Jun 04 2008
A List of Character Attributes
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This list of words used to define and describe people will help you design characters for novels and other stories.
Mental Characteristics and Mindsets
Generally positive mindsets
- blase
- careful
- carefree
- cautious
- confident
- creative
- curious
- dutiful
- enlightened
- exuberant
- idealistic
- intelligent
- light-hearted
- logical
- methodical
- savvy
- sophisticated
- spiritual
- steady
- serious
- whimsical
Mental flaws
- clueless
- delusional
- discontented
- dissatisfied
- foolhardy
- flitty
- harried
- paranoid
- pie-in-the-sky (over-idealistic)
- reckless
- self-assured
- sheltered
- smug
- stubborn
- unquestioning (unduly obedient)
- unstable
Moral
Sympathetic traits
- conscientious
- dutiful
- faithful
- honest
- idealistic
- innocent
- just
- law-abiding
- prim
- proper
- rebellious
- upright
Negative characteristics (flaws)
- shaken
- criminal
- uptight
- treasonous
- puritanical
- hypocritical
- self-appointed
- self-centered
Energy
Sympathetic traits
- adventurous
- dedicated
- driven
- energetic
- exuberant
- intrepid
- rugged
Character flaws
- flitty
- bored
- disinterested
- crippled
- languid
- lethargic
- sedate
Social
- charming
- frank
- elegant
- generous
- haughty
- helpful
- humble
- immature
- modest
- pushover
- reserved
- sensitive
Normality
Positive levels of normality
- conventional
- familiar
- one-of-a-kind
- usual
- zany
Character flaws
- alien
- bizarre
- conformist
- eccentric
- maladjusted
- milquetoast
- weird
Secondary Positive Characteristics
- good-humored
- gregarious
- eloquent
- calm
- analytical
- athletic
Negative Characteristics
- superstitious
- combative
- needy
- unfriendly
- aggressive
- clueless
- old-fashioned
- strict
- anti-social
- naïve
- insecure
- spiteful
- disorganized
- untactful
- pushy
- ignorant
- dumb
- selfish
- passive
- jealous
- arrogant
- smirky
- weird
- unprincipled
- saucy
- dangerous
- rude
- sickly
- coarse
- bad sense of humor
- hard
- deceitful
- impulsive
- critical
- moody
- pensive
- nervous
- pampered
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For a long time I wanted to create my own superhero, but I had any idea of where to start. The list above really helped me to pick out some things I want in my character and they also reflect who I am. Hopefully it’ll help. Great site, I’m lovin’ it.
Good luck!
This is a list of things about Isaac:
Positive traits:
Protective of his foster sister, (see negative traits also)
Has a set of morals which he adheres to unless it’s absolutely necessary to ignore them (eg, he would never hit a girl unless she had a gun to someone’s head and was going to pull the trigger)
Pretty resilient and a quick thinker (see negative traits)
Is able to sort his own injuries out, even ignoring his fear of needles to give himself stitches.
Wishes to be a “good investment” for his foster parents, because he’s grateful that they took him in. (See negative traits)
Good at investigating things and sneaking around
Negative traits:
Somewhat clumsy, falls over often and gets bruises on forehead from walking into things.
Huge fear of clowns (bad birthday experience), needles, puppets (especially wooden ones with strings, due to a rack of them falling on him at a toy shop when he was six), gnomes (he thinks they have evil eyes), Christmas elves (he saw a horror movie about them when he was seven), almonds (because of allergies).
He can be very judgmental of his foster sister
If someone hurts his foster sister, he’ll lose his mind and go psycho at whoever did it.
Sometimes gets irritated at people who don’t have similar morals.
He freaks out if he thinks someone is about to discover his true identity.
Due to quick thinking, he sometimes overlooks big details.
Gets stressed due to trying to be “Son of the Year” by getting straight A’s, working hard at his job, saving lives and other things.
Sometimes he is overly suspicious.
Sometimes insults his own appearance/personality, by saying “too tall”, “eyes too blue”, “I laugh like a hyena” etc
Your thoughts?
Just a couple things.
This trait: “Good at investigating things and sneaking around”
seems inconsistent with this trait: “Somewhat clumsy, falls over often and gets bruises on forehead from walking into things.”
The only people I’ve seen pull of stealth and clumsy at the same time were the Kids Next Door, and I don’t think that’s what you’re going for.
Also: “Your thoughts?”
That is MY phrase! jk. : )
Yeah I guess so, but it’s mostly when he’s trying to sneak that he’s good at it. When he’s not paying attention, he trips up and hurts himself. He doesn’t pay full attention all the time, so he often gets injured. Like me! I can sneak around if I want, really well actually, but I’m always falling over. I’m like a cross of a ninja and Gerald Ford. Haha.
lol
I love the Gerald Ford reference. He was maligned as a klutz (he once slipped down the stairs off of Air Force One in the rain), but he was also the star of Michigan’s football team. I think that’s a great example of someone who is both a ninja and a klutz. (Well, to the extent that a single fall proves that someone is klutzy… work with me here).
As for your character, I think that some of the stuff you have is really good. I’ve taken the liberty of twisting some of your traits and notes into personality traits that are more general.
For example, I’d take “good at investigating things and sneaking around” and twist it into a personality trait, curious (or inquisitive if you prefer).
I’d take his many phobias and spin them into fearful or delicate. His suspicion and disregard for people of different morals seems to fit into this as well.
I think there’s a discrepancy between his resilience on one hand and his many fears and his tendency to freak out when someone threatens his sister or his secret identity on the other. This character doesn’t strike me as very resilient, but rather as delicate and perhaps even fragile.
He seems insecure. That seems to tie into his self-criticism (his eyes are too blue, he says) and maybe also that he feels the need to be the “Son of the Year.”
You have a lot of traits here, so if I were trying to narrow this list to a few defining characteristics (so that readers can remember them more easily), I’d go with…
1. Curious/inquisitive
2. Just (he’s attached to his sister, wants to thank his parents by acting how he thinks a good son should)
3. Fearful
4. Delicate
He has a few other capabilities (or lacks other capabilities), like his klutziness and his ability to sneak around, but I think that a defining trait is usually tied to the personality rather than capabilities.
You guys make the weirdest reference. But they’re funny so it’s good
Isaac sort of sounds like me, alot of fears, sensitive, and could care less about the emotions of others.
I actually think I’d make a good character in a story. Being a natural character.
Well, I’m a huge fan of politics and football, and Gerald Ford is one of the only individuals to play prominently in both spheres. Courtesy of a surprise appearance on Monday Night Football, Obama is the other.
My main fear is clowns. Graah, freaky jerks. I was surprised that I was able to sit through the Dark Knight without screaming every time the Joker got screen time.
I’m a little off-set by clowns as well. Twisted Metal used Sweettooth, a psychotic serial killer. THat whole game is scary as hell, but it’s really good and well-made. I’d recommend it if you like creepy stuff. Let me list some characters.
Bloody Mary is a love-crazy maniac that kills her best friend on her wedding day because she was jealous.
Dollface is an innocent girl that was locked in a doll mask for seven years because of a simple mistake.
Calypso runs the Twisted Metal contest and offers each inmate one wish if they win. Creepy as hell.
No Face looks like a voodoo doll. He’s a boxer whose face was horribly mutilated by a doctor that lost $20,000 over a match. He’s my favorite.
Preacher is a psycho evangelist who thinks he is possessed and does a bunch of crazy rituals to try and redeem his christianity, like drawing a cross with his blood on a wall and then nailing himself to it. Good story, too bad it’s a hallucination.
Billy Ray Stillwell is a mutated freak who seeks revenge on a pilot for stealing his wife and making him the way he is.
Mr. Grimm is an ex-Vietnam soldier who went insane when he was forced to eat his dead comrade. He is now a cannibal and wears the skull of the friend he ate.
They all pretty much go on to be killers. They all get sent to Blackfield Asylum, where the game begins.
My fear was set off at a festival when a clown almost fell on me after tripping over. All I saw for about half a second was his painted face. Reeurgh. I hate human statues, too.
Hot Fuzz used a human statue hilariously. Actually, pretty much everything about that movie was hilarious, but I liked the human statue especially.
Oh, I LOVE that movie!
“I wanted to be like Uncle Derek.”
“Sounds like a good bloke.”
“Actually, he was caught selling drugs to students.”
“What a ^&%$.”
The gunfight in the middle of the village was good too, with the woman on the bicycle and her handguns. I loved it how Danny opened the door of the car and she rode right into it.
“Your dad is the judge, jury and executioner.”
“No! He’s not Judge Judy executioner!” Haha, everyone knows Judge Judy.
I liked Shaun of the Dead, too, but not as much.
I think it’s Dead Rising where there’s a freaky clowns who falls on his two chainsaws and laughs as he dies. Freaky ar*ehole.
Aida (Owlie):
Positive:
–She looks after Requiem when he gets upset, and treats him like a brother.
–She sits up straight, napkin in lap, doesn’t put her elbows on the table, etc.
–She’s dedicated to the team’s aim.
Negative:
–She shows favouritism to Requiem, so isn’t always fair to the other members of FIGHT.
–She’s smug (”I told you so.” “I knew this would happen!” “I’m right, you’re wrong, deal with it.”)
–She’s always serious and never lets herself have fun. Tristram (the strong and silent inventor) has a similar mindset. They are almost dating.
Tristram (Paladin):
Positive:
–He’s willing to learn about himself.
–He’s protective of the team.
–He can hack into a basic computer in minutes, takes up to an hour to get into a network.
–He has an individual style.
Negative:
–He hates when it people interrupt him when he’s working on a project.
–He picks fights with Isaac.
–He’s hard to read. It’s impossible to tell whether he’s joking or not.
–He tends to punch people that annoy him.
Requiem (Rebirth):
Positive:
–He can tell when someone’s going to die.
–He’s good at reading the emotional atmosphere of an area.
–He can fight reasonably well.
Negative:
–Seeing a ghost sometimes upsets him.
–He complains about training when he wants to look around the city.
–He argues his bedtime and hates eating anything but junk food.
What do you think?
I haven’t forgotten about this, but I’m still thinking about it. I have a few preliminary comments.
I’d spin a few of Aida’s characteristics into personality traits. On the positive side, for example, I’d cast her relationship with Requiem as part of a more general compassionate streak. Sitting up straight with her napkin in her lap seem like symptoms of being prim. On the negative side, I’d cast her soft spot for Requiem as part of a coddling/enabling trend, maybe. Smug and over-serious are strong, I think.
Aida generally sounds pretty solid. There may be issues about whether her personality is too similar to Paladin’s, but her relationship with Req might be sufficient to differentiate them. I think that it may help to make sure she’s not too smug. “I told you so” and “I knew this would happen” feel effective to me: they give her flavor and a personality without unduly compromising her likability. “I’m right, you’re wrong, deal with it” seems a bit too obnoxious, though.
Paladin (an protective, uptight leader) seems slightly cliche. I like the quirk about his jokes being hard to read, but the character sounds maybe too much like Cyclops or Leonardo from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (particularly if his conflict with Isaac resembles the ongoing Leo-Raphael or Cyclops-Wolverine feuds). As for him being willing to learn about himself, that could be interesting but I’m not completely sure what it means. Could you give an example?
Aida and Tristam have several defining characteristics that I predict will have decent dramatic potential. Requiem has several capabilities but could probably use a more fleshed-out personality. The best I could glean was “immature” and “emotionally sensitive.” Sensitivity has some potential, but I think that focusing on immaturity will probably make the character annoyingly cute, particularly depending on the target age/gender of your audience. (I suspect that young male readers will not respond as well to him, particularly if they think the character is whiny).
I’d recommend giving him another trait or two. For example, he might be overenthusiastic/brave because he hasn’t yet been tempered by experience. (It’s a dangerous world and the enemies could kill them; also, someone that’s already lived hundreds of lives might not take death as a serious threat). You could easily tie that cavalier attitude towards death into his willingness to eat junk food and blow off training; after all, the worst case scenario is death, which is only a minor inconvenience to him.
Alternately, he might think that getting haunted by ghosts and memories of past lives is really obnoxious. If that were the case, he might be relatively bitter about his superpowers, which is pretty fresh for a child-character.
Finally, readers may also stumble over the idea that someone who complains (whines?) about his bed-time is a reasonably competent fighter.
What do you think?
Okay, thanks! With Tristram and Aida, they’re the kind of people you’d see stood against the wall at a school dance, rolling their eyes because they think that dancing is stupid.
I’ve never seen TMNT and I haven’t seen an X-Men movie in ages, so I wasn’t able to pick up on any similarities between Tristram and Leonardo or Cyclops. If you’ve ever seen the show Torchwood, I guess Tristram could be compared to Toshiko. She’s the team’s hacker, and Tristram has that job along with making helpful and sometimes useless little gadgets. I wrote this scene to show Tristram’s skills and illustrate Isaac’s fear of gnomes.
“This may look like an ordinary garden gnome, but he has a tiny security camera embedded in his right eye. We hide him in a bush nearby and if someone sees him they’ll think he’s just a decoration, while we keep an eye out for enemies,” said Tristam, pulling a box out from under his desk. He lifted a small man out and pointed to his face.
I stepped back, away from the devil, freaking out.
“What’s wrong Isaac, gnome got your tongue?” asked Kamari, laughing at me.
“N-no, but that damn thing will have my tongue eventually. Gnomes are evil. I hate them!”
“Stop being so gnomist. It’s a concrete thingy with a camera inside. It’s not going to hurt you,” said Tristram. “Now kiss and make up.”
He thrust the freaky little man out at me, and I immediately turned on my heel, running up the stairs to the second level. I leaned on the railing, trying not to look at the gnome’s evil little grin and pointy hat of doom.
Tristram shook his head at me. “How the hell can you be such a dork?”
“How the hell can you be such a gnome-lover?!”
Kamari raised her eyebrows at me. “You’re very… individual.”
“Hey! I’m not the gnome-lover here!”
“You can leap into burning buildings and fly at a hundred kilometres an hour, and yet you turn into a gibbering idiot when confronted with a common garden gnome?”
“If I had my way, they would all be smashed!”
“You want a gnomicide?” asked Tristram.
“Yes! Smash the gnomes, burn them or whatever. A full-scale GNOMICIDE!”
I thought I’d add an annoying tendency for Tristram to take stuff apart in order to get pieces. For example, Trainer finds that her radio won’t work because he stole the wires. He picks fights with Isaac over (can’t reveal it here) and tends to use his brain more than his body to fight, but he isn’t above kicking when his opponent is down when he does get into physical fights. He is prepared to learn about himself (again, can’t reveal it here) even though he doesn’t like what he finds out.
Do you think a bit of both bravery about facing death and bitterness could work? Like:
(A building is about to be blasted apart by a bomb. All people have been evacuated but their aim is to save the building.)
Aida: “We need a man inside to disarm the bomb.”
Tristram: “I’ll go.”
Requiem: “No. If you die, you’re gone. When I die, I’m reborn. Give me instructions over the stickear.” (communications device)
SIX YEARS LATER
Richie (Requiem reborn): “Oh great, MORE past memories.”
Well, Requiem doesn’t have much authority in FIGHT. He’s the youngest and so is sent to bed earlier by Aida, while the others get to stay up as long as they want. I’d be whining too. It’s like giving a teenager a 10:00 curfew when you know they want 11:00. Though he’s the bottom of the food chain in the group, he still gets taught basic fighting skills. He can hold his own but will probably require assistance from an older person when up against someone reasonably bigger or stronger than he is.
Here are a few things about Kamari (Sentry):
Positive
Is able to laugh at herself when she does something stupid.
Lives life to the fullest.
Co-operates well with most team members.
Is able to solve problems creatively. “There is a light in the scientist’s lab that flashes on if someone tries to pick the lock.” “Is the lab soundproofed?” “Erm, yes, but what does that have to do wi-” (Kamari breaks the window)
Negative
Can be annoying when she talks about trivial things as being “cool” like: “I can walk up stairs! How cool is that?” It is excusable to a degree. She would have died if her father hadn’t paid a scientist to bring them a vial of the super formula (GuardiF, short for Guardian Factor) in the second book.
Argues with Isaac (It seems no one likes him, huh? Haha. Nah, it’s just Tristram who doesn’t like him. Kamari fights with him because he lied to her before and doesn’t fully trust him)
Sometimes zones out when people are talking to her. “Sentry, what did I just say?” “Ummm… we’re going to do something?” “No, I was telling you to improve your attention span!”
Freaks out when anyone shows her any personal attention or flirts with her.
What do you think?
I like Kamari, were alot alike.
I’m similar to her in a few ways, too. I daydream a lot in class, especially if we’re doing something boring like maths or physics. I sometimes solve problems creatively. Last year in social studies, my group’s model of the Leaning Tower of Pisa kept falling over. I grabbed some craft glue and made a cupholder-looking thing out of papier mache to hold it up. I often do stupid things, but I blush more than I laugh. Haha.
Haha! I have a similar story from a physics course during a unit on seismology. We were supposed to create a model building that would survive an earthquake simulator. The only requirement was that the building could not fall apart. Most of the students used pyramidal shapes, which are theoretically sound but vulnerable to joint-integrity problems. In a fit of daring, I made a cubic building held together with paper-clips and rubber-bands. The building toppled over within 2 seconds but the joints held strong.
Hilariously, the teacher decided that that the building had successfully met the requirement of not falling apart even though it was on its side for most of the test. If only real architecture were that forgiving!
Yeah, I don’t think that anyone would be content with working or living in a building that was on its side. Haha.