Creating An OC

Creating characters can be hard, I’ve been in character lulls before, so I understand the hardships that come with the creation of a new person. But worry no more! Cast your fears away. I’m here to give you a nice guide of sorts on creating a new character. Any of these points can be used, or discarded at your will, it’s just a little thing to help you out.

It doesn’t matter if this is the first OC you’ve created, or you’re an OC creating pro, none of this applies to one specific type of writer.

I’ll start with the first step (and feel free to use these out of order, or skip them completely.).

Step One:

Figure out the general layout of your character, this can be accomplished in a few ways. Creating a mood board, a color palate, or taking a personality quiz for your character. I find that Cavana has a good mood board maker, and it’s free (though like many free things there are limited options for only people who pay.) For the color palate creator, Paletton is an amazing tool to help create a set of colors which work wonderfully for your character. Finally for quizzes, I personally like 16 Personalities, though Myers Brigs personalities aren’t all that accurate. Also the Alignment Test that is widely associated with D&D is very helpful.

Then with these in mind figure out a gender and an age.

Step Two:

Now that you’ve figured out some of the basics of your character, what he or she likes, doesn’t like, if he or she is a leader or a follower, and the general vibe for them. The next step I like to take is to figure out a name. Names are important, they can convey a lot about a character, and I don’t just mean in meanings. The way the name sounds, combines with a last name. This is important. Behind the Name has an excellent categorized system of names. And also a name generator (something that can be useful if you don’t have time to sift through hundreds of alphabetized names. And then Behind the Surname Is just the last name version of the Behind the name.

Step Three:

Alright. We have a name, we have a roughly shaped personality. Now it’s time to figure out what your character looks like. Now having a face claim isn’t so important as figuring out the appearance. And appearance isn’t just hair, eyes, body time. It’s also, how does your character move? Does he or she have a limp? Does he or she walk in a sluggish manner?

While I just said faceclaims were not important, having a face to put to your character can help decide these other things. Angeldust Face-claim Directory is a good resource to narrow down options.

Figuring out a clothing style can also be helpful for creating a character, Pintrist has some good clothes combinations, but so does Google Images.

Step Four:

Now it’s time to be a bit more specific in your character. What does he or she like doing? What do they dislike doing? Does he or she have any outstanding abilities? Does he or she have any fears? What are his or her ultimate dreams and goals? Creating a list of a few of these will help to create a more thorough personality in detail. More specifications can be sexuality, how they look for in a friend, how they take criticism… it’s ok to get specific here, it just helps to create a very well rounded and well thought out character.

Step Five:

I would say this is one of the more important steps. MARY/GARY SUE/STU test. It’s important to not have a Mary Sue or Gary Stu. Because having a character that’s just… good at everything and shits rainbows isn’t going to help with any creative writing. Mary Sue Test Here’s a nice test to see how much of a trope your character is.

Step Six:

 History. History is important, it’s what shapes personality, what shapes reactions to situations. Now there’s a lot of tragic histories out there, so try not to get too cliché with it (this is something that I struggle with all the time). Staying away from Clichés is honestly very hard. Tv Tropes Is a good way to check your character for too many tropes and clichés.

Next part to history is family, what was their family like? Did they enjoy doing things with them? Would they go out for a beer with their dad? Would they sit down to a cup of wine/beer/anything liquid with their mom? If they had siblings what kind of relationship did/do they have? Are there any family members they don’t like? Are there any family members they’d die for? Then come friends, do they have friends? How did they meet? What’s the importance of their friendship? Are they coffee friends, or cover up a murder kind of friends?

Neutrals and enemies are needed, but they can add more dimension to your character.

Step Seven:

Putting it all together in a character sheet. Start with the basics. Name, Age, Gender, Sexuality, Birthday if you want… and get more in depth as you go. Add a brief description of their appearance, include scars, birth marks, and any other interesting physical characteristic that can help define your characters appearance. Then go on to speech. Write what their voice sounds like, is it deep, raspy, squeaky, calm? Do they use a lot of expletives, are they lacking in articles? Do they have a speech impediment?

The next step is to figure out the characters mind. So, fears, phobias, and any sort of mental disorder that your character has (Remember. If you give your character a mental disorder please, PLEASE research it thoroughly… misrepresented mental problems can cause really big arguments).

Next comes the personality. Now, you should already have the general personality, and what kind of person they are, along with some likes and dislikes. Which means that all you have to do is combine them into some nice sentences, write as much as you want, there really isn’t too much or too little, the most important thing is to make sure that you are happy with the way your character has turned out.

And now we come to history and relationships. Writing out a history from birth to present can be taxing, and if you don’t want to do that (as I find trouble in it) then creating a sequence of events like a timeline can come in handy. Writing only the parts of the history you find important, but transitioning with a short sentence of the timeline.

The last thing I like to do, is figure out my characters opinions on their family/friends/pets/etc. So I usually write a few sentences to a paragraph from the point of view of my character describing their family and friends so that I have something to draw from later.

While this is not a stone hard set of rules, I’ve found that it can be very useful if you’re suffering from character creation block. So enjoy this, take it as you will, and have fun writing!