Mezzy
14-02-2007, 12:51
Hints and Tips about writing your character biography
By Stormhawk
See the original thread here (http://forum.tibia.com/forum/?action=thread&threadid=1482564).
Hints towards writing your characters biography (Or ’Roleplaying story’ as they say in Tibia)
Forewords.
1. The basics: Physical and mental traits.
2. Why did he/she become like that?
3. Writing an interesting history.
4. This is so much to read and do! How many words does a Biography need to be?!
5. Flamer: You suck, you ain’t a good roleplayer!
6. But I can’t come up with any good creative ideas!
Forewords: Now, before you read this, I want to make clear that I am in no way a perfect roleplayer. I’ve been doing it for quite a while, and have often taught others how to get into the ‘business’ so to speak.
During the years I played, I noticed that one thing many had problems with was the Biographys, the ‘Roleplaying storys’. This was mainly, I believe, since what that basically means is that you sit down and write a long-ass story about a character you actually don’t quite understand yourself.
This is to me like writing that history test in school, on World War 2, and then when you sit there, you realized you spent the past week studying for the Industrialism (Yes, I have done that, and it was one of the worst tests I ever had in school. Do not ask how I ended up studying that instead.)
So what I basically decided to put together here, is a list with points that you could make use of when you want to give your character some life. This way, it’ll ease your understanding of what you’re trying to create, and it won’t feel so hard writing that ‘long-ass story’ that all the nice guilds would love you to write in your application.
Shall we give it a try?
1. The basics: Physical and mental traits.
This is the most basic things of your character. How he/she looks and how he/she acts. I’ll use Stormhawk as an example to let you see how I did. I used a very strict formula and just filled in the things needed.
Formula:
Appearance
Race:
Height:
Hair:
Eyes:
Physique:
Other traits:
Personality
Good sides:
Bad sides:
Fears:
Preferings:
Back when I created Stormhawk in Tibia, I was a kid at fourteen years old, and my creativity wasen’t half of what it is today, and I used myself as a rolemodel for Stormhawk, except his physique. This was not because I wanted Stormhawk to get hot girls or anything – But I understood that being a paladin and adventure like he does, while eating right results in a good body, and often muscular.
Stormhawks Formula:
Appearance
Race: Vampire
Height: Just above 2 metres.
Hair: Black/dark brown.
Eyes: Dark brown.
Physique: Muscular, but keeps a slim appearance due to his height.
Other traits: Pale skin, and two smaller fangs in his mouth.
Personality
Good sides: Kind and helpful.
Bad sides: Drinks blood and got a short temperament.
Fears: Fire.
Preferings: He loves a good adventure, more then anything!
Okay, with me so far? With those things written down, you can now imagine your character when you think of it.
Let’s jump to the next point.
2. Why did he/she become like that?
The formula mentiond in point 1 gives you a good idea of your character, but it doesn’t tell you the most important answer, to one of the most important questions: “Why did the character become that way?” .
This is mainly the part where the Biography itself takes place. What made your character a good/bad person?
Stormhawk example: Why is Stormhawk afraid of fire?
Answer: His archenemy, who slaughterd his parents, was using fire to burn them to death as Stormhawk witnessed it.
3. Writing an interesting history.
At the age of 15, I was told by my teacher that I was a natural writer, and I had a creativity above most of my fellow classmates. I, sincerely, think that I sucked badly. I didn’t know how to catch a readers interest and I sure did not know how to keep my stories original.
Very little of this is easy to teach someone else, but I’ll give it a try.
First, in a story about a character, there is often other characters. These characters are usually not at all as defined as the main character is, but they are mentiond through the story. This could be the maincharacters parents, relatives, friends, enemies, etc.
Many of you might think that they are unnessecery, but I will assure you right now: They are not! Two of my most interesting, in my own opinion, characters ever was created through this, and later got entire stories of their own because they got a so good response as semi-characters in Stormhawks story. These two were Polarion and Lorloch. I never intended for them to become as great as they did, as far as story goes, but they did.
Why do we need other characters then, if we don’t plan to make anything else then work with our main character?
Well, we are back to get the readers interest. Reading about one single character all the time, and how great it is... It’s boring. It doesn’t keep the attention of the reader.
You need life around the character, to give him life, you see?
4. This is so much to read and do! How many words does a Biography need to be?!
1000 words. Nah, just janking you – But truth be, 1000 words ain’t as much as it sounds.
It is completely up to you. It all depends on how descriptive you’d like to be and how much you enjoy writing.
Do what feels best.
5. Flamer: You suck, you ain’t a good roleplayer!
I’ve always walked through life with a “No Bullshitting” attitude. If the flamer tells me I suck at what I do, then he either thinks he is better then me at it, or he has seen people better then me. (There is always the possibility that we’re dealing with a fulltime moron that eats french fries for a living and lets his mother do all work in the house. In thise cases, I simply do not care.)
If the flamer is one of the other two however, I smile. Come on, if it is any of those two first ones, that means the world has another great roleplayer/writer. I am happy when I see people progress. Jelousy has never been something I included in my personality, I find it discusting in so many ways.
6. But I can’t come up with any good creative ideas!
Ask a friend or a helpful player to read it (Always respect that they may not have time to read it. Once I recieved 10 stories within one week. I was numb from trying to read it all in a World Record time) and see what they say.
Never push away a tip or a hint. Turn it into something good and you’ll see that you are the one winning the run.
Also allow yourself to do misstakes. A misstake isen’t a bad thing, unlike what some people think. I have done so many incredibly stupid misstakes through my time as a roleplayer/writer, that I am surprised my fellow players didn’t just send me a message saying “...Dude... You need to see a doctor, because you’re a freaking idiot.”
Thankfully, I surrounded myself with good people, who knew how see past the misstakes and soon I realized the misstakes really helped me grow as a writer.
This was a very simply ‘Hint-log’ and far from a perfect one, considering that it is a very late hour here and I am writing it because of pure inspiration of some people applying to roleplaying guilds in Tibia, and they try so hard, and then end with a “I am not so good at writing roleplaying storys” – Hopefully this will help you change this attitude.
By Stormhawk
See the original thread here (http://forum.tibia.com/forum/?action=thread&threadid=1482564).
Hints towards writing your characters biography (Or ’Roleplaying story’ as they say in Tibia)
Forewords.
1. The basics: Physical and mental traits.
2. Why did he/she become like that?
3. Writing an interesting history.
4. This is so much to read and do! How many words does a Biography need to be?!
5. Flamer: You suck, you ain’t a good roleplayer!
6. But I can’t come up with any good creative ideas!
Forewords: Now, before you read this, I want to make clear that I am in no way a perfect roleplayer. I’ve been doing it for quite a while, and have often taught others how to get into the ‘business’ so to speak.
During the years I played, I noticed that one thing many had problems with was the Biographys, the ‘Roleplaying storys’. This was mainly, I believe, since what that basically means is that you sit down and write a long-ass story about a character you actually don’t quite understand yourself.
This is to me like writing that history test in school, on World War 2, and then when you sit there, you realized you spent the past week studying for the Industrialism (Yes, I have done that, and it was one of the worst tests I ever had in school. Do not ask how I ended up studying that instead.)
So what I basically decided to put together here, is a list with points that you could make use of when you want to give your character some life. This way, it’ll ease your understanding of what you’re trying to create, and it won’t feel so hard writing that ‘long-ass story’ that all the nice guilds would love you to write in your application.
Shall we give it a try?
1. The basics: Physical and mental traits.
This is the most basic things of your character. How he/she looks and how he/she acts. I’ll use Stormhawk as an example to let you see how I did. I used a very strict formula and just filled in the things needed.
Formula:
Appearance
Race:
Height:
Hair:
Eyes:
Physique:
Other traits:
Personality
Good sides:
Bad sides:
Fears:
Preferings:
Back when I created Stormhawk in Tibia, I was a kid at fourteen years old, and my creativity wasen’t half of what it is today, and I used myself as a rolemodel for Stormhawk, except his physique. This was not because I wanted Stormhawk to get hot girls or anything – But I understood that being a paladin and adventure like he does, while eating right results in a good body, and often muscular.
Stormhawks Formula:
Appearance
Race: Vampire
Height: Just above 2 metres.
Hair: Black/dark brown.
Eyes: Dark brown.
Physique: Muscular, but keeps a slim appearance due to his height.
Other traits: Pale skin, and two smaller fangs in his mouth.
Personality
Good sides: Kind and helpful.
Bad sides: Drinks blood and got a short temperament.
Fears: Fire.
Preferings: He loves a good adventure, more then anything!
Okay, with me so far? With those things written down, you can now imagine your character when you think of it.
Let’s jump to the next point.
2. Why did he/she become like that?
The formula mentiond in point 1 gives you a good idea of your character, but it doesn’t tell you the most important answer, to one of the most important questions: “Why did the character become that way?” .
This is mainly the part where the Biography itself takes place. What made your character a good/bad person?
Stormhawk example: Why is Stormhawk afraid of fire?
Answer: His archenemy, who slaughterd his parents, was using fire to burn them to death as Stormhawk witnessed it.
3. Writing an interesting history.
At the age of 15, I was told by my teacher that I was a natural writer, and I had a creativity above most of my fellow classmates. I, sincerely, think that I sucked badly. I didn’t know how to catch a readers interest and I sure did not know how to keep my stories original.
Very little of this is easy to teach someone else, but I’ll give it a try.
First, in a story about a character, there is often other characters. These characters are usually not at all as defined as the main character is, but they are mentiond through the story. This could be the maincharacters parents, relatives, friends, enemies, etc.
Many of you might think that they are unnessecery, but I will assure you right now: They are not! Two of my most interesting, in my own opinion, characters ever was created through this, and later got entire stories of their own because they got a so good response as semi-characters in Stormhawks story. These two were Polarion and Lorloch. I never intended for them to become as great as they did, as far as story goes, but they did.
Why do we need other characters then, if we don’t plan to make anything else then work with our main character?
Well, we are back to get the readers interest. Reading about one single character all the time, and how great it is... It’s boring. It doesn’t keep the attention of the reader.
You need life around the character, to give him life, you see?
4. This is so much to read and do! How many words does a Biography need to be?!
1000 words. Nah, just janking you – But truth be, 1000 words ain’t as much as it sounds.
It is completely up to you. It all depends on how descriptive you’d like to be and how much you enjoy writing.
Do what feels best.
5. Flamer: You suck, you ain’t a good roleplayer!
I’ve always walked through life with a “No Bullshitting” attitude. If the flamer tells me I suck at what I do, then he either thinks he is better then me at it, or he has seen people better then me. (There is always the possibility that we’re dealing with a fulltime moron that eats french fries for a living and lets his mother do all work in the house. In thise cases, I simply do not care.)
If the flamer is one of the other two however, I smile. Come on, if it is any of those two first ones, that means the world has another great roleplayer/writer. I am happy when I see people progress. Jelousy has never been something I included in my personality, I find it discusting in so many ways.
6. But I can’t come up with any good creative ideas!
Ask a friend or a helpful player to read it (Always respect that they may not have time to read it. Once I recieved 10 stories within one week. I was numb from trying to read it all in a World Record time) and see what they say.
Never push away a tip or a hint. Turn it into something good and you’ll see that you are the one winning the run.
Also allow yourself to do misstakes. A misstake isen’t a bad thing, unlike what some people think. I have done so many incredibly stupid misstakes through my time as a roleplayer/writer, that I am surprised my fellow players didn’t just send me a message saying “...Dude... You need to see a doctor, because you’re a freaking idiot.”
Thankfully, I surrounded myself with good people, who knew how see past the misstakes and soon I realized the misstakes really helped me grow as a writer.
This was a very simply ‘Hint-log’ and far from a perfect one, considering that it is a very late hour here and I am writing it because of pure inspiration of some people applying to roleplaying guilds in Tibia, and they try so hard, and then end with a “I am not so good at writing roleplaying storys” – Hopefully this will help you change this attitude.