Writing Tips and Reviews

This ONE TRAIT Describes My OC/Character

Here's the run down for the ones who like reading one sentence: "DO NOT MAKE ONE CHARACTER TRAIT AND DEFINE AN ENTIRE CHARACTER WITH THAT". Thank you for coming to my show.
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I'm going to be broad and say "character" throughout this because, unless I'm copying and pasting "OC/Character" which I don't want to, it's just letter count.

What defines a character? Perhaps, they have a certain personality type, they have a quirk to them, or what they do. Actually, the right answer is all of the above with the additions of whatever you want.

This pisses me off. I hate it when characters are DEFINED by this little part of them. I see bios for OCs all the time, look like this "name/sexuality/age". What's the problem? Where's the personality? Where's the traits that make them different from others? All I literally see is their name, something only America puts as a priority, and their age. How pathetic. I don't care if you do this, if you do this, then you're not trying. Even just a backstory is better than this.

America, priorities, I only see America do this, other writers (some from America as well) will maybe put it in a character, but it's not what defines them. If it's a romance story then by all means, knock yourself out with pages of how a character is "this sexuality". But if it's fantasy, science fiction, anything, literally anything else, the focus should be on the story and characters as a whole.

Shall we bring up Tales of the Rays' character Mileena Weiss? She swings both ways, and do you know what the first thing comes in mind when I think about her? That she's a character who's able to stand up for herself and do what she wants even if it's not what others want, but, has her limitations. She doesn't do anything that could harm her or others badly. I forget she swings both ways until the game makes a joke, the fandom makes a joke, or she starts hitting on a female character. It's played as a minor aspect of her, it's not her whole.

Writers don't need to make it a running gag if they don't want to. You can mention it, you can have an arc about it, you can even have a relationship with it in mind. Just, for the love of everything, do not make it what defines the character. Once they're defined by this tiny, little piece of them, then that's all they will ever be. The readers aren't going to know them as compelling characters, they're going to know this character as "this one tiny part of who they could be". And this isn't just about sexuality, it's about anything.

Like I said when I spoke about Yuri Lowell and said I had a conversation with that person. The only thing that mattered was that he was "a psychopath". Again, completely false. It wasn't that he has a snarky personality, it wasn't that he would sacrifice himself for the greater good, and it wasn't that he was a person who stands up for the lower quarter. It was that he was "a psychopath". Really showing what that person knows. Every single character they have is "a psychopathic murder with a tragic backstory". I could go on about repeating a character but I already have.

This is a major problem in this type of writing. The "one liners" it could be called. In a bio, you have a sneak peak to a character, or everything. It does depend on the type. If it's an OC then everything is the norm of OC bios. If it's a regular character (or CC) then a hint is all you need because the whole point of your own story is to explore the world, which includes the characters. They're developed in the story, who they are is explored there and so is everything else.

This makes for good story writing, if a character is defined by this one little trait, then the explanation goes a whole two sentences to a paragraph at maximum, and the development is non-existent. The entire story for this "one liner" character is focusing on the "one liner". If they're gay, the whole story is about how they're gay. If they're soccer player, then the whole story is about how amazing of a soccer player they are.

This all going without anymore to who they are. A gay character can be kind, they can be rude, they can be anything. Same with the soccer player. Real life people are not this way. Like I said with repeating characters, everyone is different. Two soccer players will have completely different or similar personalities but they're not the same person.

Look around you, even talk to your friends. If you have a transgender or whatever friend, and you define them by that. They're going to be pissed. They could be a good student, a good worker, a good athlete, a good artist, a good writer, and have this amazing personality, or have a personality you hate. So to define them by "you're my only transgender friend" or "I love you because you're transgender" is an insult. Unless they think like you. I've seen that, literally someone commented on another's profile the first, and the person, being in the same thought process, was okay with it.

If someone came to me and said "you're amazing because you're (this)" while ignoring my personality, ignoring my work, ignoring everything about me, I would ignore them. And probably block them.

I'm not going to write a character with "this because it's cool" because I'm not that type of writer. If my character swings both ways, then it's a little part of who they are. If my character is blind, then it's a little part of who they are, and I write their behavior accordingly, but it's still not what defines them. If they're a psychopath, then it's a little part of them.

This is not me hating on gay, transgender or whatever the like. You can crop or edit my words however you like to make it seem that way, but it's not true. I don't care, as mean as that sounds, I don't care. I'm a pretty accepting person and I have a friend who's gay, but every conversation we have isn't about her being gay. She's weird and quirky and honestly needs to leave me alone sometimes, but I still like her because of who she is as a person. I'm hating on when people make a character and do the bare minimum of development with a one liner trait.

I didn't say it was just about sexuality, it can be sports, one of the things they do as a hobby, something they like, maybe they eat too much or too little. These are parts of a character and even a person. Even other animals are like that. A bird sings, but that's not what they're defined as. I can name ten things I like about birds and it's still not enough to define them.