Fleshin' out a character
 

So, I've got a rogue character in my in-progress project that's coming off kind of boring.

He's a secondary character I deemed "Black". So far he's just a hand of the underground resistance, tracking down the protagonist once in the beginning to recruit him and again when the protagonist goes missing in a chaos torn city.

He's, right now, not even tertiary or interesting in any way. I'm willing to take suggestions, be it backstory, personality, or traits.

The one requirement is that it can't be too complex or incredible. He ain't the main character and I don't want him one-upping the real central characters.

Ok, my first tip is to not take advice about what traits WE think he should have from us.

But now that we got that out of the way...

It sounds to me that this "Black" is a character you created without thinking about his backstory. First, try to flesh out his entire character, from birth, until page 1 of your first book. Next, give him motivation. Why is he pursuing the main character? Is he doing it for revenge, and using the underground as a source to get to him? Is he indebted to him for saving his life once? Is he in-debt to the head honcho of the underground for something, and pursuing the hero out of faithfulness? Where does he stand? Minor Protagonist? Misunderstood Villain?

Writing a book is a complex affair, simply because with each element you put in it, you need to know a whole lot more than your reader will ever find out.

If you want to flesh out this "Black", make sure you know where he is coming and where he is going. Then, give him personality, and give him a reason to be anxty/excitable/suspicious/flirty/whatever. Daddy issues, dropped on his head by a baby, raised by wolves since he was 10, whatever. This stuff does not have to be in the story per se, but you need to know it because it will come out in your writing. You absolutely MUST know it.

Here, I'll write an example scenario (not as a story writer, mind you, but as a report):

~Black is pursuing Hero at the current moment. He is doing it because he owes the boss of the underground a large sum of money, and is scared for his life. He personally is looking for this hero for freedom, and is using the leader of the underground's orders as an excuse to meet up with him.
Black also has split personalities. Dating back to when he was a boy, he pissed off a mage real bad, who cursed him. The double mind thing has him go mad at every full moon, and the only one who has the cure is the hero. He is stand-offish because of this affliction. He avoids as much human contact as possible, because he has alot of pride, hence he is seen as a lone wolf.~

Okay, without going too much further, this bundle of facts I would compare to the first layer of skin on my hand. It isnt much, in comparison to what you need out of him. Try and look through what you need his influence over the main character to be as a starting point, and then work through the character bio from there. For whatever his motivations for pursuing him are, there is so much you can do for this character, and so much you need to know.

I dont know how else I can help you with this problem, short of giving you the personality of this character myself, which wouldnt be help at all. It is your story after all.

have you considered just letting the character go? If he isn't interesting it might be best to just move on

Really, you only need to flesh out characters who come back later. Black is a returning character, but his only role is to retrieve the main. You could consider dropping him, or making him a character who serves a greater purpose later on.

Honestly, the fact that he returns once means that you should consider the latter. If he's not important enough to bring back at all, don't bring him back. Have some other grunt seek out the MC. If he is important enough to bring back, give him a role to play. Then you can worry about filling him out.

Honestly, if you do decide to fill him out, making him a spy might be interesting. He could have the personality of wallboard, but that might just help him be more effective at not arousing suspicion working as a minor subordinate who's just high enough to be able to get info, but not be missed if he's not there. Maybe give him a wife and young daughter to soften him up a bit, even to use as an excuse to take trips away from Castle Evil. They need not know he's visiting them in a cave full of rebels.

Edit: Figuratively speaking, of course. He should have a respectable home somewhere where they can stay and then maybe relay info via the milk man or something, rather than him dealing with the rebels directly. He has to protect them, after all, or maybe they don't even know about it and HE deals with the milk man.

Make him talk to himself. Like, have whole conversations, right there in front of people.

I can't do the former, and I'm trying to do the latter.

I figure if I give him something more to work with other than "He's a guy," it'll work itself out later. That's how lots of my writing goes. I'm just totally fresh out of ideas.
Reread my first post. He's the rebellion's errand boy and he went out to find the protagonist to recruit him in the rebellion. Now he's doing it again, but I have nothing to work with on his character. I need something to make him less forgetful and tertiary. Hence the thread.

Everything you suggested would have been nice but all of that work makes the protagonist seem trivial in comparison and I don't write in the Tolkienian style anyway.

Those aren't bad ideas, actually.

See I just need something to make him special in a way different from the rest of the cast. I can normally do this on my own but I was seriously just completely dry on material and I was hoping enough ideas would get pitched around that I could get the creative juices flowing again.

Maybe give him a unique way of speaking? Perhaps a very informal way or use of your universe's slang?

He could be a double agent with a split personality, if you really want to go that route.

Or, he might be under hypnosis somehow. Maybe there's a certain event that he's been hypnotized to respond to, such as a key word or phrase that might cause problems, like making him go berserk.


Honestly, though, you have a rather mysterious character. Maybe the reason people know so little about him is because of a Shadow-like backstory. Maybe he originally was someone of minor importance in the Empire who defected and needed a new identity. So he dubbed himself "Black" and quietly started doing clandestine missions so he wouldn't be found or recognized.


Or, as a happy medium, maybe he calls himself "Black" because he doesn't remember who he is. Battle often involves getting bonked, so maybe he's working Resistance because they took him in, either not realizing who he was or knowing damn well who he was and attempting to convert him. Maybe they haven't told him his true identity because he's happier as Black and would be revolted by who he used to be and what he'd surely have done in that identity. He might get moments of total clarity where he remembers key bits of information, but may not realize why, and maybe those could be controlled via hypnosis.

Someone just finished Bioshock!

Naw I picked the name Black because I didn't know what the fuck to call him and I didn't want to name him Shadow.

Like, "Black" is seriously a placeholder for someone I and the reader actually give a shit about.

Give him some sort of complex; superiority and inferiority complex characters have, in my experience at least, taken a life of their own and practically write themselves. In general, I've found that it's good to focus on one solid thing you know about them and develop from there. Your focus could come from his personality or his background, but if you think it through, one can easily help you develop another.

Also, I reccomend you look online for some good character memes to fill out from his point of view; some of the questions can seem really inane, but they really do help you think about your character's personality.