A request for writing advice

[TheTwisted1]

While not exactly "other people's fanfiction", this subforum seems the best place for this. This is a topic involving writing, and my poor attempts at it, that I've conversed about elsewhere to little gain, and am seeking more input.

A recurring element of advice and statements about writing fiction is "letting the characters drive". In other words, that the actions of the characters must be foremost a product of their own personalities and, well, character, rather than the demands of the plot.

The question I have is simple: how do you figure that out? How do you determine what character X would do in situation Y? The writing advice that I've read seems to take this for granted.
"If you
wish to converse with me, define your
terms."

--Voltaire

[batzulger]

Take it to the simplest extent to start with. Why does that character get out of bed in the morning?

I have a character that's a chronically depressed Soviet-ish supersoldier. I couldn't get a handle on her until I answered that question. 'Because she owes her existence to others' sacrifice and if she didn't get up, she might as well just kill herself now.'
--------------------------------
Je ne suis pas une Intelligence Artificielle Turing. Je suis Charlie.

[Bob Schroeck]

What Batzulger said. Excellent starting point if you don't have other information immediately at hand (and in fan writing you usually do, but let's set that aside). What you do after that point is you start to internalize the character by understanding who they are and projecting what they might do in different situations. Some of this is stuff like the classic "coffee, tea or orange juice at breakfast?" question. Some of it will be deeper -- moral or ethical choices. Some will be history -- who were they before the story started?

Some of this will happen at the time you create the character. Some of this will happen as you write them. Eventually, you will know the character to the point that you don't have to stop and think about the next thing they'll say while you're writing -- they just say it as you type. Once you're at that stage, they will start to surprise you by saying something you didn't expect. This is really your subconscious mind "animating" them for you while you handle the foreground writing tasks, but it can be spooky the first time it occurs, and you will feel like the story just took over and was writing itself for a while. But it's the greatest thing when it happens, because that's when your characters start being people on their own.

Does that help?
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[TheTwisted1]

What you do after that point is you start to internalize the character by understanding who they are and projecting what they might do in different situations.

And how do you do that?

Some of this will happen at the time you create the character.

For that matter, how do you create "three-dimensional" (i.e. not "flat") characters in the first place?

Some of this will happen as you write them. Eventually, you will know the character to the point that you don't have to stop and think about the next thing they'll say while you're writing -- they just say it as you type. Once you're at that stage, they will start to surprise you by saying something you didn't expect. This is really your subconscious mind "animating" them for you while you handle the foreground writing tasks, but it can be spooky the first time it occurs, and you will feel like the story just took over and was writing itself for a while. But it's the greatest thing when it happens, because that's when your characters start being people on their own.

See, I keep hearing things like this, and it doesn't seem to help. Because I'm stuck on the "as you write them" part. How do you write anything from someone who isn't you? How do you determine what a character does in a situation?
"If you
wish to converse with me, define your
terms."

--Voltaire

[robkelk]

Take a look at who's outside your window. What do your best friends like on pizza? What do they do for a living (work or study)? How good is their fashion sense? What's the most surprising thing you ever learned about each of them? How often do they swear? What are all the little things you know about them that make your best friends distinct people and not just faces in the crowd? (Add questions as you see fit.)

(Don't answer those questions here.)

Go through the same list for some people you barely know from work or school. You won't have as much information, but you'll be able to come up with at least a few answers.

Now go through the list for your fictional characters. You'll have to make up the answers - but whatever answers you do make up go toward making them individuals.

Once you've got that, you can think "what would somebody who likes this and dislikes that do in the situation here?" and apply the answer to the character that you're writing. After a decade or two, the process comes naturally... but you'll need to think about it for the first few months.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[Bob Schroeck]

Three-dimensional people are complicated. They don't always smile. They're not always grumpy. They express opinions, but may contradict themselves. They may have secrets they never tell anyone. They may have histories that never actually come up in a story but which influence how they react to what happens in your plot. They have irrational -- or perfectly rational -- likes and dislikes.

If you can describe a character in just a sentence or two, they're probably not three-dimensional. If you use a single word, they don't even get as far as two-dimensional.

How do you write anything from someone who isn't you? How do you determine what a character does in a situation?

Have you never played "pretend" or been in a roleplaying game? It doesn't take a lot of imagination to come up with a person who isn't you -- you just think of what you would do in situation "X", and then choose something different for them. If you have to, dip into stereotypes to figure out reactions.

Let's take the simplest of one-dimensional characters, in the simplest of situations: Susie Schoolgirl (whose entire character is that she's a teenaged schoolgirl), and Sam the Soldier (who is a trained infantryman in full gear). Now imagine both of them being assaulted by a mugger. What does each one of them do?

If you can't imagine any response for either of them which isn't what you would do in that situation, maybe you shouldn't be writing.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[Inquisitive Raven]

I've often considered outlining characters using a GURPS character sheet, possibly throwing in Nature/Demeanor from the Storyteller system (White Wolf/Onyx Path). Pay particular attention to the character's Advantages/Disadvantages and Quirks/Perks as these will often give you some idea of the character's personality. That's also where the Nature/Demeanor thing comes in. Nature is the core of who the character is. Demeanor is the mask that the character presents to the world. They can be quite different, and the dichotomy can be a source of internal conflict if you want to go that way.
Here's an alternative character outline scheme.

[TheTwisted1]

(Don't answer those questions here.)

I'm not sure I could answer those questions.

Go through the same list for some people you barely know from work or school.

NEET on disability here, who pretty much never socialized in college or work. I have only three friends, all of whom I met in high school or earlier (the earliest in 4th grade), and all of whom are high-IQ, STEM-focused, Alaskan-born males like myself. They and my immediate family are my only real IRL socialization, and I don't even do much actual interaction online (this is much more online conversing than I usually do). I'm not sure how much of this is explained by the Asperger's, how much by my lifelong mood disorder, how much by my sensory processing disorder, how much by a family history of antisocial tendencies, and how much by my 151 IQ.

Once you've got that, you can think "what would somebody who likes this and dislikes that do in the situation here?"

And my problem is that I literally do not know how to answer that question. That's the problem I'm trying to solve here, and what I'm asking.

Have you never played "pretend" or been in a roleplaying game?

Not really, no.

It doesn't take a lot of imagination to come up with a person who isn't you

More than I have apparently. Or at least, if they're not me, then the inside of their head is a black box, their behavior mysterious and unpredictable.

If you can't imagine any response for either of them which isn't what you would do in that situation

I can imagine lots of possible responses for them; I just don't seem to have any way of figuring out which one is "the right one" for their character and which isn't. How do you do that?

Or perhaps I should only try writing xenofiction?

I've often considered outlining characters using a GURPS character sheet, possibly throwing in Nature/Demeanor from the Storyteller system (White Wolf/Onyx Path).

Sure, but then the question remains. How, Inquisitive Raven, do I convert those listings and traits on that character sheet into behavior?
"If you
wish to converse with me, define your
terms."

--Voltaire

[batzulger]

They wear high heeled boots. Why do they wear high-heeled boots? Because they think they're too short. A silly example but it gets the point across. Why do you wear what you do? Why did you make that choice to put on that shirt today? People do the things they do for reasons even if they don't consciously realize what those reasons are. These reasons are also called motivations. Characters have goals that drive these motivations. As the writer, you get to decide these goals.

Joe wants to rob a bank. Why? He needs money. Why doesn't he work for it? He's lazy.

You can work forward from the character or backward from the plot to determine the character you need that fits the role in the story. And all that about letting the character drive? That's great for some stories and writers, not for all stories and writers. You can write fantastic plot driven stories too.
--------------------------------
Je ne suis pas une Intelligence Artificielle Turing. Je suis Charlie.

[drakensis]

One thing I do sometimes is to take characters from unrelated fiction and use them as a template (changing name, etc.)
So for example, I need a naval officer to command a battle. I thinly base him off Benjamin Sisko from Deep Space 9. Career military, has a son, lost wife to Wolf 359 previous war. Currently taking offensive stance so that in this war battles are fought in enemy terrain, not at home where they endanger his people. By extension, willing to inflict heavy losses on the enemy rather than risk taking them. Reacts poorly to heavy losses among his people. Holds in contempt other commanders (allied or enemy) willing to expend large numbers of troops for an objective but will take advantage of an enemy who does so.
D for Drakensis

You're only young once, but immaturity is forever.

[LilFluff]

You'll run across authors who do all sorts of things, filling out a form; literally interview their characters, "What's your strongest childhood memory?" "How does character X annoy you, and what do you most like about them?"; or one I do at times, free writing involving the character as a form of exploratory writing. With a current project I have three characters that are college students, for whom I knew almost nothing beyond that (okay, two are for lack of a better word aliens from the other side of an interworld portal, one of a handful that opened on Earth in the early 20th century, and the third a human whose father takes him to the other side of the portal when the company he worked for transferred him there). So I free wrote short snippets of the characters when they were younger to get an idea of who they were. When I do this I give myself permission to just go with the first thing that comes to mind. It's purely exploratory and if I decide something isn't right I can just delete it.
But the value of these is to get an idea of the characters' goals, desires, and possibly their fears. Then when you have a scene you can ask, "Okay, because of their older sister's scandal they don't handle anything that smacks of cheating or betrayal well. A month ago they and their long time companion woke up hung over with a third person in their bed. That third person has just shown up at the front door saying they're pregnant and have been thrown out of their home. How would they react to this?" The more of a feeling you get for the character the less you may need to consciously ask that. But when you're still figuring out how the character ticks it can be helpful to have worked out those desires and fears. If you're taking the time to consciously ask the, "Okay, what do they think about this?" don't stop with the first answer. "I'd like to slam to door in the character's face, how dare they show up again. On the other hand the character might well be pregnant with my kid. And even if they I mean to they got someone younger drunk and pulled them off to bed, mom and dad are going to kill me and if I don't treat the poor kid (college freshman, they're all naive kids) right mom and dad will kill me a second time!" Partly because the first thing that comes to mind won't necessarily be the best idea but also partly because people can be complicated and you might decide two or more of those answers influence how the character reacts.
It might be helpful to explore different systems of archetypes (whether Myers Briggs types, or Jungian types, or whatever) and what the stereotypical views of each are and how they're supposed to interact with each other. That would give you a framework to use. So you could more or less say, "Okay, character A is a Jester, B is a Ruler, and C is an Innocent..." The archetype can be like the outermost layer of a Russian nesting doll. The most easily seen part of the character. But the other details you come up with for the character by asking and answering questions (however you chose to do that) become the other layers of doll within that make them different from other examples of that archetype.
You might try looking at established sets of characters and ask what would happen if you put them in different situations. Not necessarily writing an actual fanfic, just asking, "Okay, each of the characters in Stargate SG1 wakes up finding a dead body in their room. What do they do? Why?What do they do that's the same as each other, what's different? What's something each character would notice that's different from the others?" Or the crew of the Serenity, or Leverage or White Collar or jump back a few decades and ask it about the cast of the A Team or Hogan's Heroes. Then try asking the same about your characters. And experiment with different things. What works for one person won't necessarily work for you. It doesn't mean you're wrong, it means that tool doesn't fit your needs at this time. It might be useful later, it might not, just keep looking and trying.
-----

Will the transhumanist future have catgirls? Does Japan still exist? Well, there is your answer.

[robkelk]

Go through the same list for some people you barely know from work or school.

NEET on disability here, who pretty much never socialized in college or work. I have only three friends, all of whom I met in high school or earlier (the earliest in 4th grade), and all of whom are high-IQ, STEM-focused, Alaskan-born males like myself. They and my immediate family are my only real IRL socialization, and I don't even do much actual interaction online (this is much more online conversing than I usually do). I'm not sure how much of this is explained by the Asperger's, how much by my lifelong mood disorder, how much by my sensory processing disorder, how much by a family history of antisocial tendencies, and how much by my 151 IQ.

Ah. The usual advice won't work here, then. Let me ponder some things over the day, and I'll reply again this evening.

(I also have a Mensa-level IQ and people keep telling me I'm a good writer, so that can't be a major contributing factor - or, at least, not the sole factor.)
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[TheTwisted1]

So for example, I need a naval officer to command a battle. I thinly base him off Benjamin Sisko from Deep Space 9.

But then how do you know how Ben Sisko would react in a given situation, except that it literally shows up in an episode of DS9. How do you figure out the question "what would Sisko do?"

You might try looking at established sets of characters and ask what would happen if you put them in different situations. Not necessarily writing an actual fanfic, just asking, "Okay, each of the characters in Stargate SG1 wakes up finding a dead body in their room. What do they do? Why?What do they do that's the same as each other, what's different? What's something each character would notice that's different from the others?"

Apparently I'm not being clear enough. I don't know how to answer those questions. What I'm asking is how you do so. Like "Jack O'Neill wakes up with a dead body in his room; what does he do?" How do I go about figuring out the answer to that question? How do I figure out "what would Jack O'Neill do?"
"If you
wish to converse with me, define your
terms."

--Voltaire

[Black Aeronaut]

TheTwisted1 wrote:NEET on disability here, who pretty much never socialized in college or work. I have only three friends, all of whom I met in high school or earlier (the earliest in 4th grade), and all of whom are high-IQ, STEM-focused, Alaskan-born males like myself. They and my immediate family are my only real IRL socialization, and I don't even do much actual interaction online (this is much more online conversing than I usually do). I'm not sure how much of this is explained by the Asperger's, how much by my lifelong mood disorder, how much by my sensory processing disorder, how much by a family history of antisocial tendencies, and how much by my 151 IQ.

Uhm...  Wow.
What Rob said.  I would dare say that the Asperger's Syndrome and the mood disorder are definitely major contributors.  The anti-social tendencies are, more or less, a product of that - besides, those two disorders are very much hereditary, which would explain your entire family's tendency in that direction.  And there is a very strong correlation of people with Asperger's syndrome having high IQ scores.  (Some software companies have begun snapping up programmers with Asperger's syndrome because they tend to code with a much lower rate of error than others.)

The only thing I can suggest is to absolutely OBSESS over the character's in question.  Learn everything you can about said character from the source material.

Now, in this you're gonna run into a few speed bumps, depending on how well written the source material is.  The better stuff has characters with incredible depth - you learn not only their motivations (example, the previously cited "Why do they even bother with getting up in the morning?" question), but their history, likes and dislikes, the reasons for those likes and dislikes, and their personality quirks.  (A personality quirk basically being something that someone does for no other explainable reason aside from that it's just something that person does.  Example: Yudachi from Kancolle and her verbal tic of saying "poi" all the time.  Alternatively: Professor Desty Nova from Battle Angel Alita and his obsession with Flan.)

However, here's the speed bump: quite often you're gonna run into source material that leaves glaringly huge holes in the development of the character you want to write about.  The worst offenders have characters making decisions that are completely contradictory to the character themself.  (Hint: This is why a lot of people write 'Fix Fics' - they're correcting grievous contradictions like these while still keeping the story interesting... or at least attempting to do so.  Some succeed at this and some fail.)

So, this is what you're going to have to do, and it's something that I've had to do myself from time to time.

You're going to need to extrapolate based on what you've seen of that character that makes sense thus far.

I'll readily admit: this is not easily done and requires a metric FUCKTON of research.  (Wikis dedicated to a specific franchise are utterly invaluable.)  Unfortunately, sometimes you're just going to have to make an educated guess.  But then, sometimes the uncertainty is actually USEFUL!  Who is to say that this character would behave one way or another in an unprecedented situation?  You can use your Author's Fiat in these cases to dictate how a character is going to develop.

An excellent example is what I did with Yuki Mihara in my fic, Being You is Suffering.  I basically took a character from the Tenchi Muyo manga who had but maybe one or two lines and a few pages total.

From that, I figured several things - her grandfather owns what is likely the largest driving school in the prefecture; ergo her family is well to do.  The man in charge of the day-to-day operations is not the grandfather.  This being Japan where nepotism is strong, this is likely the grandfather's son, ergo Yuki's father.  The identity of the secretary that works under Yuki's father is never disclosed, so I use my Author's Fiat to say that she is also Yuki's mother.  People tend to work incredibly long hours in Japan - it would not surprise me much if Yuki hardly even saw her parents at home.  This is supported by the fact that her Grandfather, who is obviously at retirement age, is giving her a ride to school when we see her in the manga.  Mediocrity is king in Japan; they do not like the nail that sticks out and will quickly, sometimes gleefully, hammer it back down.  Yuki's elevated status could very likely alienate her from potential friends.  Finally, Yuki suffered a traumatic event where she was nearly kidnapped by armed men (likely so she could be held for ransom).  My character took quick and decisive action where he took a minor injury but kept her from grievous, possibly fatal injury.

Results: a terribly lonesome young girl who only wants friends and familial companionship, who develops an intense bodyguard crush on my character.  This later blossoms into full-blown love thanks to the encouragement provided by other characters, as well as my character's unwillingness to push the girl away entirely.  In fact, it begins to reach unhealthy levels - she takes everything as a challenge to overcome in pursuit of her love interest, and takes to these challenges with utter abandon.  Eventually, much to everyone's dismay, she makes a horrible error in judgement and forces my character to come down on the girl... albeit in a very unusual, yet levelheaded way.

And that's pretty much it.  Since she's such a tabula rasa, I can get away with quite a bit of Author Fiat just by extrapolating from what few, scant details I have of her.

Other characters you may have a more difficult time with.  At that point, don't be afraid to ask for help.  Post here in the forums, tell us what you know, what you don't know, and where you're trying to go with things.  But don't use it as a crutch - use it as a learning experience to better yourself as a writer.

Hope this helps.

[Bob Schroeck]

I just don't seem to have any way of figuring out which one is "the right one" for their character and which isn't. How do you do that?

Well, that depends on what you mean here by "right".

If you mean "what's most appropriate for that type of person", well, here's where you can dip into stereotypes to help you, at least to start. Susie Schoolgirl is unlikely to snarl, leap, and tear the mugger's throat out. Sam the Soldier isn't going to shriek and cower. If you've spent the time to flesh them out better, you will have more options, but they will still be delineated by the personality and history you've designed. "Scream and leap" may become a viable option for Susie if she does martial arts or has anger management issues, for instance.

Now if you mean "right" in terms of "what's right for the story", well, that's a whole different domain. Your characters and your plot presumably complement each other, in the sense that the characters are going to believably make the choices you need them to in order to advance the plot. (They don't have to complement each other, but that makes writing a good, readable story much harder.) So, on the writing level, you have a bit of a feedback loop going on -- the needs of the plot influence your choice of the characters' actions and responses, but their actions and responses also affect the direction of the plot. It needs a gentle touch, like so much in writing, but it is perfectly acceptable for you to simply make them do the things you need them to do, as long as you've established that these are the kinds of things they were likely to do already. And when they aren't, you had best reveal something previously unknown that justifies the unexpected choice.

But let me reiterate -- this is just as you start out. Every choice you make about a character, every decision and every detail, eventually builds up, and sooner or later you will have a critical mass that forms a functioning simulation of that fictional person in your subconscious, which will inform your ability to write them, and will sometimes surprise you. Not every character gets to this level, though, and not every character should.

And let me repeat this: you don't, can't, start writing with these semiautonomous simulations running in your head. They are created by the process of writing. Paralyzing yourself and not writing because you can't figure out how to get to this point -- which isn't a conscious act anyway -- is like holding off on getting driving lessons because you can't figure out how to handle the second turn at Le Mans.

The best advice I can give you at this point is -- just write. Don't worry about what you write, just write it. You can always improve what you've written. You can't improve what you haven't written. And every word you write gives you experience which helps you write better.

If it helps, I have a (perennially incomplete) http://www.accessdenied-rms.net/guide/fwg.txt]writer's guide on the web that you might want to look at. Some of it is higher-level or for the writer who's past your bottleneck, but there should be something in there that could help you.

You might also want to browse the pages listed in the http://allthetropes.org/wiki/Category: ... of_Writing]Mechanics of Writing category at All The Tropes.

How do I figure out "what would Jack O'Neill do?"

I've never even watched Stargate SG-1, but I can immediately constrain his responses to a reasonable set, and then pick out the most likely ones: First, surprise; the level of surprise will vary depending on whether he recognizes the room or not. Second, see if the body is someone he knows, and second-and-a-half, confirm the body is in fact dead. Third, contact his team. If he has no immediate means to contact them with, leave the room, securing it behind him, and find them. If he can't leave the room, he will then try to find a way out. (or, to look at it from a different angle, determine if he is a prisoner, and respond accordingly.) At some point in this process he will review his memory to see if there are holes or other evidence he was drugged/mind controlled/attacked/etc. What he determines from that will shade his other responses. And that's just the first few minutes.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[TheTwisted1]

The only thing I can suggest is to absolutely OBSESS over the character's in question. Learn everything you can about said character from the source material.

Well, first, I'm mainly seeking to write original fiction, not fanfiction; I only asked about "what would character X do" in terms of other people's comments about basing one character on another, or on using established characters as an exercize.

Now, in this you're gonna run into a few speed bumps, depending on how well written the source material is. The better stuff has characters with incredible depth - you learn not only their motivations (example, the previously cited "Why do they even bother with getting up in the morning?" question), but their history, likes and dislikes, the reasons for those likes and dislikes, and their personality quirks.

Sure, but that tells you how they reacted in every incident in the "source material". What about a situation that isn't in the original book/movie/show/comic/whatever? How do you take those finite data points of how a character acts in situations A-W, and from there compute how they'll act in new situation X? Or Y?

The worst offenders have characters making decisions that are completely contradictory to the character themself. (Hint: This is why a lot of people write 'Fix Fics' - they're correcting grievous contradictions like these while still keeping the story interesting... or at least attempting to do so. Some succeed at this and some fail.)

And how do you know when a decision is "completely contradictory" to a character?

See, maybe I'm not being clear enough. This isn't just a problem I have with fictional characters, of mine or others' creation, this is a problem I have with other real people. I have a hard time understanding why other people behave and react the ways that they do.

It needs a gentle touch, like so much in writing, but it is perfectly acceptable for you to simply make them do the things you need them to do, as long as you've established that these are the kinds of things they were likely to do already. And when they aren't, you had best reveal something previously unknown that justifies the unexpected choice.

See, how do you figure out what kinds of things someone is likely to do already, or justify the "unlikely behavior?" People's behavior takes me by suprise often; how does one explain the mystery that is other human beings?

The best advice I can give you at this point is -- just write. Don't worry about what you write, just write it. You can always improve what you've written. You can't improve what you haven't written. And every word you write gives you experience which helps you write better.

Sure, I can keep trying, but how do I know if I'm actually making progress, or just bashing my head against a wall at yet another activity that I'm too defective to ever accomplish anything at?

If it helps, I have a (perennially incomplete) http://www.accessdenied-rms.net/guide/fwg.txt on the web that you might want to look at. Some of it is higher-level or for the writer who's past your bottleneck, but there should be something in there that could help you.

I have read it, along with most of what's in that All The Tropes category.

I've never even watched Stargate SG-1, but I can immediately constrain his responses to a reasonable set, and then pick out the most likely ones: First, surprise; the level of surprise will vary depending on whether he recognizes the room or not. Second, see if the body is someone he knows, and second-and-a-half, confirm the body is in fact dead. Third, contact his team. If he has no immediate means to contact them with, leave the room, securing it behind him, and find them. If he can't leave the room, he will then try to find a way out. (or, to look at it from a different angle, determine if he is a prisoner, and respond accordingly.) At some point in this process he will review his memory to see if there are holes or other evidence he was drugged/mind controlled/attacked/etc. What he determines from that will shade his other responses. And that's just the first few minutes.

See, how did you do that? What you just did there, I don't know how other people do it so easily.

Still, for what it's worth, thank you all for the advice. It has at least been more positive and encouraging than most of the discussion I've had elsewhere on the topic.
"If you
wish to converse with me, define your
terms."

--Voltaire

[robkelk]

I missed replying again last evening - my apologies.

You might want to start with situations where there are a limited number of possible actions, and think through what each character would do. Start small and work your way up to the more nuanced actions of real life.

Example #1: The character is at an intersection and wants to cross the street. The light is red. There's no traffic. Does the character wait for the light to change?

Mr. Law-abiding waits. There's a law against jaywalking, after all.

Mr. I'm-in-a-hurry doesn't wait. He's in a hurry.

Mr. Doesn't-want-to-stand-out does whatever everyone else is doing. He wants to blend in.

Mr. Nonconformist does whatever nobody else is doing. He wants to be different.

Mr. Oblivious doesn't wait. He doesn't even notice the light.

Mr. Afraid-of-cars waits. There might not be any cars now, but...

What does your character do, and why? Your character probably has some defining personality trait that applies here. If not, make one up and add it to the character's personality.

Once you've figured out how they handle the simple situations, work your way up to more complex situations. Don't worry about complex situations to begin with - get the characters figured out first, and going through the simple situations will help you figure out the characters.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[BronzeSpider]

Okay, I would like to preface my advice by saying that I am not particularly intelligent, not educated in a technical field, nor do I write nearly as often as the other posters. I do, however, play a lot of tabletop role-playing games. People who play in these kinds of games often tend to develop an understanding of motivation so they can react in the moment to the unfolding game. This is especially true for the Game Masters because they have a much larger number of characters to run, and pre-planning their actions is not really feasible.

All the advice so far from the other posters pretty much boils down to get into the character's head and see what makes them tick, like taking apart a mechanical watch and seeing how each part interacts with each other and produces a predictable result. To draw out the metaphor, this kind of analysis only works if you understand what a gear does, the physical properties of a spring, the increments of seconds, minutes and hours. If all you know is that this device is meant to convey some kind of information on its face, figuring it out from the ground up is bound to be somewhat daunting.

Instead of looking out, perhaps try looking inwards. Do some basic role playing exercises. Take a situation, place yourself in it, and react. Once you have made a decision, stop and work it backwards; keep asking why. Keep breaking down each step in the decision tree, asking why you made that decision, what specific factors led to it. The goal here, to reach back to the metaphor, is to look into your own watch and identify all the parts. They may not be the same size and shape as another person's, and they may not fit together in the same way, but they have similar properties so once you know what kind of things are in yours, figuring how it all goes together and interacts in someone else's becomes more feasible.

If possible, working with someone else to set the scene might be helpful. Not only does it open up possibilities that might not occur to you, it provides a person to serve as a mirror. It is hard to accurately see yourself without something outside of you helping.

[Black Aeronaut]

The only thing I can suggest is to absolutely OBSESS over the character's in question. Learn everything you can about said character from the source material.

Well, first, I'm mainly seeking to write original fiction, not fanfiction; I only asked about "what would character X do" in terms of other people's comments about basing one character on another, or on using established characters as an exercize.

Well then, that's an entirely different kettle of fish altogether.

Look, let me explain something about fanfiction to you. For an author who is looking to write their own original fiction someday, writing fanfiction is good practice. And yes, that's more or less what you're trying to do, but the fine point of it all is that at the end of the day - when you're writing your original story - the characters are yours and yours alone to determine who they are and what they do.

Sure, but that tells you how they reacted in every incident in the "source material". What about a situation that isn't in the original book/movie/show/comic/whatever? How do you take those finite data points of how a character acts in situations A-W, and from there compute how they'll act in new situation X? Or Y?

And how do you know when a decision is "completely contradictory" to a character?

See, maybe I'm not being clear enough. This isn't just a problem I have with fictional characters, of mine or others' creation, this is a problem I have with other real people. I have a hard time understanding why other people behave and react the ways that they do.

Okay, hold up.

Let me be blunt here.

We can't help you.

Why?

Because none of us are trained psychologists. None of us know how to break down what makes people tick in a way that you can wrap your head around.

I'm not saying this to be mean or anything like that, but in order for you to do what you want to do, you need to seek specialized help.

I managed to find one article - my google-fu is not the best. But maybe it might give you some insight.

http://iautistic.com/autistic-story-wri ... tivity.php

[batzulger]

That is a fantastic article.
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Je ne suis pas une Intelligence Artificielle Turing. Je suis Charlie.