i'll be back - i think i'm out and they pull me back in

Huh?

In a nutshell,

"When you sit down to draft up a new character, start with the quirks."

"A quirky character is a fun character."

"Before you write ... brainstorm up a list of quirks that your character might have."

-Derek
My Web Page - naked women, bestial sex, and whopping big lies.

Napoleon Dynamite is nothing but quirky characters....

As soon as I'm done picking my nose with a blunted orange toothpick I'm gonna respond to this thread.

Napoleon Dynamite was an AWESOME film....


I love quirky. Hmm, maybe I'll put that in my sig.

and dp, if you go to the bottom page he talks about his script the grave digger, which sounds pretty good from the character sketch and temporarily outline this guy creates by hashing out the quirks.

I saw. Yes it could be a useful line of creative thought. May I just say you're a walking psychological quirk, vig. I mean that in a constructive and warm fuzzy way, of course.

anyway, twenty minutes.... we aren't going to last twenty seconds.

Courage, mon ami. Someday soon your wincingly stereotypical Scorrash and Oirish characters will appear on celluloid, I promise ye.

-Derek
My Web Page - naked women, bestial sex, and whopping big lies.

Wow

What we are looking at here is an article about ROLE PLAYING GAMES!!!!
D & D (dungeons and dragons) etc.


Guys sit around a table and each one makes up a character and then they take this character through all kinds of pretend action scenarios and battles with mythical creatures and stuff. You draw a card that tells you what kind of monster you're battling and how powerful it is and how many levels of growth or power your character has to have in order to defeat it.

Gamers LIVE these characters.
For several hours you get to become a Dwarf, or Elf, or Magician, or scantily clad women with enormous breasts.

I CAN'T believe Vig that you think the Gravedigger is an actual script!!!!!
ESPECIALLY when he didn't post any SCRIPT PAGES.

Yes, I followed the link.
His notes were all about the character and the level of power he has.
My husband has a whole file of this kind of stuff.
He goes every Saturday and plays with a couple of his buddies.

Are you guys for real?
Do you REALLY, HONESTLY, BELIEVE this is about movies????

<Okay, sure, it's some good thoughts, some great character stuff, can be applied > see, right here, my endorsement of the article.
but

COME ON!!!!!!!!!
This article is about creating a game character NOT a movie character.

The writer here is a GAMER NOT a screenwriter.

I just really think that needs to be clearly understood.

Well, at least you're not hostile.

Napoleon Dynamite is quirky.

Scripter,

"Gamers LIVE these characters."

As we should live ours -- only you're not being complimentary. But what is screenwriting, or any other kind of fiction writing, if not RPG of sorts? We build the characters and hope they'll breathe and think and feel real.

If you argue against this concept, I think you're maybe missing out on something that could be beneficial to your own writing. I haven't felt any urge to indulge in RPGs but the manuals are great source material and sure as hell get you thinking. It's all about characters, not magic spells and scantily clad slave-girls.

-Derek
My Web Page - naked women, bestial sex, and whopping big lies.

I am totally flumoxed.

I just can't believe you guys don't see this article for what it is and now you are attacking ME for pointing it out?

(the scripter just shakes her head.)

There is NO Gravedigger script.
He did not write a SCRIPT!!!
The gravedigger is a character this man made up for a ROLE PLAYING GAME.
His character sheet is about how many points of experiance the character has. He's a level ten warrior (or whatever) as opposed to a level 2 human.
The character leaps off the page, it is GREAT writing and creative thinking and we should learn from it BUT
The man did NOT create a story for the movies, he's just really into games.

I totally agree that screenwriters can learn something from it.
The article makes some great points about quirks.
I have no fault against the method or the advice.
I NEVER said that.
I NEVER once argued against the article.
In fact, I printed it off.
I'm glad Vig posted it.

I am just stunned that Vig thinks a script exists.
That he would call what was linked a script.
That the previous posts did not indicate an understanding that the article and method was directly dealing with role playing games and was NOT INTENDED for screenwriters or supposed to be a screenwriting article.

D at least is now making sense out of this. I'm relieved by that.
I was somewhat concerned that you had lost your mind.

Articles like this should come with a disclaimer.
"Hey, I found this piece on an unrelated site but some of the things in it really helped me and could be applied to writing. Ignore all the junk about strike strength at 100 and attack speed of 45 and hit points, etc, etc, and focus on the creation of character."

A newbie reading this article could get really confused.

I'm not hostile.
I'm being EMPHATIC.

I will remove the name calling though, that was a bit much.

Napoleon Dynamite is quirky.


(disclaimer: I didn't read the entire article. I stopped reading at the first "quirk." As a novelist/screenwriter, I have my own ways of creating characters. I don't need a "quirk sheet.")

Wouldnt be the 1st time.
The filmmakers of Underworld got sued by a role playing company that has a game about werewolves fighting vampires, which obviously is the same as the film's premise-- and it settled out of court.

Well

It's funny because I've seen this linked to by a friend way back when for RPG (role-playing-game) purposes, on a small board I run.

I suppose it could help you build a character, but something about the process of going down a list, "Hates pirates: check, Religious: check", seems altogether mechanical and artificial, when in reality you're trying to create someone unique. It may suffice for an RPG purpose, where the character would be given an inexhaustible amount of time to develop beyond the cookie-cutter'esque template, but I'm not sure how well it could work for this kind of fiction, where you have finite space.

Just some thoughts...

To me everything relates to story telling -- It is what I do. While the whole role playing game thing bores me, the idea of quirks; and yes the grave digger, does set me to thinking about the relationship between quirks and character: That is a good thing.

And there are a lot of these gamers out there. If you appeal to them you have an audience -- I notice Matrix appeals to gamers.

I believe that all memorable characters chould have something that stands out, something the audience will relate to and remember (a quirk if you want to call it). It can be physical, emotional, intellectual or in personality.

Whether it's obvious like Howard Hughes' OCD or sublte, like R2D2's beeps to convey its playfulness personality, a good character has specific "atributes" just as used in RPGs.

I'm not sure I like the cookie cutter formula to create a character. I have created characters who many times takes a different direction I wanted or developes a trait almost on its own.

Even in RPG a character can develop and even change it's attributes over time.

This may be a good blueprint to work on, but I wouldn't use it exclusively. Listen to your character and see what he/she wants to be or become.