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Please note that when I make statements about gaming, I am talking about my own insights, the ones regarding everything else are Dixon's.
For any character, there is one key phrase that they need to be able to answer:
Executive Summary
My [Character] wants [Goal] because [Motivation], but [Conflict]. Answer those four items, and you have a story.
Now let's break down those four items:
Character: Now you could leave character as it is; however, that would be boring. Instead you want to list here the dominant impression that they present. The dominant impression is generally presented with two parts, the adjective and the noun, which need not necessarily be their vocation or job. The noun is what they do, the adjective is what they do.
Goal: The goal should be something new, not something more. If they are wealthy, they shouldn't be looking for more wealth, if they are famous, they shouldn't be looking for more fame, instead for a more gripping story, they need something to be going after some new to make the hardships they will endure worth it.
Motivation: What drives the character, what is the fuel in their tank? There can be a public motivation and a private one, justice and vengeance are often paired here. And if you want to have a reluctant hero, expect to be punished a lot, it is what happens to reluctant heroes, they are punished again and again until they finally rise up and take up the mantle. The more complex the motivation or motivations, the larger story you can tell.
Conflict: What obstacles does the character face? Good stories are bad things happening to good people. In a game, this can be the basis of a great many stories, and not all of the conflicts may not be known to player, because the GM does have a say in this, and this is probably the most GM-influenced. Players should feel encouraged to come up with conflicts, and GMs should feel encouraged to come up with more. Conflicts can be both internal and external, obvious and subtle.
Conclusion: And at the heart of it that's it for writing a good character, and describing them. The book itself goes into some left brain charting and tables, me, I like use a tri-bullet outline format. But in the end, if you can sell yourself on writing the above statement just once, you have an active character who will seek to accomplish things. And as always, work with the DM to make sure that these things will fit within the motif of the world, the game, and the party.
Full Thoughts
And now for the class breakdown in excruciating amounts of detail. And I am going through my notes in order.
Commercial fiction, versus literary fiction, needs to provide hope for change. Characters have to change and develop, perhaps in way they weren't expecting to for the reader to feel good about the story, they have to be able to accomplish more at the end of the story then the beginning. Gaming has a similar development, but it is tied into the XP advancement, so generally, the characters are almost always able to do more than they started out doing.
This writing concept revolves around the Who, the What, the Why, and the Why Not.
- Who are they?
- What do they want?
- Why do they want it?
- Why can't the get it?
This gives a clear answer about the character. Let's the editor (and the GM) have an idea about what's going on. And for writing, you'll also want in your pitch the plot, the character, and the world.
Goal
What does the character want, this needs to be something new, not something more. We won't empathize with a wealthy man who wants more wealth, or a beautiful man who wants more beauty, but switch those up, a wealthy man who wants beauty, or a beautiful man who wants wealth, and you can see the gem of an idea. And perhaps, if the concept it is a wealthy man who wants more money, then you look at it as the goal being what they want the money for. So the wealth would be a secondary goal, and yes, you can break any rule you want as long as you do it well. Guidelines, not rules.
Characters need to endure hardship so that we, as readers, feel they deserve it, we hate it when people get stuff they don't deserve. In gaming, this is the kill a kobold get a vorpal blade effect, the blade is statistically just as worthy, but the event will be mockable rather than a climatic nasty battle.
The choices they are given should not be between good and bad, that's easy, they should be between bad and maybe worse, maybe. And as players are people, occasionally making them choose between good and maybe better can also be fun for the sadistic GM and they have to choose between losing this nice thing or the other nice thing. But either way, the art is in making them choose, if one choice is good and one choice is bad, that's boring.
Characters also need to be face to face with that dilemma, and live with the choice, so there must be consequences to the choice. Active characters will have more exciting lives, not necessarily happier ones.
Goals must cause characters to acts against their own immediate best interest, and the choices need to be a test, and have urgency. Time is an easy way to instill urgency, but not necessarily the only one. Look at Order of the Stick, Haley Starshine (the thief) was shown to be greedy to free her father, now there's urgency there, of an emotional sort, but there's no hard and fast deadline. The opportunity needs to be limited, occasionally it needs to be ACT NOW! or lose the chance.
Starter goals are okay for getting a character going. A little goal that starts the hero, introducing the character. Here are where you want moments of the ordinary in a character's life, a snapshot of the everyday, the everyday life that you as the writer are going to tear into pieces. This makes the reader care, and undeserved misfortune will work to draw them in, but readers need to see people get what they deserve in commercial fiction. In gaming, don't underestimate the power of the reoccurring minor NPC who the characters interact with. Thundarr of the Thundarr Day's Inn, in my Exalted game, was a barkeeper/innkeeper, and never said much, but he reacted and grew with the players, and occasionally weirded them out, such as building a mystical bomb shelter in the basement.
Starter goals need to be completed or dropped. Similarly, goals need to be actionable. In leadership and motivation classes this is called setting S.M.A.R.T. goals - specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely. You want to have goals and not dreams, and in the story you want the character to be saying "I have to do this." Punish the character as needed. This is where the trope of killing a player's family and mentors comes from. Come on, when was the last time that a mentor survived the end of the movie/series? Mentors are there to train, educate, and then die, to provide a final motivation to the character. Unfortunately, in gaming this gets way overused, and many players react by playing wandering orphans tied to nothing so they are invulnerable, which is one the differences between many gamers and characters in the story. Players as a broad spectrum want to be more powerful, to be free, independent butt-kickers. Okay, so that doesn't cover a number of my friends, but it is a powerful trope within the gaming community. Work with your players. Perhaps declare certain people off-limits, a safe base. And then at some crucial moment ask them later, "So want to ditch their protection, you'll live through this." But that requires people who aren't going to treat a character's family as a mere simple commodity but as a bigger drive goal.
And something that doesn't get discussed quite this blatantly in gaming, is that other characters must be useful to your character for there to be a good bonding experience between then. It boils down to "What do you provide to me" or as she said "Me, me, me, it's all about ME!" So the party has to be generated at the same time, or with a tight focus discussed before hand so people aid each other's goals. Spirit of the Century has a neat system where you develop your character in five phases. In the first two phases you write the title and the plot of an adventure you've had. Then for the other three phases you write how you were involved with someone else's adventure in the group. That way everyone has a history with each other.
Have the characters make a decision. This gets reader buy in, even if they hate the decision, "YOU MORON! How could you do that!?" is fine, as long as the book doesn't get tossed across the room.
Use compare and contrast liberally, the players aren't alone. In my Exalted game, I frequently used other Solars, and other circles to show how other groups reacted. Right towards the end I introduce a group which was basically isolationist and said "Take your damn missionaries and leave us alone. [Or Else.]" I was looking forward to developing that dynamic more in future gaming sessions, but it wasn't to be.
Now that you have a goal, you must have a motivation that pushes you to that goal, otherwise what are you going to do when you hit a bump in the road?
Motivation
Motivation is the fuel in the tank that drives a character. If the character stops or slows down, increase their motivation by punishing them, especially reluctant heroes.
Have a character with a good enough motivation and you will drag the reader along, and it can have a public aspect (what the character says his motivation is), and what the private motivation is. However, don't hide the secret motivation from the reader (and perhaps the other players?). Characters need not know all of their motivations.
Complex motivations will, by default, drive more complex and longer stories, as will multiple goals, use compare and contrast liberally, and show the motivation, don't simply tell us how they are motivate. Do this by having the characters preempt the action, and take charge, you can be reactive, but you must own and initiate actions, readers will not respect a character who is only reactive.
Characters can and will lie to themselves about their motivations. Test them. Be mean. In a gaming sense, this means that players should be allowed to change their motivations, because occasionally, if they get deep enough into the "character actor" they'll realize that what they thought was private motivation was only the self-motivating lie to the real private motivation and explore that.
So be mean. Push them. Walls tells us how much we want things.
Conflict
Welcome to the damn wall. Obstacles must be faced by the character or achievements mean nothing. Bad things happening to good people makes for a wonderful tale.
So push your characters, ask them: What are you willing to do? What aren't you willing to do? And push harder and see if the last will change.
Conflict is disruption of normal lives, and it is fun because it isn't us.
Internal roadblocks are just as effective as external, and can still test the characters. Some games have ways of modeling this, other times it will simply be flavor to the character. This is why I like games that give post-character creation rewards either drama points or XP for flaws (i.e., internal roadblocks with game mechanics) biting the character in the ass.
Conflicts test your characters, and force the character to grow and change. The characters, in the story, can fail, but must learn. And the conflicts themselves, must change and grow. Buffy was more than a monster of the week storyline, even though that did drive each episode, generally there were greater, and less tangible conflicts driving the season arcs. Don't repeat your conflicts.
Conflicts can be both obvious and subtle. There can be an overarching, and rising conflict with many smaller, less important conflicts. Standard rising action is to move from the vague to concrete: Mean Words->Menacing Actions->Minor Violence->Major Violence. There must be losses and pain along the way, and the motivation must be great enough to say "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!"
Quiet moments are also necessary as it allows reflection and self-awareness in the story. In gaming, there's fatigue that can hit a table as well. No chance just to socialize and wander the area. And perhaps pursue minor, lesser goals.
General Writing/GMC Notes
Everyone needs to be the hero of their own story, in writing this means owning that perspective, no one is a second tier character, they are all pursuing their own goals, even if they don't get that much screen time, in gaming, everyone needs their screen time. Now some players like being support roles, so their screen time generally comes during the quiet moments when less is riding at the stakes. As a GM that is damn hard to balance, and I still haven't always found it yet.
Plots must provide the characters a chance to demonstrate the characters fears and dreams in actions. Generally an external GMC will bring about the major plot crisis, which will, if everything syncs up bring about the big internal emotion big black moment. This is the big uber change that resolves and causes growth, thus a change in self-realization. The best stories work that intertwine them, and the character must own the change and not have it spoon-fed to them. And for commercial fiction, the changes need to be sustain, showing a true change from the beginning of the novel.
Writing Scenes
This was a bit of a departure, but it was at the end of a 2.5 hour workshop, so tangenting is acceptable. GMCs had not only to writing characters, but also developing scenes. A scene is a moment of action lived through by the reader and character, and the speaker recommends each scene having at least three reasons to exist. It doesn't need to be G-M-C, but it can, but introducing a character is perfectly valid, now just find two more.
Scenes that are driven by an aspect of the character's goals will dramatically illustrate the progress towards the goal.
Scenes that are driven by an aspect of the character's motivation will either fuel or change the motivation, i.e., either the character will get more motivation (You BASTARD YOU KILLED MY FATHER!), or it'll change the motivation.
Scenes that are driven by the conflict are the most obvious because they are the external or internal force that is presented to the character.
Magic Words
Yes, this was important enough to repeat from above. But I will hopefully add enough to it.
For any character, there is one key phrase that they need to be able to answer:
My [Character] wants [Goal] because [Motivation], but [Conflict]. Answer those four items, and you have a story.
Now let's break down those four items:
Character: Now you could leave character as it is; however, that would be boring. Instead you want to list here the dominant impression that they present. The dominant impression is generally presented with two parts, the adjective and the noun, which need not necessarily be their vocation or job. The noun is what they do, the adjective is what they do.
Examples from Buffy:
Beleaguered Intellectual: Giles.
Instinctive Warrior: Buffy (I'm not thrilled by this one, but I get it)
Goal: The goal should be something new, not something more. If they are wealthy, they shouldn't be looking for more wealth, if they are famous, they shouldn't be looking for more fame, instead for a more gripping story, they need something to be going after some new to make the hardships they will endure worth it.
Motivation: What drives the character, what is the fuel in their tank? There can be a public motivation and a private one, justice and vengeance are often paired here. And if you want to have a reluctant hero, expect to be punished a lot, it is what happens to reluctant heroes, they are punished again and again until they finally rise up and take up the mantle. The more complex the motivation or motivations, the larger story you can tell.
Conflict: What obstacles does the character face? Good stories are bad things happening to good people. In a game, this can be the basis of a great many stories, and not all of the conflicts may not be known to player, because the GM does have a say in this, and this is probably the most GM-influenced. Players should feel encouraged to come up with conflicts, and GMs should feel encouraged to come up with more. Conflicts can be both internal and external, obvious and subtle.
Taglines might be more useful to the writer then the gamer, since the characters are not fully formed, but forming characters. Tag lines are what the character learns, the life lesson, and are generally generic or universal "No Place like home" or "Let go of the past to build the future".
So how would this work for say Giles? "My Beleaguered Intellectual wants to train the next slayer, because that is his duty, but she is irresponsible and will not take up the challenge." Probably a bit wordy, but it gives you an idea. And yes, I just wrote that, so blame me not her.
And you can have multiple statements, they just have to be consistent with each other. Or be inconsistent with each other. Think about Giles' time as Ripper. It is at odds with the dowdy image, but it is summoning a demon (intellectual), and explains why he takes duty so seriously (he's seen what irresponsibility leads to).
Example Chart
Here's her example chart for Ladyhawke taken from her book without permission, but I don't think she'll mind, she offered to send out PDF files. It is for Navarr (aka Rutger Hauer's character). I think more in outline form.
Navarr (Ladyhawke)
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Tagline: Honor isn’t the sword you carry in your hand, but rather the faith you carry in your heart
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Honorable Knight
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External
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Internal
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Goal
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Kill the Bishop of Acquilla
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Regain his honor
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Motivation
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1 Revenge
2 Bishop cursed Navarr and Isabeau to be “always together and eternally apart” to
kill their love for each other. |
His honor was lost when he couldn’t protect Isabeau from the Bishop’s curse
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Conflict
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1 The Bishop is heavily guarded
2 Navarr needs help to enter the
city without arousing suspicion |
If he avenges his honor, he will kill any chance they have
of breaking the curse. |
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