The easiest to write, I think, is the chatty twit. One of my characters, Aera, turned into that on accident (whoops!). It actually turned out great! I had at first thought of her as the brilliant, beautiful and strategic girl who does everything right and that my main character, Ehra, was slightly jealous of her. Well, she turned out to be a bit of a klutz, although she was still pretty. The reason why I was okay with that was the beautiful and brainy Aera would have been no use further in the plot, whereas the not-so-brainy Aera fit in perfectly!
Another easy one is the shy, greatly skilled character. Leela is that, which was sorta of what I thought her to be. Reserved, quiet and gentle at first glance, shrewd and insightful on the inside.
Yet another commonly-used one is the bitter person. Maybe something happened to them, and they blame somebody(s) for it, whether they really caused it or not. They're usually proud. I think that this is a tiny, tiny bit like Ehra, the main girl. That is not how I thought she would turn out...AT ALL! I thought she would be an optimistic, happy-go-lucky kind of person, sort of like what Aera turned out to be. But as we have observed, authors have a hard time controlling that stuff.
Probably another good one is the hovering guide, an older person, steering, protecting, and advising the main character (especially if he is young). This is played by Gnomi, the old 'peddler' in my book. And that is what I expected him to be like.
One of the reasons why I like all these personalities is because they all have faults and strengths. A faultless character is a very boring one, you know. A strength-less one can be a little boring, too.
The first personality--the cheerful twit--is vulnerable to walk into a trap because they don't use their brains much. They also have a habit of being dependent and annoying to the other characters. However, this character can easily spot a glimmer of light when everyone else is ready to give up. Sometimes they are even dumb enough to be smart, helping solve things by thinking up really crazy solutions that actually work...only everyone else at first dismisses them because they're too silly and impossible.
The shy but skilled character often has the fault of being very observant of their surrounding and yet hesitant to speak up. They are often rather serious, but they are smart enough to help, when they talk.
The bitter person--a lot of faults, there! Often blinded by their anger and pride, un-bending and un-forgiving, these characters are often very good warriors. On a positive note, they are useful for fitting some good virtues into your story by having them finally soften.
Finally we get to the hovering guide. This character can be overly protective, yet he also serves an important purpose--making sure your main character can survive their early days in the book! :) An interesting thing about these guides is that the author usually kills them off when the main character has become mature enough to live on their own. An example of this is Brom from the Inheritance Cycle.
What are y'all's thoughts?
2 comments:
Thanks for posting this! I can really use it for my story.
lol. completely agree. :) that's one of my favorite parts in writing books is making up all the completely different characters! :D
i just love it when there are some who want to act cool, so that no one can tell what they're thinking, and all of a sudden, they just burst and try to recover but you know right then it's all over..... :P they're hilarious...
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