Personalities - Blog Posts

Tips to Making sure your Characters have Different Personalities - Authoring Advice🎭

You have spent time creating each of your characters and yet you may realize that one of your characters seem suspiciously similar to another one of your creations. I have a few tips to help with this.

Hobbies/ Likes/ Preferences:

Maybe both of your characters speak indistinguishably, perhaps they both have the same backgrounds, or both have tempers. A little thing like giving them different favorite foods can go a long way. 

You can put your characters in the same situation or similar ones and show the audience their different reactions. Maybe your characters seem the same but the farther you get to know them, the more you realize you were wrong. People can be the same way.

Backgrounds:

No one has the same past and life as another person (except maybe a sibling but there’s very little chance sisters and brothers are very alike). Parents are different, cultures are unalike, homes are contrasting. 

Try giving your characters separate lives. Experiences shape personalities. 

Make them hate each other:

As strange as it might seem, making the characters hate each other worked surprisingly well for me. 

Maybe, over the simplest thing, they fight and argue. They might have a dark past, or there may be other causes. But arguments (even if its funny to read) distract from the similarities and cause the differences to be more prominent.  

(And besides, it sets up a good enemies to friends subplot. But it might not work for every character. I do not advice on making to many enemy relationships.) 

Contrast the physical appearances:

It’s just a thought, but maybe making the to people look distinctly different can divert readers attention to compare the two. 

“If they look unalike, then they must be.”

Have them be bestest friends:

This is the opposite of another point I made but these are all suggestions, you do not have to follow any of them, but this may be something you want to try.

Just like opposites attract, people who have a lot in common also take interest in one another. Readers may think you made the pair similar on purpose. Like you were trying to have them have similar personalities. 

(BUT do not have them exactly alike, this is just being lazy and should never happen. There are very few exceptions, and they all involve clones.)

Try again:

A very likely reason why your characters are similar is because you didn’t work on them enough. You may need to sit back down at your desk (or floor, that’s my favorite place) and try again.

Redo them completely if you must, or just add on to what you have. But if nothing that I or another person has suggested worked, then your not ready. Eventually your characters will become a perfect mess that they were destined for. 

Introversion vs Extraversion

Chameleon

I'm different faces for different people, and at the end of the day my personalities are exhausted.

Spones headcanon. Their love (part 1)

BRIEFLY DESCRIBING THEIR PERSONALITIES

What are they like in love? This is a general question that I like to ask myself a lot. This includes more specific ones: How do they show their love for each other? Who is more affectionate? What do they like to do? Who is the big spoon and the little spoon? ...

Well, I think I have to differentiate between the normal universe and the Mirrorverse. Spock and McCoy are the characters who most resemble themselves in those universes (in personality), but obviously there are differences, and I think those differences are reflected in their relationship.

1. Spock and Mirror McCoy 2. Mirror Spock and McCoy

Normal Spock is logical, calm, thoughtful, thinks long and hard before he acts, and chooses not to use violence. Mirror Spock is forced to use violence (even if he doesn't really like it), is prepared to manipulate to get what he needs, is also thoughtful, but a little less calm (I think), and is still logical.

Spock and Mirror Spock

McCoy, in my opinion, is the most similar in both universes. The normal McCoy is sentimental, somewhat sensitive (even if he doesn't want to show it), cares a lot about others (especially if they are his friends) and would sacrifice himself for them, likes to tease Spock, isn't violent at all (if the situation requires it, he prefers verbal harm) and is brave at times. And the most important trait: he knows how to bring out Spock's emotions. Mirror McCoy is pretty much the same, only he tends to threaten. People are afraid of him because of threats, but they never come true, and if they come true, not by his hand. Spock or Jim are the ones who incite him to torture or hit someone, he almost never decides it on his own. Perhaps he's more fearful than his counterpart, because that universe is terrible (violence everywhere, death if you don't have allies, betrayal...), and he's not so daring with Spock (the Vulcan imposes him quite a lot).

McCoy and Mirror McCoy

With that out of the way, it's time to answer the questions, but that will be in another post.

IT WILL CONTINUE

(The images are not related to the text)

Part 2

Part 3

Por cristinardvaya