Is it best to base it on someone you know or a mixture of peeps you know?
Or
Are you better off starting from scratch & inventing.
Also
Who is your fav cgaracter you ever created?
When writing a character.
I go for a cocktail. You can only truly write about what you know so I go for a mix of people I know, famous people, and exiting characters. Break 'em down into component bits, and exagerate, and mix up the stew.
Favorite character The Prop Comic.
A depressed failed stand up, who dress's up in Burqas, as a dalek, and completely vanishes into his costume. Until finally pressured into revealing his dark inner life.
He shoots himself in the head, his last words on this Earth being,
What's grey, and red and all over your face? My brains!
Kapow.
I mix them up a bit.
It's the best way I think in case who ever you case it on sues you.
You are in danger of making a cliched-character if you make one up from scratch. I always find real people very differnt from each other so I take bits of them and, most importantly, yourself to form a character. You need yourself in their so you can imagine how they would handle odd situations.
There's two approaches.
One is you have a plot and need a character to drive it so the plot determines who your lead is. For example, you need a liar and a cheat to get the plot to turn so the plot determined character in that instance.
The normal method is a character arrives and you fit him / her into a world and then they 'generate' the plot through their character.
In novels, my plots come first, so the plot always determines what I need in my characters. Sometimes this means a rewrite when the plot throws up something in that character that should have been telegraphed in the beginning. In sitcoms, it's completely reversed, worlds are created and then populated by characters.
I used to use people I know but now my characters are solely taken from long thinks in the bath or dreams.
Always mix up attributes. Create a character and read their personality traits and it's probably similar to someone you know or a previous character or as CN says a stereotype, so choose some traits at random and invert them to make that person 'different' to the normal set of characters that you tend to create.
And always give them an internal conflict that creates an unsolvable paradox for them. Example (throwaway) I love animals but I can't stop eating them. You'll think of much better contradictions.
What's your novel called?
Quote: SlagA @ February 10, 2008, 6:46 PMI used to use people I know but now my characters are solely taken from long thinks in the bath or dreams.
What kind of characters were these then?
They were a tad unusual, David. They went into our two latest sitcom projects.
Another idea for character generation is to ignore the advice about making your character 'consistent' because real people are never consistent ... only fictional characters are consistent. Our job is to create fictional characters that appear real, therefore they need to have that correct degree of inconsistency.
As an example, you can live with someone a decade and then they'll shock you. So your character can act 'outside the box' on occasions. Like the moment Rimmer tells Lister to burn his antique wooden soldiers to save Lister's life in Marooned. It's out of character but a) Rimmer is actually generated by Holly to save Lister so the hologram will break from Rimmer's real-life selfishness to preserve Lister as needed and b) Rimmer believes he's made a real connection with Lister and that emotes an empathy and a breakdown of the hostility normally between them.
You don't have to explain why the character did it unless you're choosing to reveal trait. But you have to be able to JUSTIFY why they acted out of their normal set of behaviours.
It's been one of my biggest fascinations with writing, the idea that you can never 'really' know anyone but yourself, and on examination even your own self is ultimately unknowable and capable of shocking you.
This is just opinion though, and some potential techniques I've found useful to me.
I just wondered what kind of dreams you have or what you do in the bath.
I live the kind of life in which I have flashbacks to normality, my baths are no exception. 
I always start with the idea, the spark of inspiration. The genre or situation will suggest characters to you.
I love it when you're writing and your characters surprize you and the story goes off at a different angle than you anticipated.
Quote: jacparov @ February 10, 2008, 11:22 PMI always start with the idea, the spark of inspiration. The genre or situation will suggest characters to you.
I love it when you're writing and your characters surprize you and the story goes off at a different angle than you anticipated.
This just made me think of that Red Dwarf episode where they got into that game, I think it's called 'Ultimate Reality' and Rimmer can't do nothing but imagine bad things for himself. I just thought it would be a funny idea if your characters turned against you and there was a weird tension between you and your characters, where they would fight against your plotting and oh my god!!!..
jtf
cgujyyytjytj ........................
... .... .... .. .
(Btw, that was my head exploding as I confused myself thinking about it)
I solve that problem quickly, if I get stuck or the characters are working against me?? I have someone burst into the room with a gun.
That'll teach the uncooperative bastards.
I would say that it depends what you're trying to slot that character into. If it's a sketch, usually a simple archetype will do. Typically it's the situation you put them through that generates the comedy.
With a TV show or a feature the choice is yours. Personally, I imagine a scenario I'd like to see (in the case of the sitom I'm working on now, the adult film industry) and spin the characters out of that.
That said, there are writers I admire a great deal who obviously dream up characters first and allow the story to arrive later. Someone like Wes Anderson for instance.
I think the trick is not to worry about which comes first but to work equally hard on both situation and character. And don't forget the jokes.
My approach is to come up with a job for the person first, and normally a few character traits along with it.
Do that until I have my 'gang' - each a somewhat 2D character, but with an obvious and detectable 'voice'. Normally quite basic - witty one, stupid one, angry one whatever. Then as I start to come up with plots, then dialogue, you can round them off so by the end of the pilot they're all 3D characters with organic traits.
Rarely do I base it on real people - it's a real skill to get that right I think.