poppyseed

Welcome to this exciting post about characterization!

This is how I frame characterizing, as an author who considers themself to write very character-driven stories. Plot is all about what it does for the people in the stories I write, rather than the characters serving the plot (or the setting driving things, etc). It is not better or worse than any other way to write a story, it's just what works for me and the style I've developed over the last eleven ish years of publishing fic (yeehaw!).



Lest this get too into the weeds of who is a person, truly? I do want to clarify that in RPF I am working off of persona and established fanon much more than any actual true speculation about a human being out there in the world. I feel like that's obvious to those of us who have been in the RPF game for a long time but just in case, that's my little disclaimer.

Now we can get to the post! I'm going to be getting into developing characterization and "core persona" when you're writing the same character from the same fandom across different settings and universes. There is no rule for consistency, obviously, but I've found that I do really love it when an author has a consistent characterization that logically moves from one 'verse to another—it's satisfying and lets you know, to some extent, what to expect from that author and the kinds of stories they like to tell.

Here is the quick and dirty version of how I characterize, especially when I'm writing a POV for the first time:

• Core persona: 3-5 keywords that encompass that character via values and personality traits
• Core backstory: a short sketch of major events or factors that impact the character In This Universe
• Core relationships: who's important in their life now? who used to be? how do they feel about it? (what relationships do they not have that they would like to have?)
• What is settled: these are things about this character that will not change over the course of the story or at all in the 'verse
• What is unsettled: I think of this as like a loose tooth. what's shifting/bothering the character/needs to be faced? what needs to come loose before growth can happen?
• Misc: this is where you catch the rest—personality quirks, inside jokes, any potential motifs you want to keep in mind for the character

And here's an example walkthrough, taken from the pov character (Seungkwan) my fic are you soaked in dreams still? (knowledge of that fic will help but is def not required to follow this!)

• Core persona: high-strung, sensitive, stressed, guilty, charming
• Core backstory: working a high-pressure job with long hours and doesn't enjoy it but worked hard to get there, living alone, life = work for most of his waking hours + now the sleeping hours are becoming stressful too.
• Core relationships: not a large social circle; best friend + love interest = Hansol (they met when they were teenagers, parallel ages to real world); closeness with Hansol to the point that other characters + reader will initially think they are dating, slightly codependent; good relationship with family; friendly with coworkers but not necessarily friends.
• What is settled: work is extremely important, he is in love with Hansol, he will continue to be anxious about how he is perceived and what people think of him
• What is unsettled: he is pining without saying anything, he refuses to acknowledge that his long hours are hard on him, unwillingness to talk about personal issues at all at work
• Misc: calls his mom on the way to work, beautiful singer, knick-knacks in apartment, sleeps over at Hansol's a lot bc it's close to his office

So that's a sketch! It is entirely possible and helpful for some people to do all of this and more before the writing starts at all, and to write it out properly as with the format above. For more context, I had about 2/3 of this solidified in my head before I started writing, and found or changed the rest as I went. I am an outliner but a vague one because I need room to wiggle!

Now that's how I will characterize for one fic. The "core" elements are still localized to the setting, and are specifically leveraged at different "percentages" than they would be in other fics based on what I need to happen.

To explain a little more, I can take core persona and expand it into my general way of writing Seungkwan rather than how I wrote that Seungkwan in particular. While all of those keywords (high-strung, sensitive, stressed, guilty, charming) could still apply, some of those are pretty fic-specific, like guilty. So I'd pull that away. High-strung and stressed don't both need to be there, though they helped to emphasize his work situation in that fic, so we'll pull out stressed since it's more of a condition than a core state. Which leaves high-strung, guilty, and charming. To that I would add, though it might seem redundant, performer—I think it encompasses what I caught in part of the "what is settled" section above, which is that he has a great awareness of how he is being perceived, be that positive or negative or neutral, and what he needs to do to change that perception.

I usually feel as though I need to write at least 2 but ideally 4-5 'verses in a characters POV (including little drabbles!) before I've gotten them down. At that point, the conscious work on the above frameworks tends to fall away, and I feel an ease that comes with how this character would react, respond, speak, act, etc. in different situations.

Some more general notes not about specific characters:

There is a point, in my opinion, at which a setting or backstory decision will obliterate even the most "core" of a character's persona as you have developed it. At that point my friend you are kind of on your own! At least in terms of my ability to be helpful, lol. I feel like really intense AU settings will create characters that feel like OCs a lot of the time, and they tend to read less like fic to me. (And I don't tend to write a character's POV if I feel like I'm straying too far from my understanding of them, or at least what I can justify of it.)

That said, there are a lot of ways to maintain character even in wildly different situations. Pattern of speech is a major one! Does your character stutter? Do they use out of date slang or phrase things more formally? How often do they crack a joke versus address tension in a room? Do they speak differently depending on who is in the room and what the power dynamics (age, hierarchy, closeness, etc) are? (The answer to that last question is probably yes, and it's worth thinking about especially in kpop RPF.) How they dress, their hobbies, their favorite people (or favorite kinds of people), etc. are all things that might or might not change, and are worth considering if you want to build consistency. They also don't need to stay identical—a carpenter in one universe might be a gardener or a set designer in another, because it's more about using your hands to create something that feels personal/alive/beautiful.

I would say additionally that some characterizations for me have very particular turns of phrase that I associate with the characters, not in terms of what they say but how they are. One example would be a line I wrote recently about Seungcheol always wanting to run into every burning building. There's a kind of aspirational martyrdom I associate with the persona I write for him, and that creeps into every story, every verse, every time.

Also: archetypes exist for a reason! God it is so much fun and often so much easier to take a dashing rogue type and then bend them to your needs based on the character you're working with than to try to get to a fun roguish character on your own from zero. No one is going to be angry, especially in your literal fanfiction, if the grumpy one and the sunshine one get together. Complexify them, of course, and give them your own angles and quirks, but if the thing that feels right is a dynamic or framework that already exists, then that just gives you more room to play without having to hold the structure up yourself.

I will begin wrapping up by saying that many schools of writing will tell you that you need to know everything about a character before you put them onto the page. Develop a full profile, know them inside out, plan every meal they have and every conversation they initiate even if these things don't show up in the final story. And for some people that works—but I find that a sketchy frame works just as nicely. If I'm not sure of something, I pause as I'm writing and think about how important it is. In some cases, yes, I stop, think about it, and decide! In others, I let it go. And having that flexibility also allows a reader to read their own interpretation in, which I think can be really special and beneficial to a story's ability to emotionally connect with people.

At the end of the day, we are people writing about people. So much of learning to characterize has also been about trying to pull myself apart. What makes me tick? Why am I how I am? Is there room for inconsistency, for mess, for confusion, for parts of me that are small and weird and unpalatable? Can I give those things to other people and watch them be loved?

When we devote time to humanizing our characters, I think we are honoring ourselves too.

I hope this was helpful! Please feel free to comment here or come bug me on twitter or curiouscat, I love talking about process and writing (obviously) and hearing other perspectives. <3