Character Archetype

Whenever I play a role-playing video game, my favorite part is the initial character creation. I really enjoy being able to completely customize the appearance of a character. As shown in Illustration 1, some character creation can get quite detailed. However, there is much more to creating a character than just its appearance. Characters are a very important part of any story and must be properly developed. Many things must be taken into consideration when making a character such as how they fit into the story, the personality, a back story, and what they look like. The first step in making a character is to figure out what role they need to play in the story. All characters will have a role in the story in some way. Figuring out what the character needs to bring to the story allows you to decide on many of the features of the character. These features include the gender of the character,

The easiest way to develop a character's personality is to use archetypes. Archetypes are patterns in human nature that can be used as simple definitions of characters. For instance, there is the hero archetype which is a character who is good and fights against evil to bring justice or order. Most characters can be developed, or at the very least, based off of an archetype. From there, it is simply a matter of adjusting the exact details of the personality to fit the character's role. After the character has a personality, they need to be given a back story to explain why their personality is the way it is, as well as give the story more in-depth detail. A back story is crucial to a character because their past, how they were raised, and their friendships are key pieces of who they are and why they act the way they do. Back story can also be used to provide foreshadowing and give insight into what the character might choose to do in the future as well as what others might do to