How do you come up with your characters for a story? Do you write full bios for them, or just develop them in the story and hope to keep all the details about them correct?

Have you ever felt that they are real? Or been so into your characters that when you talk about them to other people its like you're gossiping?

Character development is one of my favorite things about writing stories and I would love to see what others opinions are on it. If its something you struggle with I will happily help you out. Give you some pointers, and things that I myself use.


PS: if you're wondering about the second paragraph gossip question. This is something that really happens between my best friend and I who are writing a story together. if you didn't know we were talking about our characters and the story around them, and walked in on the conversation it would sound like we are gossiping.

I write down full bios for them, depends on how many details I am confirmed with.
I love writing bios for them and deciding what they like and hate. I tailored different character bio for different story, as their requirement would differ.

Unfortunately, I have no real life friends that share the same passion with me, so yeah... you won't see me gossiping.
More like you see me hallucinating or suffering multiple personality disorder when I am acting in my characters part thinking about their action and dialogue. x.x

my best friend thinks she has a multiple personality disorder but we don't know for sure.

It's nice to see another full bio writer though! i use a ridiculous bio template with everything from favorite food, to what their blood type is. And than i fill it in over the course of the story for some details. like friends and enemies. Or family members (only direct of mother father, children)

For fantasy, blood type is non existing, so it is not in. XD
Let me show you my current character bio form.

Most Use Name
<Insert introduction description>

NAME all about names and alias
Fore : Sur :
Alias : Title :
Apprentice :

GENEALOGY biological, ancestry details
Race : Gender : Age :
Parent : [Y] [X]
Sibling :
Birth :
Origin :

PHYSIQUE Body built and appearance
HEAD
Hair :
Eyes :
Mouth :

BODY
Skin : Size :
Height : Weight :

IMPRESSION


PSYCHOLOGY Inner thoughts
Religion :
Philosophy :
Ambition :
Obsession :

PERSONALITY Traits, mannerism, preferences
+ Traits :
- Traits :

PREFERENCE
Style
Color
Food
Drink
Genre
Season
Activity
Item

SOCIAL
Family :
Friends :
Romance :
Stranger :
Mentor :

FINESSE Skills, knowledge, learning of anything
Occupation :
Education :
Skill :
Talent :
Mentor :

MAGIC
Element :
+ Medium :
- Medium :

BIOGRAPHY Mini history

Specially tailored for this story. I quite like the philosophy part and the introduction at the top, it describes the person in two sentences, straightforward. XD

and then another story have different focus.

That is a very nice Bio. i would have to actually search through my portable harddrive to find mine at the moment. I'm in the middle of emptying it so i can factory reset it.

My only question is what you mean by impression?

Character Bios is about as far as my writing ever goes...well and posts on Mene. XD

Since my bios are for Online RPs or Table Tops they're brief. And depending on how long I think it's going to last I don't put to much depth in their back story. I normally don't write their bios, but I draw what they look like and use that. Sometimes I'll put little point forms of info like where they were born and what kind of family they came from. But not a whole lot. I like my characters to be more mysterious and have people not really know a lot of about them other than they're right now persona.

So you kind of have a more develop the character as the story goes style than. That's a great thing to have for RPs, that's very true. Especially tabletop adventures. Either of those can go amazing places or just sit there and feel sad. For RPs myself. I may write some stuff down elsewhere that i want to keep correct about my character, but i don't want people knowing unless they find out in character. Like...

maybe i have a cleric who is actually an assassin posing as a good guy. i don't want the other people to know this detail!

For me, developing my characters as I write is so important. I can't stand when I rp with someone who writes something more of a shadow of a character. I don't religiously do bios for my characters since I can keep most of it in my head just fine, though I'll write basic ones at the start of an rp. If I like a character enough, I'll write a more detailed bio later so I can remember things, mostly if there are a lot of likes and dislikes I want to keep consistent. Other than that, memes....I love doing memes when I have time. I especially like interview style memes where I can answer in the first person from my character's pov because they're totally real people to me.

That is actually one of the things that i suggest to people when they struggle with developing a character. have a" reporter"
with a list of questions come in and ask their character a series of questions. And they really need to get into that characters head to come up with some of the answers sometimes.
Like, "what do you feel was your most life changing experience that made you who you are today" just a random example.

I had to do that as an exercise in one of my class, but I prefer to have my reporter ask questions like "Do you want a hug?" Somehow, I get a lot out of that. It's a yes or no question, but every character answers it a little differently. If I ask a character a big question, I have to get OCC just for them to answer honestly. Certainly if I think of it as a random interviewer.

i can see one of my characters jumping out of her chair and saying "yes" and than hugging them. (she's also like... 5)

and do you mean OOC? because it confused me for a second because i know OCC as an abbreviation for two different places near me. xD and i tend to slip up and type OCC when i mean OOC. its to darn close!

haha. most of my characters are like "nooooo...."

yes sorry. even after you pointed it out, I had to stare for five minutes to see my mistake. :/ The two look really similar...

Impression... First impression.
Kind of like, regardless of their real personality/looks, their impression to people.
It is for me to write 'looks younger' instead of writing at the age, '400 hundred years old but look 30.'

so...you mean the impression other characters have of them?

Yep, more to when people are first introduced, or what strangers view them as.
The Impression is just one simple sentence, not all that detail.
There are characters who don't act/look like what their real personality is, so First Impression is more on introducing the character without further detail.

Could be also said, surface understanding?

Originally Posted by Kat Dakuu

haha. most of my characters are like "nooooo...."

yes sorry. even after you pointed it out, I had to stare for five minutes to see my mistake. :/ The two look really similar...

Yeah. i just had to check to make sure i was reading it the right way and OCC didn't mean ANOTHER something else that i didn't know.

Originally Posted by xuvrette

Impression... First impression.
Kind of like, regardless of their real personality/looks, their impression to people.
It is for me to write 'looks younger' instead of writing at the age, '400 hundred years old but look 30.'

Originally Posted by xuvrette

Yep, more to when people are first introduced, or what strangers view them as.
The Impression is just one simple sentence, not all that detail.
There are characters who don't act/look like what their real personality is, so First Impression is more on introducing the character without further detail.

Could be also said, surface understanding?

Originally Posted by Kat Dakuu

so...you mean the impression other characters have of them?

Ah hah. That makes a lot of sense. And its very true that many characters appear completely differently than who they actually are. I've got quite a few characters that are almost the complete reverse of what they first appear.

I find that important... as... if that happens that you have those type of character, and don't want to let the reader dwell into their personality that fast. When you prefer to reveal the personality bit by bit.
Still you should have the real personality wrote down, in case... for my case, I would forget. XD lol. I would know that it is not his real personality, but I would forget the detail if I don't touch the story for a loooooooong time.

I was commented by my friends that, I act a lot of difference between before knowing me and after getting close to me. I have a total different personality towards different people judging on different criterias, not just closeness.

Generally, people's first impression on me, is stern, quiet, unfriendly. But when they get close to me, they are shock that I am rather talkative, funny and crazy over some things. XD

I have a friend who is considered uber polite. sweet, quiet and kind. And when she's around really close friends she's got a really nasty tongue on her. She can be extrememly rude, but she's crazy and fun.

I'm usually considered a very quiet, shy, and ummm introverted? i keep to myself person. When really i would just rather observe around people i don't know. I'd rather be comfortable with them before i reveal how crazy and social i am.

I think i'm going to add this to my bios because it is extremely useful.

I don't like that I do it, but I usually just create my characters as I write the story. Most of the time, when I'm writing, I have a really cool plot idea in mind, and I just need the characters to play it out for me, so that usually results in the characters beginning as empty shells which sometimes go on to demonstrate personality traits but sometimes don't, depending on what is necessary to further the plot. However, I really enjoy character-driven fiction, and the few times I have written biographies have gone very well, so I really should take a few minutes to do that before I dive into a plot.

Maybe you could flush out the stories with the plot you want. Than figure out how to flesh out the characters, and go back and rewrite/edit parts to make it all flow together and have everything and everyone fleshed out to awesomeness.

that is if you have bad memory like me. XD or take a long pause between writing. As a matter of fact, I had made a blunder/blooper recently...

Nanowrimo, is held during November. So I did all my planning in October. I finished all the bio, most part one week before November. November went on fine, I reach my desired amount. Though not even one quarter of my plot. I kinda stopped for rest and for event.

When February came, I add a little bit more words to it. But not many, no motivation, so I stopped again.
April is another Nano month, Nano camp. 2 weeks before April I reread the bio again...then I realise!!! O__O
I forgot about the pet doves!!! DX

Oh no! Those poor pet doves, lying forgotten! </3

When it hits that point do you just pretend they never had doves. Or go back and try to fix the story?

I will just add it. I like to have intricate little seemingly unimportant detail, so I can flesh out their importance in next possible future story. I like to plant those unrelated things to the current plot, then I can use them more in future arc.

Something like foreshadowing? x.x The pet doves are cute... I really want them. Their main role was just delivering letters. Which is why i forgot about them. They really is not important at this main plot. They are name Dusk and Dawn... how can I not put them back in? After writing the whole draft, the first revision is to add the doves back. <33

If I forgot a detail like that, I would take it as a sign that the detail doesn't need to be in the story. I would normally have added something else in that fills that role or something that negates the need for the role. I would never try to tell the story or character what to be.
(why do ya'll have to talk while I'm sleeping?! I missed good stuff)

I wanted to say on the impressions thing, that I wouldn't feel the need to have a section for it. It would probably be redundant. If in the description I write that he has long black hair always in his eyes, chains as belts, and spiked boots. But then, that he has a personality that's bubbly and always a dependable friends. Impression is dark emo boy. The appearance says it all. Since impression is 90% what people see no matter how much we say it isn't.

Which is why depending on your story, not all my section is needed. I tailored different character bio detail for different story. I just like to have one same format across.

Yep, the dove is not needed, but something I would like to have.
I do not like the notion of adding some new 'character' after the main arc, and try to figure out if they know each other so long why he didn't appear early in the first place.