I usually use WordPad for this and just save all my character's biographies in a handy little folder within my Documents.

People can change, remember. That means your characters can, too! My fursona, Twee, has undergone many different changes in her personality. Her backstory is extensive because of this, the events in her past having multiplied to explain the changes. Basically, don't be afraid to change things. I often find things will change because of my characters. I may write the story, but they guide me down the path they want to go!

Take good care of your characters. You may not realise it, but quite often, they reflect you. Even if it's just a tiny piece of them.

Thank you for reading! I hope I helped at least a little!

~Twee

Attention! I am currently working on a new-and-improved tutorial on character creation for your use, as this one has become quite outdated. Click me to be taken there - it has a lot more information than this one has, and is hopefully a bit more interesting!

[Haruki]

I really like this tutorial. Short, sweet, to the point, and it has plenty of good pointers as to how one goes about making a character.

I'd just like to add that the personality doesn't always have to match the physical apearance of the character. I once met a character who was an oversized, muscular, dark-looking female who was a vegan because she didn't like to hurt anything or anyone. xD

Great job, this should be very helpful to someone just starting out!

[Twee]

Thank you! At least it wasn't terrible for my first tutorial!

I'll be sure to edit that in, thanks for the pointer! ^u^

[Haruki]

Of course! Keep up the good work. ^^
+nuzzle

[Acetaminophen]

Useful little guide. I usually come up with some lame history, despite having played a good while on FH, but this's really helpful. Great job!

[kiaz1st]

this is very helpful. Ive always liked having a good history to reflect towards my character, and I hate the whole "my whole family died and Im the only survivor" thing, its just so unrealistic. I think that this is everything a tutorial needs to be, and has everything it needs, plus more!maybe this will help deapthen my characters personality and history, thank you!

[Twee]

@Acetaminophen: Thank you! History has become my favourite part of fleshing out characters in the last year or so, purely because I've done it so often. I hope it will become the same for you. ;u; I'm really glad to know this helped!

@Kiaz: I'm glad it was helpful for you! ^u^ Yeah, the 'survivor' route is hilariously overused in most cases. When it's done right, it works excellently, but usually, avoiding it entirely is the best option. x_x I hope it serves you well!