 It is the function of great art to give meaning to human suffering, and so we expect that if the hero is indeed crushed by a bulldozer, there will be some reason for it. One which makes sense in the terms of the hero's personality and action. In fact, we expect to be shown that he is in some way responsible for what happens to him. Bernard Knox, The Oedipus Cycle Welcome to Episode 011 of the SCP Foundation. Today, we're going to talk about creating characters. As always, the majority of this podcast will contain my own opinions and thoughts about the SCP Foundation, the SCP Wiki, and the writing process. Regardless, remember that there is only one real rule in the SCP universe. There is no canon. Part 1. Driven One of the first things you need to decide about any story is simple. Will your story be plot driven or character driven? In flash fiction, you have a couple of other options as outlined in my last writing focused essay. Check the description for a link if you'd like. But for this one, we're going to talk about things in broader strokes, and that means one of two options. Before we dive into the specifics here, you should really understand fully the difference between the two types of stories, and for that, well, we're going to turn to Star Wars. Full disclosure, there will be spoilers in this for the first two Star Wars movies, so be forewarned. The very first Star Wars movie, A New Hope, is primarily character driven. This is always going to be the case in any story that cleaves as closely to the hero's journey as A New Hope does, because the plot points must necessarily wait for the hero to be ready for the next part of the story. In A New Hope, the primary character, Luke Skywalker, also serves as an audience surrogate, which is necessary to introduce the viewer to the Star Wars universe. There are rules, nations, magic, and planets to explain, and having a fish out of water to explain this to, helps the audience better understand the universe through exposition that is disguised as teaching moments. For over a thousand generations, the Jedi knights were the guardians of peace and justice in the old republic, before the dark times, before the empire. Now these are the reasons why A New Hope is primarily a character driven story, but it doesn't really explain what that means. Think of the plot of A New Hope without Luke Skywalker, and you may realize there simply isn't one. Every key plot point requires Luke Skywalker to be present in order for it to continue. The story won't happen without him. It happens to him, and are experiences of viewers informed by how he reacts to those events. Contrast this with the complexities of The Empire Strikes Back. By this point we've been introduced to half a dozen fairly defined characters, all of whom factor into the plot. In this story, the plot is happening without the main character's input, and while we are still seeing it through the eyes of various characters, we also understand how the events would have occurred without the hero's involvement. In fact, Luke's appearance to the end does little actually affect the empire's plans. So Lo still ends up in Carbonite, and the rest of our heroes only really escape because Lando shows us true colors as an anti-hero. This contrast is important, because while there's nothing wrong with a primarily character driven story, a plot driven story is generally a superior option. So why am I telling you this in an essay meant to explain creating characters? Because I want you to take a moment to understand that no matter how badass or cool or sexy or important or interesting the character you've ended up creating is, it's not an excuse to revolve the entire story around that character. My biggest suggestion is this, use your character to navigate the world but remember that things can happen outside of your characters. Have a plot that exists separate from the character, and understand what's going on when the character isn't on the screen or on the page. Part two, who are you and what do you want? When you're creating a new character, the first thing you're going to think about is probably that character's physical appearance, height, weight, skin tone, hair, and eye color, but creating a character is more than just about its physical characteristics. Those factors can certainly inform a character in various ways. If your character is short, their life experience is going to necessarily be different than that of a taller character, and something as simple as skin tone can inform a character's past in subtle ways. Where's your character from? Does a character have parents? Children? Siblings? Did they go to school? Where? For how long? The past will inform the future, so knowing who a character is tells you a lot about how they'll react to the conflict central to your story. But never forget that it's a character. This is not a real person, and this person's features or history or motivations are mutable. If changing those things will lead to a better story, do it. And never look back. But this is just the foundation of a character. The most important question to ask about a character, and one that sadly often comes up last in a character's creation is this. What does your character want? They want to save the world, or they want to escape, or even they want to destroy the world. Those are over-simplistic answers to the question, and they won't tell you a lot. So if you're stuck with something overly simplistic, ask why. Why save the world? Now that seems like a question with a self-evident answer, and maybe it has one, but by exploring it, you're going to find yourself with a better understanding of your character. And you need to understand your character as you write. There's certainly something to be said for letting the writing process shape your characters. That is, after all, the whole point of a character arc. Your character starts one way, and through the events of the story, they end up a different way. But for that to work, you have to understand how they began, and will return to Luke Skywalker at the start of a new hope. Luke Skywalker is a farmhand on a moisture farm on a desert planet. We get the sense that it's a hard life, but one which we can still identify with, after all. He gets up for work every day. He enjoys a little bit of mischief in his free time. He has parents, after a fashion, and they are a bit overprotective. But ultimately, he's expected, and himself expecting, to follow in the footsteps of those parents. Now then, of course, the world gets upended and the plot happens to him. But how he reacts is shaped by who he is. He's always wanted to be a hero. And while he's still pretty young and inexperienced, he's earnest. We identify with Luke Skywalker. We've imagined, all of us, at one time or another, a grand adventure, where we're at the center of the action. Now this is vitally important for a character to resonate with a reader or a viewer. Your audience must identify with the character's story and motivations. For the SCP Wiki, it's important to realize most of your readers on the site are either writers or people who want to write for the site. This comes back to knowing your audience. Now we'll talk more about character arcs in a future episode dealing with plot. But the important thing here is to remember that the events of a story will have an effect on the people who take part in that story. Luke Skywalker, at the end of Return of the Jedi, is not the same naive farm boy we met at the start of A New Hope. And while he's affected the story, the story has also affected him. Part three, author avatars. This is gonna be a bit more specific writing advice for the Wiki itself if you're not already experienced with writing both SCPs and tales. I caution against the inclusion of an author avatar in your works. I've seen hundreds of failed SCPs posted with author avatars as the SCP itself or as a member of staff who's the only one who can interact with a dangerous SCP. I should note, for more general advice, avoid writing yourself into the story. You can easily become too precious about the character and find that you treat it as a person with immutable characteristics and motivations. This is where people tend to end up creating a Mary Sue, so avoid this at all costs as it's almost, almost, always bad writing. But Dr. Sumerian, you might say. Isn't your name an author avatar? Yes, but and this is really more of a meta strategy than anything. Your author avatar needs to stand without your input. The character never really arrives until someone else uses it in their work. Dr. Sumerian isn't me and I'm not him. Dr. Sumerian's parents immigrated from Ukraine in 1956 as children to flee from the Soviets and he himself was born in 1986. He has a PhD in English literature with a minor in philosophy. He was tasked with the creation of SCP-245-1 at first and after he was done he ended up working for the Foundation Ethics Committee. During his time in Foundation employment, something happened which burned the upper left hand side of his torso all the way up to his neck. Now, none of that, not even the mundane details is true of me. Heck, I had to research how college worked a long while back when I was writing the character early on just to understand how his college years went since I never really went to college. Some of it is from stuff I wrote and some of it has been outlined by stuff written by others. I mean the burn scars alone are just from some fan art I saw of him that I liked. One thing that always bugs me about my author avatar though, people who ask me if they can use Sumerian in a story, the answer should always be yes and it should always be yes for you. What others write helps me create a more in-depth character and if for some reason I find your characterization entirely alien to my concept of the character, it doesn't matter. There is no canon. There's room for more than one Dr. Sumerian. What I have done though has created a character that I can personally identify with and Sumerian certainly shares personality traits with me. He is an author avatar. It makes him as a character easier to write. This is a common strategy in creating believable characters by the way. You use people you know. If you need an overbearing boss character and you knew one once, you're wasting that life experience if you're not using it to inform the new character you create. But remember, your characters are not you. They never were you and they never will be. Part four, credits. My name is Christopher Clayton Morris, though you may know me better under the pseudonym Dr. Sumerian. This podcast is licensed under Creative Commons 4.0 Attribution Share Like Unported License. All works from the SCP Wiki used or referenced in this podcast are under Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution Share Like Unported License. This podcast utilized a clip of audio from Star Wars Episode 4, A New Hope, under the principles of fair use through commentary. This podcast included the following audio works under a variety of licenses. Wall by Jizar off the 2017 album Super, licensed Creative Commons 4.0 Share Like Attribution. High Technologic Beat Explosion by Loyalty Freak Music off the 2017 album Robot Dance. That music is public domain. Just Blue Sky by Lee Rosavari off the 2017 album The Big Loop, FML, licensed Creative Commons 4.0 Attribution. Space Outro by Andy G Cohen off the 2015 album Through the Lens, licensed Creative Commons 4.0 Attribution. You are currently listening to Featherlight by Lee Rosavari off the 2018 album Music for Yoga, licensed Creative Commons 2.5 Attribution Canada. Thanks for listening. Jar Jar is the key to all this if we get Jar Jar working. George Lucas behind the scenes on the set of The Phantom Menace.