(12-15-2014, 02:58 PM)Melody Wrote: Here's something I've been wondering about for quite a while now. I've been lurking around here for a few months and I'm always seeing people mention their characters going through plot lines and what not.
My question (or questions) to the community is, how do you guys come up with plot lines for your own characters? Where do you start? Â Do you have any strategies? Are your characters built with a ready-to-go story idea?
I want to start coming up with things to do with Melody, but I'm having a very hard time figuring out where to start.
*sounds the noobie alarm*
(If there's already been a thread about this...I'm sorry!)
One of the most important things I feel a good character should have is a solid, long-term goal to drive them to do what they do. It can be anything: being rich, finding a lost family member, becoming the greatest knight they can be... whatever. The point is to have something that gives them the motivation to do whatever work it is that they do.
A treasure hunter might be looking for the most valuable artifact they can to secure their wealth for the foreseeable future, or maybe they're trying to find an old trinket that might lead them to the truth about who they are and where they really came from. A mercenary could be looking for a way to make a name for themself in the real world, establish connections with like-minded people, or even find true happiness through adventure. Really, honestly, it can be anything.
If you give one of these to your character, you immediately open yourself up to a plethora of figurative doors that can lead your character just about anywhere. An aspiring paladin might feel that he needs to prove himself as a fighter first, so how might he do that? An amnesiac is looking for some kind of sign to point her in the direction of the truth, so where could she look?
This is where character plot lines come in. Your character needs something—anything—and because this goal of theirs is such a central motivation in everything they do, prompting them to go out and get it one way or another is actually pretty simple. The fun is working out the twists and turns along the way to make things interesting. That's what adventure is about.
![[Image: j01Pzss.png]](https://i.imgur.com/j01Pzss.png)
