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WEIRDLY SPECIFIC BUT HELPFUL CHARACTER BUILDING QUESTIONS

What’s the lie your character says most often?

How loosely or strictly do they use the word ‘friend’?

How often do they show their genuine emotions to others versus just the audience knowing?

What’s a hobby they used to have that they miss?

Can they cry on command? If so, what do they think about to make it happen?

What’s their favorite [insert anything] that they’ve never recommended to anyone before?

What would you (mun) yell in the middle of a crowd to find them? What would their best friend and/or romantic partner yell?

How loose is their use of the phrase ‘I love you’?

Do they give tough love or gentle love most often? Which do they prefer to receive?

What fact do they excitedly tell everyone about at every opportunity?

If someone was impersonating them, what would friends / family ask or do to tell the difference?

What’s something that makes them laugh every single time? Be specific!

When do they fake a smile? How often?

How do they put out a candle?

What’s the most obvious difference between their behavior at home, at work, at school, with friends, and when they’re alone?

What kinds of people do they have arguments with in their head?

What do they notice first in the mirror versus what most people first notice looking at them?

Who do they love truly, 100% unconditionally (if anyone)?

What would they do if stuck in a room with the person they’ve been avoiding?

Who do they like as a person but hate their work? Vice versa, whose work do they like but don’t like the person?

What common etiquette do they disagree with? Do they still follow it?

What simple activity that most people do / can do scares your character?

What do they feel guilty for that the other person(s) doesn’t / don’t even remember?

Did they take a cookie from the cookie jar? What kind of cookie was it?

What subject / topic do they know a lot about that’s completely useless to the direct plot?

How would they respond to being fired by a good boss?

What’s the worst gift they ever received? How did they respond?

What do they tell people they want? What do they actually want?

How do they respond when someone doesn’t believe them?

When they make a mistake and feel bad, does the guilt differ when it’s personal versus when it’s professional?

When do they feel the most guilt? How do they respond to it?

If they committed one petty crime / misdemeanor, what would it be? Why?

How do they greet someone they dislike / hate?

How do they greet someone they like / love?

What is the smallest, morally questionable choice they’ve made?

Who do they keep in their life for professional gain? Is it for malicious intent?

What’s a secret they haven’t told serious romantic partners and don’t plan to tell?

What hobby are they good at in private, but bad at in front of others? Why?

Would they rather be invited to an event to feel included or be excluded from an event if they were not genuinely wanted there?

How do they respond to a loose handshake? What goes through their head?

What phrases, pronunciations, or mannerisms did they pick up from someone / somewhere else?

If invited to a TED Talk, what topic would they present on? What would the title of their presentation be?

What do they commonly misinterpret because of their own upbringing / environment / biases? How do they respond when realizing the misunderstanding?

What language would be easiest for them to learn? Why?

What’s something unimportant / frivolous that they hate passionately?

Are they a listener or a talker? If they’re a listener, what makes them talk? If they’re a talker, what makes them listen?

Who have they forgotten about that remembers them very well?

Who would they say ‘yes’ to if invited to do something they abhorred / strongly didn’t want to do?

Would they eat something they find gross to be polite?

What belief / moral / personality trait do they stand by that you (mun) personally don’t agree with?

What’s a phrase they say a lot?

Do they act on their immediate emotions, or do they wait for the facts before acting?

Who would / do they believe without question?

What’s their instinct in a fight / flight / freeze / fawn situation?

What’s something they’re expected to enjoy based on their hobbies / profession that they actually dislike / hate?

If they’re scared, who do they want comfort from? Does this answer change depending on the type of fear?

What’s a simple daily activity / motion that they mess up often?

How many hobbies have they attempted to have over their lifetime? Is there a common theme?

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Last survivor of an extinct alien civilisation who regards this as a personal victory.

Last survivor of an extinct alien civilisation who's just as surprised as you are.

Last survivor of an extinct alien civilisation who's mad about being left out.

Last survivor of an extinct alien civilisation who tells a different story about how it happened each time they're asked.

Last survivor of an extinct alien civilisation who, in their unguarded moments, admits it's probably for the best.

Last survivor of an extinct alien civilisation who claims the others are "just resting".

Last survivor of an extinct alien civilisation who insists it's not their fault.

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hey did you know that uhh

i. the monster's body is a cultural body

ii. the monster always escapes

iii. the monster is the harbinger of category crisis

iv. the monster dwells at the gates of difference

v. the monster polices the borders of the possible

vi. fear of the monster is really a kind of desire

vii. the monster stands at the threshold… of becoming

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I have this notion of "horror", by which I mean something like "badness which is inscrutable or not quite explicable; wrongness which can be experienced but not truly articulated, even in principle". In a horror movie, what do you think happens when a character is dragged away by the ghost? I think most of us do not just feel that they are killed. If we did, movies about ghost would not be much scarier than actuarial tables. I think we feel, on some level, that something worse happens. Something worse than any particular thing we can imagine. It's not death, it's not torture, it's something else. Something inexplicable whose badness cannot even be spoken or imagined. This is "horror".

One of my very core beliefs is the non-existence of true horror. I believe that all actually existing harms can, with enough thought, be put straightforwardly and mundanely. I believe that whenever something bad really happens, we can speak it, we can imagine it, and we can denounce it in plain terms, if we really try.

I don't like horror because I think it robs us of our power and of our basic dignity in the face of struggle. If we are suffering, we must be able if absolutely nothing else to say "here is what is hurting me, and setting aside all other factors, that fact qua that fact is an injustice". The existence of true horrors would, on a metaphysical level, rob us of the ability to do that.

I imagine this discussion will seem like pure navel gazing (in the derogatory sense) to some, but to me it's quite important. People invoke horrors all the time. I think it's a pretty frequent throughline in gender/relationship discourse. People see a bit of horror in sex, romance, gender dynamics and so on.

If faced with a true horror, very few lines of recourse (practical or metaphysical) are available to you. You must run and keep running forever or you must kill it. I think large swaths of gender discourse are mediated by this principle; I think both incels and radfems (wrong as they are about many particular issues of fact) are at some level both motivated by the belief in horrors, the belief that the injustices they have genuinely been faced with are horrors and not plain things, and therefore that they have only the options to run or to kill. Why this is bad for them and bad for the rest of us is clear enough.

I say: horrors do not exist. All harms are mundane harms, even the most heinous. All harms can be spoken, named, laid bare for any sober mind to see. We may be vulnerable to physical attack, but we are invulnerable to metaphysical attack.

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Do you ever write a sentence and then realize “Nah, that’s too self aware for you” and backspace a bunch of times.

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i love when characters don't get to die

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my uncle was somewhat of a rascal. we were hanging out on the roof of his barn when i was ten, and we saw some shooting stars. he told me they were angels carrying messages from god. then he handed me his old hunting rifle and taught me how to nick one out of the sky, even when it was travelling all fast like that, and how to triangulate its location — taking me out in his rusty truck down dirt roads, unerring and unceasing, until we saw that gleaming lantern. he pocketed the note from god and took me down to a pinboard where he was working on deciphering the language with his friend who was a linguistics major but got kicked out of grad school. after they shook hands, they held on for just a bit too long and i started wondering why my aunt doesn’t live with my uncle anymore, but then my uncle took me back up stairs and taught me how to fry the angel up real nice, halo and all. it was tasty

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REMINDER

THE POINT OF A PLOT TWIST IS TO ENRICH YOUR STORY, NOT OUTSMART YOUR READERS!!!! SPRINKLE IN YOUR FORESHADOWING!!!! LEAVE CLUES!!!

(im not saying to spell it out/make your plot twist cliche or boring. we are going for a "how did I not see that coming" vibe)

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narrator who's terrible at social cues & describes every facial expression as "unreadable"

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please i love you i'm begging you bring back suspension of disbelief bring back trusting the audience like. i cannot handle any more dialogue that sounds like a legal document. "hello, i am here to talk to you about the incident from a few minutes ago, because i feel you might be unwell, and i am invested in your personal wellbeing." "thank you, i am unwell because the incident was hurtful to me due to my childhood, which was bad." I CANT!!!!

do you know how many people are mad that authors use "growled" as a word for "said"? it's just poetics! they do not literally mean "growled," it's just a common replacement for "said with force but in a low tone." it's normal! do you hear me!! help me i love you please let me out of here!!!

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Big fan of when non-binary characters' AGAB is kept hidden. It's great, audiences don't need to know that shit! And we don't want to.

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I took a break from my plant comic… to draw another plant comic

My creative process is definitely not as smooth as it looks here, but this is more or less how I got around to starting FP!

(Also the venus flytraps are definitely a reference to Little Shop of Horrors)

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A fan comic I did of steven universe. http://neroro-chan.deviantart.com/

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unstoppable force (i want to see this tragic character survive and heal) vs immovable object (their death was the most thematic and narratively satisfying resolution possible for their character arc and anything less than death just feels cheap)

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the one thing i want to be able to do as a writer is make people come back to something ive written. i want that piece of text to haunt them, i want their thoughts to be briefly consumed by this. i want this to be something they remember long after its time. thats the one thing i want to do

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I love supernatural sci-fi horror. Something about how both science and spirituality are out to get you. You've built a spaceship, and you're still getting tormented by demons. It's over, man.