Character Creation Case Study: Vixen

     I thought I'd do a post about how I typically go about creating characters. If you are a writer or aspiring writer yourself, maybe you'll find some of the techniques I use helpful--but then, maybe what I do is the exact opposite of what you need to do. As I said in my original writing advice post (located here), there is no one true way to write. Every person, every author, works differently, because we have different brains, different lives, different experiences and attitudes and personalities. So take what I say with a grain of salt, because it may not work for you.

    Also, I'd like to add a caveat that I really enjoy thinking about one specific type of character: the fantasy rogue. I'm trying to break out of my usual pattern of falling back on that archetype, but it isn't easy, and as a result, the case study for this post is partially inspired by the classic fantasy rogue.

    There are three major things I consider when I'm creating a character: their name, their clothes, and their strengths.

    Now, I don't know about you, but for me, names have considerable power. A rogue named Sable is not going to feel the same to me (even if she feels exactly like every other rogue I write to you based on her character profile) as a rogue named Belladonna. Both are rogues; that much is obvious. But Sable is more of a thief and a pickpocket, while Belladonna is more of a seductress. To put it in D&D terms, Sable is a dexterity-based rogue, with high sleight-of-hand and stealth, while Belladonna is a charisma-based rogue with excellent persuasion and deception. They both seek the same thing to some degree: wealth. But they go about getting it in different ways.

    Likewise, I could write a story about two men with the same name: John and Jon. Perhaps they're twins; I don't know. But, twins or not, John feels more like a craftsman or a rural farm boy, while Jon is much more of a nobleman. And all that difference comes from a single extra 'h'.

    Next, clothes. You may not realize this, but one of the first things we observe about new people we meet is their clothes. A person's outfit gives us kind of a lot of information about them, even if we can't consciously analyze that information. The woman who wears a grungy, once-nice blouse and a pair of sweatpants to work on her farm is not the same sort of woman who regularly wears makeup, a clean blouse, and a skirt. One is a practical farm girl, the other is a businesswoman.

    When I'm walking around in my local high school and see a girl wearing leggings and a sweatshirt and basically nothing else, I get a very different gut-feeling/vibe about her than I do about the girl dressed in black gothic clothes and a set of headphones. I may not be able to verbalize what those differences are, but I can look at them and say, 'You are two very different people.'

    Last, strengths. Why do I consider this aspect of character?

    It is because, despite the numerous sources of information that give advice on how to make a flawed character, I have seen none of them who actually tell you to draw on a character's strengths for their weaknesses.

    Do I have you confused yet?

    It's okay; I'll explain.

    In real life, people's weaknesses or "fatal flaws" tend to stem from their strengths--specifically, taking their strengths too far.

    For example, I am a great talker. Get me in a room with a couple people to listen, get me comfortable, and I'll start talking. And I'll keep talking. And talking, and talking, and talking. My mom says I have the Gift of Gab; I say I'm a world-class chatterbox. And that is a strength: if ever I have to give a talk in church, I'm going to get up at the podium and read my talk and have all the voice inflection of a master storyteller. Most teens in my church who get up to talk use a monotone; I don't. Therefore, my talks are interesting, not because the topic itself is so fascinating, but because I have a gift for taking the words on the page and making them come alive.

    However, the Gift of Gab is also a bit of a curse. Sometimes, I get to talking, and my words run away with me. I literally cannot count the number of times this has caused me to say something thoughtless and hurt someone's feelings, and you have no idea the guilt that came afterward. But I usually haven't known how to apologize, and to do so always felt awkward, and so what I have always done is to resolve to keep track of my tongue better in the future. (Also, the number of times my family flat-out tells me they've stopped listening to me is through the roof; as good as I am at making what I say interesting in a church talk, when I go on too long in normal conversation, my family will stop listening and feel no guilt for it. And honestly, it doesn't exactly bother me. It's just the way things are at this point.)

    So, when I want to give a character weaknesses, I first look at their strengths. This character is super confident in most situations, I think. But that confidence probably means they're also a bit reckless and foolhardy. Or, for another example, let's say we have a character who doesn't want to let go of the people they love. Unfortunately, if that character is a mother who doesn't want to let her nearly-grown children go, she can become domineering and demanding, and stifle her children with her overprotectiveness.

    In my opinion, that is what makes a believable flaw: when a character is so incredibly good at something that they overdo it and it leads to their downfall.

    Now that those three principles are out of the way, onward to the case study.

    The character I'm using for this demonstration is a woman who calls herself Vixen. Vixen is not her real name; it is the name she has chosen to use. Before I go on, please jump down to the comments and tell me what sort of woman you think she is and what you think her given name might be; I have a bit of a non-scientific experiment going on with her and I want more data.

    Like, seriously. Skip the rest of this post for a moment and put your response in the comments, while making sure that you aren't reading any other comments, either. I don't want your response to be biased based on what other people have said.

    Have you done it? Good. Let's move on.

    When I asked my older sister this question, her immediate response was, "She must be a courtesan." (Note the double quotation marks, indicating that this is not an exact quote.) At the time, I didn't know I was going to perform this study, so I shrugged her response off because I wanted to write a rogue. But it did end up getting recorded in my brain, which is why that piece of data exists.

    When I gave this question to my mom, however, I got the following: "Vixen is someone foxy, sexy, and totally confident in who she is. She might be flirtatious, but if she was, it would be the sort of flirtatiousness born of confidence and not insecurity."

    Which actually gave me a ton to work with, so thank you, Mom!

    My cousin, who didn't know what a vixen was at the time, said that she thought Vixen was someone who knew who she was and what she believed. After I educated her about what a vixen is, she explained that it didn't really matter; she'd given me what she first thought of, and her answer wasn't going to change. Wonderful!

    So I took those descriptions of Vixen's character, as given to me by other people based on her name, and I asked the following questions: Who is Vixen? What does she wear? What does she carry with her? How does she get what she wants?

    These are some serious questions, and I wrote a bunch of stuff out and ended up revising it a couple times, because I wasn't satisfied with my result. So now, after having gone through that process, I have Vixen's character profile.

~Vixen~

Top 3 Traits:

    Foxy

    Sexy

    Confident

Features:

    Thick, jet-black hair tumbling all the way down her back, frequently bound up in a thick braid for practicality's sake; thick, dark eyelashes and eyebrows that require no makeup/kohl.

    Deep amber irises, warm like melted honey or hotter than fire, depending on her mood.

    Dark, bronzed skin tone, reminiscent of polished oak wood.

    A full figure, and she's probably just slightly overweight, but she carries that weight well.

Clothes (Day-to-Day):

    Loose wool trousers, brown; a slit in the right-hand pocket provides access to a dagger strapped to her thigh.

    Close-fitted, long-sleeved, button-up linen shirt, white.

    Sash, colored in some deep, bold shade of red, brown, orange, or yellow; usually secures a long dagger at the small of her back.

    Long brown wool coat, sleeveless; hides her dagger.

    Polished, knee-high hunting boots, dark brown leather; each conceals a short knife.

    Just like this she's full-on, knockout beautiful and knows it.

Clothes (When She Really Wants to Make an Impression):

    Long skirts, colored in some deep, bold shade of red, brown, orange, or yellow, frequently with one or two long slits to allow some leg to peek through; a pocket-slit concealed on the right side provides access to a dagger strapped to her thigh.

    Close-fitted, sleeveless button-up linen shirt, white.

    Medium-length, short-sleeved tunic in one of the aforementioned deep, bold colors; usually a different color than the skirt.

    Sash of one of the aforementioned deep, bold colors; usually a different color than the tunic. Typically secures a long dagger at the small of her back.

    Broad, woven shawl with tasseled ends, colored in deep, bold shades of red brown, orange, and/or    yellow; hides her dagger.

    Soft-soled dancing slippers.

    When she dresses this way, she goes from knockout beautiful to a hundred percent breathtaking.

Skills:

    Vixen can make virtually any man fall head-over-heels in love with her just by walking into the room.

    She is also a skilled seductress of sorts; as a confident and expert flirt, she is quite good at extracting information from men.

    She can bluff her way into almost any building through her beauty and confidence.

    She is excellent at both self-defense and subtle intimidation via the use of her knives, but appears perfectly harmless on the surface.

Weaknesses/Flaws/Limitations/Handicaps:

    Vixen's strengths are that she is bold, confident, daring, and attractive. How will this lead to her downfall?

    Bold beauty may lead to pride--I don't think Vixen is the sort of person to fall to narcissism or vanity per se, but she might be so used to being the most beautiful woman in the room that as soon as the attention of the men around her turns somewhere else, pride and jealousy overcome a bit. She's not intentionally vain. She doesn't spend hours in front of the mirror to look just so. But perhaps she's grown somewhat arrogant about her natural beauty, and as a result, anyone who looks finer than she does becomes a challenger, an opponent, an offense. I could see that happening. Couldn't you?

    It's also possible that Vixen would fall to lust and impulsiveness, becoming whatever the female equivalent of a womanizer is. This could ruin her chances of an actual relationship with a legitimately decent guy.

    The other possibility I've considered is that Vixen may be the sort of person who, though extremely flirty, doesn't trust anyone. Everyone around her is either a potential threat or a resource to further her own goals.

    Let me know which option you think is the most likely/most interesting/etc. in the comments!

    As a final thought, I'm planning on putting out a rant about my feelings concerning modern girls' body image issues next week, because thinking about who Vixen is also made me think about that topic. To put it concisely, I don't understand why young women of my generation and the generation before us constantly put themselves down and think themselves ugly or unattractive. As a person who has never had any sort of body-image issues, but knows people who do, I don't comprehend this mentality at all. 

    The rant I'll publish next week is not intended to make anyone feel bad about themselves in any way, shape, or form. Rather, I want it to be encouraging and uplifting, and the sort of message God would give, if He were going to give it in a firebrand style like mine. I hope there's someone out there who needs to read it when it comes, and I hope it benefits you in some way.

    Anyhow. Have a great day, and I'll see you next week!