So you want more advice on writting a character?

.........
.....wha?

You're came back?
Flattered, really. But let's not get too far ahead of ourselves...

So advice...advice....advice advice....
Oh right, characters that fit.

So last time, for those of you who didn't get a stroke from reading all that nonsense, we were discussing about having a perfect character. Well to be fair much of that could of been summed up in some go nowhere generalities. Probably somewhere is a quote like "There are no such thing as bad characters, only bad writers" - Glyphs 2015.
Probably applies to most characters as well.

Which I would like to discuss next in this following entry:

Invasion of the Wartist Snatchers - Reader needs a flamethrower...Reader needs a what?

Location, location, location.
You don't have to sell real estate to know when something looks aesthetically pleasing in a location.
A desert has cacti and sand.
An Ocean has water and fish.
The forest has trees.
And the cat sour's the basil.

You also know when something doesn't seem to belong there as well.
A desert turtle?
An Ocean trash barge?
A forest fire?
The cat sour's the basil?

Seems like an odd thing to point out when we're talking about characters. But believe it or not, making a character that fits a story is just about the same as being a real estate agent. To the point, especially when going professional, that you are selling your world to the right buyers. Hopefully you don't push any home owners insurance in case you decide to blow up your world at any point. Think of the liability...

A character needs to be place in a setting or circumstances that make sense to the world. Not that I'm saying that a character cannot possess their own personality. But the context has to be clear enough to you why such a character would exist in this world and just as clear your audience.

Sometimes it can be obvious. A clown on a battlefield doing a juggling act. A talking giant mouse at Sea World. Or Cthulhu practicing his swings on the eighth hole. Just seems out of place right?
Sometimes it's not so obvious. A character that get's introduced in the fifth chapter but then is not seen until three chapters towards the end. A secondary character that probably shouldn't be present in context of the story at that moment nor plays any real role. Even a throw away character that seems important but is then quickly shelved and forgotten. And let's not forget when an establish character is hijacked by some otherworldly force to do something that they would not otherwise do.

Ever wonder why every time people talk about aliens they seem to get stranger and stranger with each passing story? We started out with making them god-like creatures. Then we turned them into short midgets with big heads and eyes. And today...I'm not sure how many more body parts we can keep attaching to them...
Maybe we do so out of fear. Maybe we just want things not like us to be strange creatures. Or some of us has spent a little too much time watching Independence Day.

Point being, we are quite good at noticing the strange and unusual. To the point we will fabricate anything to fill in the blanks of why their legs bend the opposite direction. And if you're not careful, you character can wind up being something most people can't relate to.

We can boil this down into a few common mistakes wartist will make (and maybe continue to do so):

1. Creating characters without considering what sort of impact wanted from them.

Probably an example of Chicken and Egg. You made a character you really like but can't figure out how to relate them into a story you created or borrowed from but still want them included. So you stick it anyway and now you're stuck with a character that most likely doesn't belong there. Aside from just forcing them into the story with grace of a train wreck you could just quietly or loudly get rid of them. But then your audience is kinda left wondering why they were put in the first place?

Or maybe I'm just thinking of Poochy. But he left to help his planet so not much to draw on from there...

2. Creating a character only to draw attention away from something.

While fleshing out a world with more life is good and brings a more spitting image to paint your audience with you might end up trying to fill out blanks you left in the story with this technique. Making a character for the soul purpose of explaining things that you did not bother to expand on in the first place or even delaying the story would probably put you in the realm of fillers.
And you don't have to look far for the best example of filler than Japan.

Anime has so much filler in just about every show that it could make sawdust look like a cheap go to for stuffing.
There are shows with so many throw away characters that you wonder if the Japanese do so just to fill out a paycheck. Must be since some of their shows can stretch out their episodes past three hundred. With nothing more than a plot being stopped to explain how another character ended up being involved in a story that is going no where soon.

This is probably more of an extreme example of point one. But it turns out this is common in Japan because the writers for these stories have not finish them and so the studios who make the shows they adapt to have to fill in the blanks so they can keep getting paid. Though people tell me the manga of whatever story is better, no shit. They actually probably finished the story.

3. Self Insert

It probably goes without saying that unless you're writing an autobiography, you really should not write a character who is like yourself. It's probably the hardest one to overcome since you're most likely going to write based on your own experience.
It's also probably the second worst idea you can go through with since you're basically lying to everyone. So unless you actually are fighting ethereal elementals on the Planes of Distroxia, it's most likely going to make you look like an insecure loser who can't bare the thought of being known as boring wartist with free time. ...Which you are but at least you're honest about it.

4. Mary Sue.
....While pretty much every under the sun has been said about not doing the worst thing possible I will interject with something different. Mary Sue comes down to basically two points in why it's so reviled:
 The first being the complete lack of respect for another source which the character is being made for. One that shouts, "I don't care about anyone but me. Look how cool and awesome my character is. Aren't I the center of the universe? Even other characters bow at my mere existence". And this was being done way before Stephenie Meyer raped the lore of vampires.
The second is a complete inability to write any story without seeing "Because I said so" used to explain any and all errors.
Why did that horse transform? Because that's how I wrote the character. Why did they just murder all those orphans? Because reasons. Why is the horse now a hedgehog with a stupid hair color? Because I just got into a new fandom and I said fuck it. Now it's a hedgehog.

Hell go look up some OCs in the search function. They say more than I can ever hope to type.

5. Hijacking
Also known as "Out of Character", a trap most wartist face when they reach a point where a plot point is needed but was not thought about ahead of time and now has to be answered in someway without resorting to the former explained above. Just have the protagonist do it with little to no explanation and/or a complete mood whiplash or 180. Because when you want to endear your audience to your characters, nothing is more endearing than a multi-personality disorder. Unless the story is about a character with a multi-personality disorder...but that's kinda pushing the lazy territory...

6. Refer to the Manual

Sadly I am guilty of this if you had the misfortune of taking a look at my gallery.
Do not assume your audience is stupid. EVER. Unless it is something that you're completely making up, don't explain EVERY SINGLE DAMN THING IN THE STORY! Like self insert, people are here first and foremost for the story. You have plenty of time to answer questions after becoming the all time best seller in an article of Time Magazine.

...no I'm not going to erase my mistakes either. I'd hate to forget how embarrassing that early shit was.

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So what you should you take from all this information?

1. Remember your story is about characters, not aliens. Unless it's a story about aliens. But even then don't make the aliens...aliens...
2. Your audience is watching you at all times. Don't forget to step back and see from their eyes as well. You might have missed something.
3. Don't excuse bad writing as character...wait I already said that one... Well... keep at it.
4. If you think your character is boring, it probably is. Try again.
5. This isn't your story. It's theirs. So let them tell it as naturally as you would tell a story. (Try to wrap your head around that one ).

Well my brain is about to collapse so we'll just stop here.

Next time.....

And there goes my thoughts.....(drools)...