Thread by @CheerfulGoth

📚 WRITING THREAD ✏️
Gather round, word scientists, for today I am gonna share the Secret Formula for writing characters your audience will love.

#gamewriting #narrativedesign #amwriting

Have you ever noticed how certain fandoms seem to revolve entirely around characters-focused content?

Google FE3H memes and you'll find countless charts like this, or people posting memes saying "ahaha character X would TOTALLY do that".

This kind of fan content naturally emerges when you are writing characters who are easy to *get*.

By "easy to get", I don't mean #relatable. A character can be easy to get and also be an unsympathetic asshole.

A character who is easy to get is one whose actions and personality are guided by an underlying logic that is clearly conveyed to the audience.

Their behaviour is *consistent*, and this makes easy for fans to create content that feels genuine and canonical. To write AUs, make memes, share headcanons.

A character who is easy to get is beloved by their own author as well. Any scene featuring them writes itself.

So how do you write characters like that, you might wonder.

Well here is the SECRET FORMULA:

A good character is not defined by their personality traits, background story or special powers.

A good character is a system. A diagram. A state machine. It's an agglomerate of rules that describe standard behaviours.

(As an aside, I suspect this is why neuroatypicals can be TERRIFIC character writers despite our lack of social skills. Folks with ADHD/autism may struggle with social rules, but systems? Oh we're SO GOOD at systems. We connect. Everything. All the time.)

I know this all sounds HORRIBLY ABSTRACT, so let's make a practical example by using a RP character of mine, the Coffee Man.
Here is how I built this character:

(Picrew: picrew.me/image_maker/45…)

I always start with a CONCEPT: two/three words to describe who a character is at their core.

If the core already contains an contradiction, that's even better! Internal conflict is a great source of storylines and assorted drama.

My concept for Coffee Man was SALARYMAN SUPERHERO: a white collar worker who is desperately trying to fit the stereotype, but secretly wants to be a superhero. He works 12+ hours a day and then goes patrol the streets, playing vigilante while trying to not fall asleep.

Coffee Man needed a superpower, and I wanted to use this opportunity to strengthen that core concept even more.

The difference between "shooting fire" and "shooting lasers" is not important. That's just flavour. Different reskins of the idea of shooting something.

So instead of listing possible powers like invisibility, flying or magic, I started by asking myself:

"This is a person who hides big, bombastic ideas behind a facade of normalcy. What kind of power would fit this concept?"

Only after defining that concept I started brainstorming powers.

At first I leaned towards artistic ones, like explosive singing or summoning creatures from drawings. A nice creative skill to contrast the grey dullness of office life.

Then I realized a 30-years-old who seriously want to be a superhero is probably not very stable.

Dude must be bitter as hell. He wanted to do cool things, got pressured into becoming a white collar worker, and now he's SEETHING. A manchild in his middle-life crisis.

So I gave him telekinetic powers fueled by spite... And coffe.

He's a living battery. The more coffee he drinks, the more restless he gets. But at the same time, he needs coffee to survive his boring office job.

A man always one cup away from exploding.

Kinetic powers are often considered boring and bland, but in this case, they work. They complement and reinforce the concept we already estabilished.

Also, I bet y'all want to give the Coffee Man a hug now. His underlying struggle is so clear.

Important note: a character who is easy to get doesn't always beheave in a logical and sensible manner.

But the reasons behind their illogical behaviour are always logical.

Coffee Man is a living contradiction, but you understand why he acts the way he does.

When Coffee Man phones his mother, reassuring her he's fine, only to punch someone in the face five seconds later, you might roll your eyes and disapprove of his behaviour.
But you get him.

Important note #2: the concept of "unreliable narrator" is bullshit, NO ONE is a reliable narrator - especially when describing themselves.

Is Coffee Man fully aware of the logic governing his own behaviour? Does he realize he's a delusional manchild?

No. In his mind he's a superhero. But I, the writer, am aware of this, and can use my knowledge to nudge the audience - or put Coffee Man in situations that highligh his hypocrisy.

Important note #3: there is a small, but important distinction to make between inner character logic and inner story logic. Both make use of the same core, but the first governs character behaviour; the second is used by the writer for planning situations and storylines.

After defining a core concept, a character writes itself by association.

What kind of movies does Coffee Man like? Superhero movies, of course. Kamen Rider. Anime.
Videogames? Bullet hell. Fighting games. Sonic. Gotta go fast.
Other hobbies? Dancing. Sport.

This is all inner character logic: tastes and preferences he acquired because of what he is. But he did not choose to be born with kinetic powers: I did. That was me exercising my writerly powers to make the circumstances more interesting.

You can apply this process to all kind of lore and background details: focus on the character core, and find new ways to reinforce it by repeating or subverting its logic.

For example, you know what would be REALLY funny?
What if this guy who is trying so hard to conform to expectations, to be a normal white collar worker with a family and a boring ass job

was actually super
duper
gay

And this, folks, is how you write characters your audience will love.

Gentle final reminder: I'm currently available for work, so if you appreciated this thread, please RT it. Tell your friends. Throw gigs at me. xxx

https://twitter.com/CheerfulGoth/status/1392544526984781827