JustTryingToNotCryAboutIt

Resource Dump: Creating Characters!

Primary Characters

Your Hero: Top Ten Rules

10 Traits of a Great Protagonist

4 Steps to Creating a Truly Active Protagonist

20 Tips for Creating Relatable Protagonists

How to Center your Story

How to Create Unforgettable Protagonists

25 Things You Should Know About Protagonists

Creating Memorable Characters

Creating Strong Female Protagonists

Creating Dynamic Protagonists

How to Create Characters

Inner Dialogue - Writing Inner Character Thoughts

25 Things a Great Character Needs

5 Ways to Create 3D Characters

Secondary Characters

10 Secrets to Creating Unforgettable Supporting Characters

How to Write Effective Supporting Characters

Question to Ask (& Strengthen) Your Minor Characters

5 Tips for Developing Supporting Characters

Techniques for Creating Great Secondary Characters

5 Steps to Dazzling Minor Characters

3 Ways to Create Stupendous Supporting Characters

Creating Memorable Secondary Characters

5 Archetypes for Supporting Characters

Your Map to Creating a Memorable Minor Characters

Names

Top Ten Tips

8 Tips for Naming Characters

7 Rules of Naming Fictional Characters

Name that Character!

6 Creative Ways to Name your Character

Naming your Characters

A Guide to Naming Characters

Female: 1 | 2 | 3

Male: 1 | 2 | 3

Alien: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

Surname: 1 | 2 | 3 

Unisex: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4

Traits

List: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9

Developing Character Traits

How to Create Good Personalities for your Characters

Develop Memorable Personalities

Give your Character Personality

How to Create a Character’s Personality

How to Make Sure your Character’s Personality Shines

5 Building Blocks of your Character’s Personality

Appearance

Appearance Generator

Your Character’s Physical Appearance

How to Describe a Character’s Looks

Describing a Character’s Appearance

Character Description Resource

Examples of Physical Characteristics

Describing the Physical Attributes of your Characters

How Great Authors Describe Character Appearance

Ultimate Guide to Nailing your Character’s Appearance

Describing Clothing and Appearance

Character Appearance Help

Character Description Resource

Describing People: A Person’s Physical Appearance

Describing the Physical Attributes of Characters

Speech

Talking About your Character: Speech

Variety in Character Voices

All your Characters Talk the Same

How to Create Distinctive Character Voices

How to Create Characters Who Don’t Sound like You

The Art of Voice in Fiction

Create Varying, Yet Realistic, Speech Patterns

The Art and Craft of Dialogue

Writing Character Voice

Creating Differences in the Speech Patterns of your Characters

Style: Person and Speech

Dialects: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6

Backstory

Building Better Backstories

Basic Tips to Create Better Characters with Tragic Backstories

How to Write a Backstory

Writing Characters Using Conflict and Backstory

Backstory Description Generator

Questions to Create Character Backstory

How to Weave in Backstory to Reveal Character

Nail your Character’s Backstory

How to Write Backstory Without Putting your Reader to Sleep

How to Write a Killer Backstory

Diversity

How to Make Young Adult Fiction More Diverse

Writing People of Color

A Few Tips and Resources for Writing Characters of Colour

Writing Characters of Colour Tastefully

Writing With Colour

7 Offensive Mistakes Well-Intentioned Writers Make

Writing Characters of Colour

Describing Characters of Colour

Gender

Female: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

Male: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

Transgender: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6

Non-Binary: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

Sexuality

Main Character Sexuality

On Writing LGBTQ Characters: 1 | 2

Writing Gay Characters

Guide to LGBT YA

Avoiding LGBTQ Stereotypes

Writing Bisexual Characters: 1 | 2

Writing Asexual Characters: 1 | 2

Pansexual & Demisexual Characters

How to Write Gay, Bisexual and Pansexual Characters

Introduction

Introducing a Character

Introducing your Main Character

Do’s and Don’ts for Introducing your Protagonist

First Impressions

How to Introduce a Character

How Not to Introduce a Main Character

Introducing the Protagonist

Development

Character Development

9 Ingredients of Character Development

Characterisation 1 - Character Development

How to Develop a Character for a Story

Character Development

Character Development Drives Conflict

Developing your Characters and Making them Interesting

Relationships

How to Write Strong Character Relationships

Character Relationships

3 Keys to Developing Character Relationships

The Secret Behind Great Character Relationships

3 Tips for Character Relationships

Building Believable Relationships

Sibling: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4

Platonic: 1 | 2 | 3

Romantic: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6

Strengths

Identifying your Character’s Strengths

Character Strengths and Weaknesses

Introducing the 24 Character Strengths

Character Strengths and Virtues List

Strengths and Weaknesses

A Balance of Strengths

Flaws

123 Ideas for Character Flaws

DarkWorld RPG Flaws List

Character Flaws

Ten Ugliest Character Flaws

The Four Types of Character Flaws

On Giving Flaws and Weaknesses

Character Flaw Index

Goal

Why your Character’s Goal Needs to be 1 of these 5 Things

Goals Define the Plot

Goal Setting for You and your Character

How to Explore you Character’s Motivation

4 Ways to Motivate Character and Plot

Motivation

By Genre

Fantasy: 1 | 2 | 3

Sci-Fi: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4

Romance: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4

Thrillers: 1 | 2 

Horror: 1 | 2 | 3

Heroes

Your Hero: Top Ten Rules

How to Write your Own Hero Story

What Makes a Great Hero?

Creating Heroes and Heroines

Write a Story about a Hero

How to Create an Antihero that Readers Love

Heroes vs. Anti-Heroes

Create a Super Hero

How to Create a Brand New Iconic Hero or Villain

What Makes a Hero

Villains

How to Create a Credible Villain in Fiction

How to Make a Purely Evil Villain Interesting

9 Evil Examples of the Villain Archetype

How Not to Create a Villain

Creating Villains People Love to Hate

3 Techniques for Crafting a Better Villain

Basic Tips to Write Better & More Despicable Villains

Writing Tips for Creating a Complex Villain

How to Create a Great Villain

Do’s & Don’ts

Do’s and Dont’s of Writing a Good Character

How to Create a Character

Characterisation Dos and Dont’s

Female Characters of Do’s and Dont’s

Do’s and Dont’s of Dialect

Helpful Writing Blogs

fuckyeahcharacterdevelopment*

writeworld

referenceforwriters

thewritingcafe

aquestionofcharacter *

writingwithcolor

fuckyeah-char-dev

dailycharacterdevelopment

Clichés

Characters and Cliches

Top 10 Character Cliches

7 Lazy Character Cliches 

10 Most Cliched Characters in Sci-Fi

Four Worst Character Cliches

Female Character Cliches

Character Cliches to Avoid

The Cliche Character Test

How Cliches Can Help You Make Great Characters

Templates

How to Create a Character Profile

Writing Character Bios

Character Sheets and Character Creation

Gender/Sexuality Generator

Extremely Detailed Character Template

Writer’s Resource: Character Template

Character Ideas:

Character creation masterpost

Character Alignment Chart

More character alignment descriptions

Muslim Character questions

Characters with magical powers

Building a new character advice

How to create a character for an online or tabletop RPG (also a good guide on creating characters in general)

Royalty/nobility TV Tropes page

Basic character profile

OC masterpost

Random character generators - (1), (2), (3), (4)

D&D Character Building Tool

Character Design Ideas:

How clothing affects a character’s personality

Character Design Inspiration blog

Concept art, fan art, cool art to be inspired by

Character design references and inspiration

Sources for POC character design ideas and models

Create your own character model using HeroForge

For horned characters

Body and hair types guide

Random outfit generator

Naming Help:

Amazing site with an endless amount of naming resources

General advice on avoiding naming appropriation

Hispanic Surnames

Gothic Victorian names

Huge master list for character things in general

Masterlist of names of all types - including but not limited to ancient/old world names, Celtic, African, Northern European, Southern and Central American Native names, Japanese, Chinese, Mongolian, Polynesian, and more

Another name masterlist

How to pick a character name guide

Yet another names masterlist

Creating Background/backstory:

Character Sheet/Development Sheet

Another character development list

In-depth character personality, motivations and traits sheet

320 talents and passions for characters

On writing likes and dislikes that aren’t frivolous

Why you should write non-human characters non-conforming to the gender binary

Stereotypes, tropes, and archetypes

Random backstory generator

Assassin and thief character tropes to avoid

Character Interactions and putting your character into your world/story:

Comparing character height/height references

Characters who are scientists and writing about them doing science

Describing what different voices sound like

Describing skin tones

Writing friendship interactions that are platonic

Why having one character knock their friend unconscious to prevent them from doing something is a bad idea

Advice on shipping OCs with canon characters and what to avoid doing

Sweet Polly Oliver and Sweet on Polly Oliver situations (think of Disney’s Mulan for an example)

How to write multiple viewpoints/juggling a main cast of more than 4 to 6 characters

How to make readers care about your morally gray hero/anti-hero

On platonic OC and canon character relationships

How to avoid Godmodding in RPs

When it’s cheap to kill off a character

Writing dialogue

Things you shouldn’t do to canon characters

Avoiding purple prose in writing and RPs

Slang resources

Dialogue tips

Websites to chart your story/plot/character relationships

LIST OF SOME GREAT KOREAN THRILLERS

So you wanna watch some great Korean thrillers, but don’t know where to start. Well look no further, I made a list of Korean movies which in my opinion, are simply the best.

-The “+” indicates that this is also horror-

-Oldboy(2003)

-The Yellow Sea(2010)

-A Hard Day(2014)

-Memories of Murder(2003)

-Montage(2013)

-Mother(2009)

-Sympathy for Lady Vengeance(2005)

-I Saw the Devil(2010) +

-The Host(2006) +

-The Man from Nowhere(2010)

-Bedevilled(2010) +

-Blood and Ties(2013)

-Helpless(2012)

-The Wailing(2016) +

-Broken(2014)

-Handphone(2009)

-Creepy(2016)

1: What’s your OC’s biggest insecurity and how would they react if someone pointed it out to them?

2: If your OC wants to buy a firearm, what it might be for?

3: Does your OC behave differently around different people, if so with whom and how?

4: Would your OC want to involve themselves in humanitarian work ? If yes, then for what? If not, then why not?

5: How would your OC generally react to someone being verbally abusive towards them for no apparent reason?

6: Does your OC have a realistic image of their own intelligence?

7: Does your OC have any irrational phobias?

8: How is/was your OC’s relationship with their parents?

9: Does your OC feel a pressure to achieve or are they content and calm with doing what they can at the moment?

10: Does your OC guard their emotions by being tough? If not how would they?

11: How would your OC react to hearing they’re adopted?

12: What is one of the most primary things your OC feels that is missing from their life?

13: What kind of situations does your OC avoid the most?

14: If your OC gets into a fight with their best friend, would they wait for their friend to make up with them, or would they try to make up with their friend?

15: Does your OC consider themselves a good person?

16: Is your OC good at giving others validation of their feelings and making them feel understood?

17: Does your OC suffer from any mental health issues?

18: What kind of intrapersonal values does your OC have? (values about their self, what makes them feel like a valid person)

19: What boosts your OC’s confidence the most?

20: Does your OC hurt others often unintentionally? If yes, how?

21: Does your OC hurt others often intentionally? If yes, how?

22: How does your OC usually show affection? Are they openly romantic or more restricted with their affectionate emotions?

23: Does your OC tend to hide something about their personality/essence when meeting new people? If yes, what?

24: How would your OC react if they got humiliated by someone in a group of people?

25: How would your OC process the grief caused by the death of a loved one?

26: What is the most intense thing your OC has been battling with?

27: Does your OC practise any kind of escapism? If yes, what kind?

28: How would your OC react if a bully stole their lunch money in high school?

29: How does your OC behave on the face of a conflict?

Nathaniel/Velanna is really sketchy to me. Nathaniel is a great character and all, But when you meet him in Awakening he’s…not really a good guy. He’s got all these ideas in his head about nobility and tradition and the ends justifying the means.

In all the information we’re given about Nate, we only see him interested in two people: Velanna and an woman at the Grand Tourney - another elf. Now it may be that this is a coincidence but to me it reads like he has a thing for elves. Which would mean that he’s fetishizing her: she’s exotic; a “noble savage;” etc. 

Let’s look at what happens when you give him the Howe bow. He relates the story of his mighty ancestor kicking ass and taking names - in the Exalted March. He’s absolutely uncritical about his family’s participation in this genocide. And he more or less says all this within earshot of Velanna. This interaction reflects everything his people have taken from hers; not just the in the bow itself, but in the fact that he knows its story. His legacy is intacact.

So these are all excellent reasons for Velanna to dislike him. And she does. And what does Nate do when he finally gets it? He drops his chivalrous bullshit and calls her ears clownish. Not only is this supreme Nice Guy™ fuckery, but in mocking the feature of hers that is the most markedly non-human, it is supremely racist.

And it also occurs to me that, despite tradition and etiquette and law, Rendon favored his youngest son, Thomas, to the point that he denied Nate his inheritance, refused to arrange a politically favorable marriage for him, and wanted him sent away. Rendon doesn’t even talk about him (and yes, we can say that it’s probably because Rendon wasn’t written as having 3 children until DA:A but that’s boring).

So… can we just hc that the reason Rendon didn’t want his estate and titles and such to go through Nathaniel are because Nate is the child of a dalliance between his wife and Loghain and Rendon knew it? That might have allowed Loghain to take even more power and influence from him, if he wanted to, not to mention it would explain why there’s this tension between the two of them even though they’re “allied” throughout DA:O. But to publicly disown Nate would have meant admitting that his marriage and family were in shambles and lost him lots of respect with the court, been a serious dig to his reputation and ego, given Loghain a public influence on Rendon’s family and holdings, made Rendon essentially useless to his wife and their family (as Loghain holds just as much and then more power than Rendon does as the story progresses), and jeopardized his relations–which were already strained–with his wife’s family.