La Volpe
Sage
I've been having this problem for quite a long time. I'll start with a character and either
a) give him/her goals and things and give no thought to personality
or more recently
b) figure out what kind of personality he/she has (in addition to the other things).
But, regardless of what I'm do, by page 50, I end up with a cast of which everyone is essentially a forgettable brown-haired everyman. Basically, I could pretty much swap the characters' goals around without really having to change anything they're saying. I.e. all my characters would say the same kinds of things (roughly) if they had the same goals. So it's like I'm using goals to make a mock-up of a personality or something.
I even tried to combat this by vastly exaggerating one personality aspect in the design phase, like say, paranoia, so that I'd end up with a mildly paranoid guy by page 50 (and then go back with revision to tone down the first bit). But the moment I'm not constantly reminding myself to make this character act this way, he/she just melts down into a shapeless jello-being.
So. Am I the only one with this problem? If not, how do you handle this? Any tips or tricks or little exercises I can try? I know some people do interviews or write passages in first person. I've tried this (though not very diligently) but it doesn't seem to translate to my writing once I get really into a scene.
Suggest away!
a) give him/her goals and things and give no thought to personality
or more recently
b) figure out what kind of personality he/she has (in addition to the other things).
But, regardless of what I'm do, by page 50, I end up with a cast of which everyone is essentially a forgettable brown-haired everyman. Basically, I could pretty much swap the characters' goals around without really having to change anything they're saying. I.e. all my characters would say the same kinds of things (roughly) if they had the same goals. So it's like I'm using goals to make a mock-up of a personality or something.
I even tried to combat this by vastly exaggerating one personality aspect in the design phase, like say, paranoia, so that I'd end up with a mildly paranoid guy by page 50 (and then go back with revision to tone down the first bit). But the moment I'm not constantly reminding myself to make this character act this way, he/she just melts down into a shapeless jello-being.
So. Am I the only one with this problem? If not, how do you handle this? Any tips or tricks or little exercises I can try? I know some people do interviews or write passages in first person. I've tried this (though not very diligently) but it doesn't seem to translate to my writing once I get really into a scene.
Suggest away!