Creating personalities.

[Svrtnsse]

Every now and then I've written short stories featuring my characters just to get an opportunity to spend some time with them. They're not necessarily good stories, and they may not have a plot or a point, and they never go past the first draft - if I even get that far.

Really, the point is just for ME to spend time with the character to get to know them a little better.

 

[Heliotrope]

pmmg's comment aside, I want to add one more thing to the discussion about developing personalities....

Having a technique or a notion for how you develop a personality doesn't mean you have to have everything obsessively preplanned. If you're figuring out your character as you write, there's still a process that your brain goes through, whether you realize it or not, whether you can articulate it or not, in developing the character. And there's still ways to develop and improve that process without dragging it out through lengthy notes or procrastination.

Writer's Magic, I second everyone that you really need to try before you come out with the questions because you need something to ground these questions in.

But taking the question and others like it at face value, I disagree that figuring it out as you go really answers the how of it.

Valid point. Ok, so "how" do I do it as I go along.
- I give the character thoughts and opinions about things.
- I put the character in situations where he/she has to make choices. Then I let them think about those choices.
- I make sure the character has something to do, and a goal.

 

[Miles Lacey]

Miles Lacey That’s clear! A rich, spoiled boy wouldn’t like a stinky pigpen like a farmer boy. But my book is set in a futuristic Boston. (And the character is traveling through the 9 worlds during the book.) Well, how can I create her personality in this instance?

Whether she is in futuristic Boston and travelling through several worlds or some suburbanite kid in a typical suburb her personality will still be influenced by those around her, the society in which she was born and raised in and the values within that society. She will still be judged by her looks and her wardrobe which will also influence her personality..