SCP-049.

SCP-049.

OTP Prompt #23

Your OTP goes to a country you’ve always wanted to visit. It’s not quite like how either of them imagined.

Scenario Prompt #6

Your protagonist has to spend an entire day with someone they despise (outside of normal parameters, if it’s someone they’re forced to work with regularly). How do they handle it, and does their opinion change?

Story Starter #41

“I’m not much of a people person.”

“Do you like kids?”

“Aren’t kids people?”

I definitely agree with this. I was having a conversation similar to this, in which I was talking about how a lot of superheroes fall flat for me as characters because they tend to be very one-dimensional, or you can tell the writers thought of their powers first and added character traits to “flesh them out” afterwards. This is very similar to thinking of a character’s gender first and then “fleshing them out” by adding traits later.

It’s fine to start with only a few goals/desires for your character, but as you progress, you should uncover more. But as long as you start with a goal or desire rather than a list of labels/powers, you’re already on your way to writing better characters.

"Make your character a person first, gender second!"

For some people, understanding what makes a character a person separate from certain traits which may heavily effect their personality (primarily, sexuality and gender) is really confusing. It seems obvious at first, but then you go and write and ... you're still confused.

It's a complex topic that is its own sociology course in many colleges.

But, there is a consensus that beneath these traits is something called a person. Something foundational that is oftentimes lacking when a writer tries writing from a perspective outside their own experience.

So, WTF makes a person a person?

A Person Wants Multiple Things

People want more than one thing. A flaw in many bad characters (or characters written around a certain identity trait) is that they only want one thing. This could mean they only want to help the protagonist (very common), they only want to defeat the villain (to the extreme), or only want to ever eat things.

All characters should have a laundry list of things they want and things they desire to varying intensity. Some things may include ...

wanting to improve their social status

wanting to impress family and friends

wanting to escape social pressure

wanting to buy more books

wishing for a miracle

wanting to spend more time with friends

wanting to spend less time with family

wanting to feel safe

wanting to feel excitement

wanting a purpose in life

wishing to have the drive to complete something

wishing to have the motivation to actually want something.

wanting to visit one place in one country.

And that's just off the top of my head. This is just a very small list of desires that I personally feel to various degrees. I have a lot more. And characters, too, should express at least a few wants outside of the primary goal of helping the protagonist or defeating the big bad guy. Heck, it can be as simple as wanting to have a hot meal for once.

A Person Has a Flaw That Causes Trouble For Themselves

I haven't met anyone whose flaw hasn't put them into trouble. Brief aside, sometimes this flaw is their strength, but it isn't a flaw until it gets them in trouble.

For example:

Someone who has analysis paralysis misses the opportunity of a lifetime due to over-analyzing.

Someone who falls in love too quickly falls in love with a bigoted asshole who means nothing but harm.

Someone who doesn't like showing vulnerability ends up making the people around him angry and frustrated, and eventually making them walk away.

Someone who is arrogant ends up being humiliated and abandoned.

Someone who is too humble ends up being walked all over.

... and so on and so forth.

A Person Wants Love

Love, in this case, doesn't mean romantic. Everyone I've met want, at some level, wants love from family or friends or lovers or their pets. If a person doesn't have that love-desire fulfilled, something usually happens to them that isn't good. Depression, anger management issues, apathy (in a highly unpleasant way), cynicism (again, a very bad form of cynicism), and so on.

I think this particular desire is most important in childhood, and has the biggest effects in childhood. In adults, from what I can tell, not having someone to occasionally love and/or be loved causes bouts of loneliness.

A Person Wants Pride in Themselves

I've never met a person who doesn't want this. However, I've met many people (myself included) who feel shame or caution in this desire. Imposter syndrome, anyone?

Those people who have a difficult time handling this desire fall into two categories: those who take more pride than warranted in themselves, and those who believe that their pride is worthless ... even though they want it and even though it is, in fact, worthy of being proud. Those who fear pride typically have some other fears involved as well. A fear of being wrong, of being as perceived as something, etc. On the other side of the spectrum ... well, I'm not a psychologist, nor have I met many who are actually on the other side of the spectrum. Most of the time, those I've met who have excessive pride are hiding something, either a fear or a perceived flaw.

Those who can summon the right amount of pride for the right situation is typically someone who has confidence in themselves, or can at least pretend to have confidence.

A Person Wants Respect

To be clear, this is a positive trait. Wanting respect is a basic part of human nature that very much helps society and individuals.

Respect, in its simplest form, is just being polite. When someone isn't respectful, it always causes problems. These problems can be very small or very big, but they're always at the subconscious and creates a disturbance in the peace of someone's mind. This is something that, if a person goes without, has detrimental consequences on their overall mental health (and society's health as well). From what I've seen, a lack of respect can also create some personality disorders.

A Person Wants To Understand Themselves

Hogwarts houses. Factions. MBTI personalities. Meditation. Self-help gurus.

Everyone, at some stage or another, asks themselves who they are. They typically ask this in the framework of "which career/college suit me best?" and after that they may ask the question less as they understand themselves more.

The process of understanding one's self is an incredibly individual experience. I know someone who became a monk. Someone who has taken on every job in existence in an attempt to find what is "right" for him. I know another person who traveled the world to expand their personal selves. I know lots of people who write.

Understanding one's self usually focuses on particular goals of "what will make me the happiest?" Once that's found, it seems to me that people forget about the journey of self-analyzing. That, I think, is the primary difference between young adults and old adults. However, that's also, generally, what makes older adults more rigid in their worldviews, or more placid, or stubborn in their ways of life (it can be as simple as the way one stacks dishes).

Again, I'm not a psychologist, I'm just speaking from what I've seen in the people I've met.

.

.

From what I can tell, and from what I've observed, these traits are at the core of all people. When you write a character, write with these traits in the forefront of their personality. Everything else is an afterthought, or at the very least, a problem for the third draft.

Please, tell me your thoughts on this, because I really am speaking from personal experience.

.

.

Wholesome Batfamily Prompts

Some prompts for those who enjoy wholesome Batfam content. Feel free to mix or alter these, and share a link if you write one!

Fluff Prompts:

-The Batfam goes out for a day of go-carting. Things get competitive...

-The Robins decide to surprise Bruce with a birthday present, but can’t figure out what to get him.

-The Batfam volunteers at a local animal shelter. One of the animals wants to come home with them.

-Alfred is down with the flu (or some other contagious illness), and the Batfam have to figure out dinner for themselves. Chaos ensues.

AU/Crossover Prompts:

-An AU in which Talia and Bruce are happily married and actually try to raise Damian in a healthy environment. You decide what Ra’s is doing. (If you wanted to take the AU farther, he’s either no longer a villain or never was one to begin with.)

-A Pokémon crossover where Damian aspires to be a world-class trainer or Pokémon professor. He and his dad investigate Pokémon mysteries between tournaments. (Bonus points: Ra’s is either a Pokémon professor or evil team leader...maybe both?)

-A 1950′s/1960′s sitcom AU. You could go the traditional route with this one, or play up the weirdness like the Munsters or Addams Family.