Characterisation: Part I.

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People Rather Than Two-Dimensional Constructs.

In the world of roleplay, there are instances of characters that are two-dimensional or underdeveloped. This can be a hindrance for both player and audience when attempting to create a high-level piece of writing. It is a common problem affecting writers of all levels of experience. It is important to remember that a character that has yet to develop into a detailed three-dimensional entity is not a failure on the part of the writer. It is a loose end that has yet to be tied into something whole.

Characters that have yet to take on detailed, complex personalities such as those found in real people can still be interesting, fun to write about and a source of great enjoyment for their writers. It is when the character ceases to grow, or conversely, becomes so fluid that personality is omitted completely when faced with problems, that there is a problem. A character is a dynamic being, just as a person in the real world would be, but there is only so much that the author can realistically know about them, or predict in advance about their reactions or behaviour. A character that reacts in an unpredictable fashion to changing events (or a writer who is unsure of what a character will do in any given situation) should not be criticised. Ultimately, we are not our characters, despite controlling their reactions. It takes time and experience to develop a full personality outside our own.

Nevertheless, it is important to be able to recognise when uncertainty is becoming poor characterisation. A character that stops growing is difficult to continue developing at a higher level. If a character no longer grows and changes with his or her experiences, that is remain static within a preset personality, then writing about that character could become stagnant.

Character A

Character A is an open, honest, and outgoing person. She is unafraid, unassuming, and a little naive at times. She likes to meet new people and works best when socialising in a group of friends. Character A enters a roleplay in which she is approached by a serial killer. The serial killer gets close to Character A and lures her to his home where she is brutally attacked. For the sake of example, Character A escapes.

A dynamic character at this point would undergo a change in personality (possibly temporary, possibly permanent) as a result of her experience. Character A might become withdrawn, or distrustful when meeting new people because friendship (something that she rated highly) had been used against her with a result of fear and physical pain. On the other hand, if Character A was static, as opposed to dynamic, she would return to life after this experience with the same personality as before, just as open and friendly as she had been previously. This type of personality would likely lead to a sense of futility in the audience and less willingness from other roleplayers to interact with Character A.

Methods of modifying a character that shows signs of static development often involve research, be that reading or talking to someone with sufficient experience so that the mannerisms and thought process of the character can be altered to suite the new developments. They key point to remember is that experiences change a person; this is also true for characters. A person who burnt his or her hand in fire would be unlikely to repeat the experiment. It is also important to remember that people make assumptions from prior experience. If a character was harmed by a dragon, he or she would likely react badly to the next dragon he or she saw.

At the other end of the spectrum there would be Character B.

Character B, an overly fluid character, would react differently to similar situations for reasons unknown. For example, Character B enjoys a perfectly friendly conversation with one character then attacks another for no reason.

Character B may show traits from various personality types (shy, outgoing, arrogant) but rather than following any pattern, these characteristics will arise randomly, with no set stimulus or reason. Character B may be loving (or claim to be loving) but then display violent behaviour towards the person whom he or she insists he or she loves. (Note, however, not to confuse this with a character who lies and or has some underlying instability that causes him or her to react in such a fashion.) An overly fluid character will have no or little reasoning for the way he or she acts.

Overly fluid characters are less frequently seen than rigid, flat characters, and thus harder to identify as they tend to occur most often during the early stages of character growth. A simple cure for an overly fluid character is examination of that character in a range of settings. Once a reaction is produced, noting the stimulus and its effect can be a good way of staying true to character.

To create a multi-layered, complex personality for a character, more than roleplay is often required as scenarios found in roleplay may not evoke some of the hidden traits a character may have. In addition, the sheer volume of experiences any given character has had would take a lifetime to roleplay. It is important to examine characters outside of roleplay when looking to know them better and in so doing to produce more true-to-reality writing. It is not simple and it does take time but even a brief examination can reveal much about a character that would otherwise be unknown.

One of the building blocks of a character is his or her family (something often glossed over or set aside as “dead” “absent” or “non-existent”). Most characters were young once and family values coupled with life-experience at a young age build the foundations for personality in later life. To examine a character’s family it is not necessary to create each relation as a character, but merely to objectively examine them in light of the primary character in question.

Section one

Family-orientated character questions:

Parents-

*Age of parents:

The age of a one's parents often determines how that person was raised. Did this character relate well with younger, more “trendy” parents, or did he or she find that his or her parents were busy living their own lives and didn’t have enough time set aside for their children? Did his or her parents make him or her mature quickly, like they (the parents) had been forced to upon having a child? Did his or her parents understand him or her well, having lived in similar times?

Or, conversely, did he or she have older parents who had taken the time to build a stable home environment? Did he or she struggle with the knowledge that his or her parents were older than most other children’s and had difficulty relating with other “young mums and dads”? Was he or she raised in a manner that put him or her at odds with other children, whose parents gave them more less leeway?

Character with younger parents will likely have parents and grandparents who are still alive, sometimes even great-grandparents, whereas characters born later in their parents’ lives will likely have less family when it comes to the older generations.

*Parents’ relationship status:

There is a wealth of different forms a family can take in the modern world and even more that can occur when entering a fantasy setting. It is useful to take this into account when examining a character in depth. Characters with happily married parents, for example, may have strong marital values themselves, whereas characters whose parents were unhappily married would probably hold less regard for the institution.

Divorce is another factor. If a character’s parents split, how did that character feel about it? Does he or she have strange ideas about family as a result of what happened? Does he or she have step-parents/siblings? How does he or she feel about somebody being unfaithful if that was what split their family when he or she were a child? How does he or she feel about being unfaithful if he or she were born out of wedlock?

Shuttling between parents can be traumatic for a child as can custody battles. If either of these happened, how does it affect the character in later life?

As an extension of this, there is a sub-category (often omitted over in literature) that includes parents who have divorced so that one or other can enter a same-sex relationship or undergo a sex-change. If this is the case, how does a character feel when faced with such results? How does he or she feel about homosexuality and transsexuality when this has happened?

For parents who have become openly homosexual later in life and subsequently adopted on a child (or abandoned a child) from a previous heterosexual relationship, how much does the character know about this occurrence? How does he or she feel? Is he or she accepting or does he or she feel resentful towards homosexual relationships because the formation of one broke apart their family?

*Sexual-orientation and gender of parents:

This is something that also should be examined, as same-sex partnerships resulting in children do occur (though they are often given little airtime in the modern world). If a character has two mothers or two fathers (or has more than one set of parents raising him or her), have they been treated differently by his or her peers? Was he or she teased or bullied? Was he or she raised in a manner that is more accepting than children from “normal” homes?

In addition, one should consider this child's birth. Was he or she born via a surrogate and if so does he or she know this person, or did this person remain anonymous? Which parent is his or her biological relative? Does the character know this? Are both of the parents’ names on the birth certificate or not?

*Race, religion, and social acceptance:

It is important to remember that there is racism in the world today. A character born of one German and one English parent today would face little difficulty in the world, but in the time after World War Two, children of prisoners of war who were mothered by British women faced racially motivated hate. The same could be said of mixed-raced children in the West until fairly recently, and even then some still face persecution in so called ‘civilised’ countries.

If a character is of mixed-race then it is important to examine his or her racial identity as well as his or her history in terms of his or her race. Was he or she ever treated badly/differently because of his or her heritage or conversely, is he or she unaware that he or she is in any way different to his or her peers? Does the character have a strong racial identity? Has he or she ever faced racist attitudes or actions?

With this in mind, it is important to remember that there are a wide range of cultural factors that link into the race of a character, for example, religion. The religion of a home-environment is often neglected in favour of the religion of the character themselves. If raised a Catholic, then a character will have a different knowledge base in terms of religion than a character who was raised Jewish. Even if these characters have lost or changed their religion, it is important to give thought to what it was then and what it is now. A character's faith can provide great material for development.

*Current status of parents:

Once their approximate ages are known, it becomes easier to determine whether a character’s parents are still alive or not. Even when a writer chooses to use the untimely death of family members in a character history, prior knowledge of the family in question often leads to better developed plot.

One important factor to consider when looking at the mortality and morbidity of character’s parents or family is the natural process of ageing. A character born to older parents will face the decline of his or her parents at an earlier age, and will often be more aware of mortality than someone will a young, healthy family. Older family members are predisposed to be less active and are more likely to suffer from some form of infirmity. If a character has parents that are in their eighties, have both parents survived this long? Do either of them suffer from poor mobility, memory, etcetera? Do his or her parents live in a family home or in a nursing home?

The death of a character’s family, most often his or her parents, at any age is going to be a blow even if that character isn’t particularly close to them at the time. It is good to remember this fact. If a character has parents who are elderly and infirm, is he or she more likely to worry about death? Does he or she feel his or her own mortality more keenly as he or she is aware of the impending death of a parent? Do he or she worry about his or her own old age? Is he or she aware of how precious life is after having a parent die young? Are they more in tune with how death can be a mercy after watching a parent or grandparent decline through Dementia or Parkinson’s?


On the whole, there are many questions that can be asked regarding characterisation. Family alone is only a very small segment of character development and there are many more questions that can be asked even on the topic of family. It is important to remember that it is not vital to know everything about a character at the start (or even at the end), but sometimes it is useful to ask such questions in the hopes of getting to know a character better. The more you know about a character, the more complex his or her personality becomes.