Survey Theories

Since last update I have created a survey on Character Development and had my English Communications class answer the questions. Not many of them were thrilled to take it but they usually never are if a survey is involved. In hindsight I guess my questions and answers weren’t the best but I was still able to get some interesting information off of them. Apparently more than half of my class think it’s easy to create a character but most of my class also said that they didn’t develop their characters if they made any at all. This makes me think that most people don’t think character making is difficult, and in a sense it is but in most cases it isn’t. I mean anybody can make up a person, slap on a name and a tragic past and call them a character but it takes a lot more time and creativity to make an actual solid time line for a characters life, filled with their changes and experiences and how they develop their personality. We are creating people and unless they were God, I don’t think it would be very easy.

For example say you created a character but you weren’t very original and basically made a better version of you. They have the same experiences as you and the same personality as you (or one you’d wish you had) but their better, stronger, smarter, wittier as well as a tragic past that makes them more interesting. That’s a self insert character, probably the easiest character ever to make because the character is you, essentially. A lot of people make these types of characters, some people do it on purpose while others do it subconsciously, and these types of characters are frowned upon. True that these characters could be made just for fun or to help the creator practice writing characters but they are still you and not original.

To make a true original character you have to make a completely separate person from yourself, sure they can have one or true traits in common with you but they still have to be another person. They have their own personality, their morals, their own life filled with choices. What have they done with their life, what are they planning to do with their life? Are they going to succeed or fail, will they meet true love or die alone? All these questions are up to you, you have to decide what happens in their life because you are the creator but you are not them, so you have to base their decisions on the morals and personality.

On another topic I have also copy and pasted the websites I found that helped me with my Research Project. I’ve only found three but TV Tropes is one of them, so that should give me a lot of information about stereotypes and what not. I’m not sure if its biased, I mean I think it is but from a creative persons perspective that has seen a lot of different points of view rather than from just one person’s opinion. I guess... yeah.