For Your Consideration: Creating a Character

Last edited by AtlasVBot on 2025-09-13 18:46:17

Consider: the core concept

Whenever I'm starting a new NPC, one of the first things I have to have locked in with some confidence is their core concept - the basics of who their character is, ideally summarized in a few words. The core concept has to be first because everything should flow from this core - their worldview, their morals, their personality, etc. It should be what you return back to when you wonder what makes them tick, what they would do in a situation. I almost never finish a character that doesn't have a strong core concept - and even when I do, they're usually lacking in some way: if I don't have a strong concept, I might default back to more generic responses to specific situations or conversation, and generic = boring. And in my opinion, the worst thing you can do with a character is be boring.

Let's take Jorts as an example, I might summarize his core concept as loving socialist cat. What does that mean for his character?

Loving:

• sees everyone as friends, including birds and dogs
• almost never uses his angry portrait
• always tries to uplift the farmer and be positive

Socialist:

• pro-worker, anti-corporate
• thinks everyone, including cats, has a duty to help others when able
• thinks good things happen when people work together

Cat:

• no opposable thumbs
• has little use or unconventional use for most items (e.g., gems are worthless, tea bags are fun toys)
• no understanding of certain human concepts (e.g., romance)

Mind, it doesn't have to be three words exactly (for example, I might consider "not smart" as part of his core concept, and use both that and "loving" to build his event with Vincent) but the more you try and pack in here, the harder it's going to be to keep your character consistent. One way to approach trying to put it in words is to have one word for where they come from (past or culture), one word for what they do (job or passion), and one word for who they are (personality and ethics).

Let's make an example core concept of, say "grumpy Chinese mechanic". How does that inform who they are? If they're a mechanic, they might know Maru (who works with machines) or Sebastian (who works on his bike). But since he's grumpy, maybe he doesn't get along with either of them. He's Chinese, so maybe he has strong ties to his ancestors and culture - or since he lives in Stardew, maybe he doesn't, and spends a lot of time researching Chinese culture or making things with Chinese imagery and design. Maybe he's grumpy because he has no ties to his ancestors' culture and resents his family or his location because of that. While "grumpy", "Chinese", and "mechanic" are all separate concepts, the way they interact with each other helps define how the character interacts with the world.

Consider: where they come from (but not too much)

Art is personal. People create because they want to see their creation in the world. Because of that, art is invariably a mirror on the artist, showing their likes, their ethics, their background. So when making an NPC, you will, without fail, put some of yourself into them. So don't stress too much if they share your taste in music or your preference in pets or your sense of humor or your knowledge of a niche subject or your desire to eat the rich - that's making good art, not bad. "Write what you know" is an often-used piece of writing advice for a reason!

And that doesn't just mean what you personally experienced. A good collolary to "write what you know" is "write what you want to learn about". You don't have to be limited to what you personally have experience with, as long as you're willing to do a little reading and learning. For example, maybe you want to write a teacher NPC because your parent was a teacher and you grew up with a behind the scenes look. The key is authenticity: including enough correct detail to make it feel as if the character is actually coming from that background and not just using it as a thin veneer. For example, if you're writing a fangirl character, but base it off the trope that fangirls just do cosplay for attention from boys, you're going to immediately lose everyone fron female fandom who remembers fanfic, character shrines, and ship wars.

"But Tia, I thought self-insert characters were bad!" Not necessarily! The problem with self-inserts isn't the character itself, but rather, how the author tends to treat them, which leads me to....

Consider your own feelings

Back in 2009 or so, I attended my first writing convention, and went to a panel with a writer whose works I liked. Someone in the audience asked him: what's the best piece of writing advice he had? His response: Care less.

Care less?

I could see caring more and putting more passion into what you're making, but less? But as he continued, it began to make sense. Remember how I said above that art is personal and a mirror? Because of this, a lot of artists tend to get emotionally invested in their creations--after all, they're effectiely putting a part of themselves on display, and who doesn't want to be liked? But the more you emotionally invest in this piece of art the easier it's going to be for one piece of criticism (invalid OR valid) to knock you down.

Care less.

Your art is not you. It is not your baby. It is not a measure of your self-worth. If someone dislikes or is indifferent to your art, it doesn't mean they dislike you. All your art is, is a work you created. So put all the passion and love you want into the creating - but once you've released it out in the world, kick it out of the nest like a baby bird. It is statisically impossible for everyone to like your art, and hinging your expectations on that will only make you miserable. Accepting all of that, that my self-worth as a creator is not tied to my number of reads or downloads, and accepting that I might make art that doesn't resonate with everyone, or even bad art, is honestly one of the hardest things I've had to do as a creative - but it will make your art better, and also make you happier about putting it out there.

Consider your target audience (which should include you)

Want to make the most popular NPC of all time? Here's the criteria:

• Conventionally attractive (hot/sexy)
• Young adult
• Marryable
• Human (no magic)

That doesn't guarantee success, of course, but almost all the most popular characters adhere to the majority of this list. If you make a character who's older, or not dateable, or magical, they're going to get passed over by people who just aren't interested in an older/nondateable/magical character.

But that's not a bad thing.

I often tell people "don't make the best character, make the most you character. If your vision includes making, say, talking cats, it's going to get passed over by everyone who doesn't want talking animals. But I'm not making the character for those people. I'm making it for the people that do want that (like me. Please give me more talking cats.) There's no point in trying to capture an audience that isn't going to be interested anyway--you need to be making your character for the people who will be interested. Own your weird niches! Some of my favorite characters have been the folks who say something like "you know what? I'm going to put a hot demon into Stardew because I like hot demons, and no one can stop me." Even if your character never gains popularity, if you've made something that makes you happy, then you succeeded. Plus, there's nothing quite like the joy of putting out something extremely niche and finding the one person who completely vibes with it.

Consider the vibes

Speaking of vibes: consider the game you're putting this character into: chill, low-magic, low-horror, not very dark. It's going to be much harder to fit certain types of characters into the Stardew mold and if you're making something that doesn't mesh well, you're going to lose more of that audience than you would have if it did. This is especially true with characters from other media who are being ported into Stardew - why not put a Stardew spin on them? I like to hold up Toshinori (from My Hero Academia) and Lucikiel (from King's Raid) as two NPCs that adapt themselves very well to Stardew instead of trying to make Stardew fit their lore. Likewise, when I made my Creepy Cat Collection (which as you might guess from the name, is supposed to have some horror vibes), I decided to go with campy comedy-horror because the other type of horror I write (psychological horror) was, uh, very much not a good fit!

Consider their flaws (which are really just their strengths)

No character is perfect. Those that try to be are either 1. boring as heck, or 2. the author isn't actually aware of their flaws. So people sometimes try to avoid this pitfall by adding in flaws that don't matter or are socially acceptable, e.g., clumsiness. But just tacking on unrelated quirks that don't tie into your core concept is going to just look random and sloppy. Flaws should ideally tie into both your core concept AND your strengths, because flaws are just the opposite side of the coin. A character who is persistent (strength) might be seen as aggressive (flaw). A character who is sweet (strength) might be self-sacrificing or a doormat. So personally I find it easier to come up with the personality of a character, and THEN consider through what situations and views those traits might be positive or negative. Going back to our example of the grumpy Chinese mechanic: maybe he doesn't get along with Sebastian or Maru because he's grumpy, but Emily might adore him for being honest and straightfoward.

Consider their dialogue and topics of conversation

Dialogue is the primary writing you'll see from a character - but any single bit of it is missable if a player doesn't talk to a character every single day. So don't put anything that it's critical for a player to see in daily dialogue - put it in an event instead. Given the somewhat random nature of how much dialogue a player might see, I prefer to keep the topics of daily dialogue limited to about 3-4 general topics that I can expand on in different ways. Possible topics include: a job, a hobby or two, or someone dominant in their lives (like a family member). You can then cross these over with each other (e.g., a family member came to visit at the job) or expand to how they touch other topics (e.g., finding an unexpected aspect of their hobby in an unrelated field.)

When I start to write dialogue, I usually start with specific lines, like festival dialogue, conversation topics or gift reactions. Imagining a character's reaction to a specific prompt or event is usually easier than coming up with topics from scratch. And writing those initial lines may give you unexpected insight into their character - for example, considering their Flower Dance dialogue, maybe they have unexpectedly strong feelings about dance and/or flowers that didn't occur to you until you wrote it. Definitely lean into those impulses, but also consider where they're coming from and really dig into why you want to go that direction - you could add some new dimension to your character you hadn't considered previously, but you don't want to default into tired tropes or stereotypes, either. (As an aside, picking what festivals your character does or does not attend or what specific conversation topics they do or don't reply to is ALSO figuring out character!)

If you really want to dig into the nuts and bolts of writing, you can also consider word choice, slang and dialect for how your character sounds. This is another area where you want to avoid stereotypes, so rather than thinking about characters you see in the media, think about how people around you talk. What makes your grandparent sound old-timey? Perhaps it's word choices that aren't commonly used anymore. What makes your younger sibling sound hip? Maybe it's references to memes and internet grammar structures. What makes the next door neighbor's kid sound like a child? Maybe it's simpler sentence structure and less complex words. That said, while it's an aspect that helps to think consciously about, it's really something that's most often gained with practice. Experienced authors will often just consider vibes or what feels right for a character rather than breaking it down into that detail - but consciously considering it helps you acquire that practice. If you do want to focus on your dialogue to this degree, it often helps to read your dialogue aloud, so you can see if it flows naturally.

Consider others' words

The Oatmeal has some very correct and powerful takes for artistic creatives in general in their things on creativity and specifically on making things on the internet which I think everyone should read.

Chuck Wendig is the "writer whose works I liked" author I mentioned earlier, who just, y'know, happened to become a NYT bestseller after that panel. Though he focuses his advice on writing fiction for publishing, he has a lot of good tips on his blog.