What makes you care about a character?

[FriendlyShadow]

I'm starting to write a trilogy and I want to know what makes people care deeply about characters and likeable. How do I avoid giving them all the same personality and make them non laughable for people to understand their situations. I just see movies like Lord of the Rings and Star Wars and they can flesh out their characters and make you care about them so well, but when I try to present my story to other people I can see them trying not to laugh because I guess my story is so cheesily and unintentionally funny which is not my goal here. Can I make my main characters unlikable or do the main characters all have to be likeable. It seems like when I try to write out my characters they kind of all have the same personality because I have so many(that is what I intended to do because there are a lot of characters.) Can anybody give me some traits and flaws(I want to know what makes flaws in a character) just like a list so I know what I can do for my writing. Thank you.

 

[DeadmanWalking]

To make a character likeable, you've got to make them relatable. Give them qualities that people respect in a person, like honesty, bravery, compassion, responsible. But you've also got to give them flaws. No one likes a perfect person::. The person can be a bit arrogant, self-sacrificing, dark/depressed (although this is a dangerous one to use; some people may write them off as "emo" if you don't use it right). Whatever flaw you choose though, it has to show. You can't just say they have a flaw and not show it. Think about every aspect of your character. What is their past? What events made them into the person they are? What type of relationships do they have with the world around them? What type of personality do they have and what about them will change throughout the story? What will change them? Just stuff like that.

Just look at this: How to Create a Likable Character - wikiHow

 

[Hoppy]

If you go to nanowrimo's website and look at the forums and the archives there is lots of advice.

But good luck on the writing part anyway, it is only fun part of the time.

Hoppy who wrote 50400 words this year and still have to edit the lot.

 

[Esperance]

I think the kind of character you can make is someone who search the redemption. Someone who have done some terrible things in the past and now wants to be forgive, someone who fights his bad side everytime when the good character tend to do bad actions directly because they didn't learnt to do it. And as this is a trilogy, you could make that character turn bad in the third books because he doesn't believe in good anymore

 

[aNOTfox]

I'm writing a trilogy too!
An interesting thing that I'm doing is to have one of the main characters in book one who is cold and unlikeable, then, as the trilogy progresses, slowy develop that character- mellowing them so that by book three they are a "goody" and have more warmth and kindness and the reader will be more emotionally connected with them.

 

[JackOfSpades]

I like vulnerability and characters with large flaws and inner conflict. The characters that are struggling and can't seem to figure it out. Even desperation. It makes them human, layered, and interesting.

 

[laure15]

I have the same problem with my characters. At first, I made them so perfect that it starts to get a little uninteresting, and unreal. So I'm in the process of incoporating vulnerabilities and flaws into my characters.

 

[aNOTfox]

Also, it may be helpful to write a mini biography for your characters just for you, Then you will have an idea of who those people are and how their experiences made them who they are.

 

[Unspoken]

I don't remember where it was, but I remember reading a few articles that argued against the relatable tactic because the point of fiction is to get people away from real life or something. I think believable sounds better, and I've always liked characters that I admire or am fascinated by better than ones that just seem like me. Sometimes I feel that way about them because they share a similar struggle, though they're nothing like someone I'd meet in real life.

The Doctor (post-reboot) is probably one of my favorite characters ever because he makes me laugh, he's deeply concerned with humankind (I'm a human!), and he's kind of totally alone in the universe as the last of his kind, only ever able to be so close to the humans that live for a fraction of a Time Lord's lifespan and can't leave their human lives behind to go on adventures forever. When your average writer thinks "Okay, I'm going to make a character that people feel for because they also know and fear loneliness and abandonment" they generally don't think to make someone like him.

I guess the point of it is to get creative with where you work those things in. Don't make it too much like real life, but be careful how crazy you get, too.

If your story is being called cheesy, you might be using too many cliches or trying harder to make a point than you need to be.

 

[A Many Splendored Thing]

Doctor Who is my favorite character out of everything I've ever seen. Why?

He is intelligent, confident, witty, and fun in the way that can be liked or disliked. He has his flaws. He tries to be as 'heroish' as he can, which also feeds his ego, and the longer he is alone, the more he begins to be intolerant and hating.

He is a time lord that could possibly live forever, but he hates endings. Even with 1200 years of wisdom, he still makes mistakes(or stupid decisions).

He is always changing but still the same type of personality.

I still remember a scene that cracked me up just the way he reacts:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Wv3O9UD0oA

Just don't make any character annoying. That's the worst thing you can possibly do. Hercule and his affiliates absolutely ruined Dragonball Z when I was a kid. Got in the way of what I really wanted to have happen, and wasn't interesting or funny in any way.