Which of my original characters for my future stories do you think sounds the most interesting?

[ElenaMorgan5552]

Alright... I feel I should clarify I am not a professional writer by any means, and these are just gonna be my own stories I simply make for fun. I am actually having trouble incorporating these characters into specific stories, but I definitely do have their personalities and general vibe figured out.

But I basically have a plan for three main characters: Richard, Julio, and Jarius. Their connection together is that they're all roommates living in a house together and need each other to pay the rent. I don't have specific ages for them but they're in their 20s. They all have pretty different personalities and a lot of the humor is derived from how each one of them acts to different situations. They often travel and go on adventures together, and in the process get themselves into all sorts of weird situations. I would label these stories as more or less sitcom style comedies. With maybe some darker humor as well.

Onto the character descriptions though...

Richard: He is the pessimist of the group. He is not very smart at all and often makes all the wrong decisions, but sticks by those decisions no matter what! He is very hot headed and aggressive and arrogant, and his antics often bring trouble to everyone around him. He usually is the one to move the plot forward because of his impulsive nature to do any stupid thing that comes to mind.

Julio: He is the optimist of the group. He is also not very smart and just sort of goes along with what everyone else is doing, not really thinking for himself. He however is quite innocent, naive, and gullible. His nature is usually quite passive. He usually is kind of the comic relief of the group.

Jarius: He is the realist of the group. He is actually quite smart, or at least has common sense. He usually is pretty sarcastic, bored/uninterested in things, and just sick of everyone's shit. He usually is completely against Richard's ideas but goes along with them anyway because the trio has nothing to do. They banter a lot.

Richard

Julio

Jarius

[MCheetah]

Jarius because I can relate to him the most. He sounds a lot like me.

I actually use to write stories for a living, and ironically, about to teach a storywriting class in January for my students. What are the characters' motivations? As in, what do they want in life, and what's blocking or stopping them from getting it? And how do they all need each other and what are the strengths and weaknesses that make them strong or fail sometimes?

Also, are you a woman writing three male characters? That is rare!

[ElenaMorgan5552]

Ah Jarius huh. Good choice if I do say so myself, haha. If these three characters were real people, I imagine Jarius would be the best person of the three. Richard would just simply be too aggressive, and Julio would be so naive to the point that it's annoying. So it's good you can relate to him! Haha.

So you used to write stories for a living... that's really cool, actually! I imagine it must've been a pretty stressful job though right? And about to teach a storywriting class in January for your students? That is indeed ironic, haha.

As for your questions... they are very good questions, but it's kind of hard to apply those questions to a sitcom style comedy as usually those type of characters aren't that deep and just need to be funny/entertaining to the viewer... but I'll try my best to answer them anyway, haha.

So the characters' motivations first of all... as in what each one of them wants in life, and what's stopping them from getting it, as you described "motivations." For Richard, what he wants in life is to convert everyone to think exactly like him as he's an asshole who hates anyone who thinks differently than him. What's stopping him is that other people are smart and won't let themselves get converted by an asshole like him. For Julio, all he wants in life is to become friends with everybody in the entire world. What's stopping him is that the world is not always a very nice place, and a lot of people would just take advantage of how naive he is. And lastly, for Jarius, what he wants in life is for everybody to just have some goddamn common sense and for them to think before doing stuff. What's stopping him is that a lot of people enjoy being ignorant and will continue to just live their life exactly as they are, ignoring any common sense he shares with them.

[ElenaMorgan5552]

As for how they all need each other... well the obvious/easy answer is the one I already listed about them having to pay rent together, but I feel I could try to do better than that. They all need each other because each one of them offers a different and unique perspective on life. Richard is a very aggressive pessimist who is always prepared for the worst case scenario. Julio is a very sweet optimist who can always see the good in everyone, no matter how bad they are. Jarius is a sarcastic realist who doesn't let personal emotion/bias get in the way and just thinks of things as logically as possible. None of the three have the "right" or "wrong" perspective on life, they're just simply different perspectives. Each one can see something the other two might not notice or think about. And whether being a pessimist, optimist, or realist is better would completely depend on the specific situation/scenario and what it requires more of at the moment.

And lastly, the strengths and weaknesses that make them strong or fail sometimes... let's go. Richard's strengths could be that he's definitely very brave and not afraid to do or say whatever he wants, regardless of how outrageous... but his weaknesses could be that he never thinks things through and often just escalates situations/makes them way worse. Julio's strengths could be that he's a very happy person and is easily able to enjoy life to its fullest... but his weaknesses could be that he can just never tell when he's being fooled or taken advantage of. And lastly, Jarius's strengths could be that he's very good at solving things practically and as such is never fooled by faulty logic... but his weaknesses could be that he's just simply very apathetic to things and can almost never feel the appropriate emotions towards them, and as such he struggles to keep up with stuff when they stop being about pure logic and become more about emotions and the human condition.

[ElenaMorgan5552]

And yes, I am a woman writing three male characters, haha. Is it rare? Maybe. But I just envisioned these three characters as male in my head. I couldn't really envision them as female, it just didn't feel right. In general though, I don't really need "representation/diversity" or for a character to be exactly like me. If I like the character and can relate to them I don't care if they're male and I'm female in real life. In fact, these three male characters were inspired by several characters I grew up watching. The female characters a lot of the time were just too sexualized or made to be some sort of love interest, and were overall just not as interesting as their male counterparts.

And wow, I wrote WAY more than I expected, haha. But that's how you know I'm passionate I guess, lol.

[MCheetah]

It's good that you know your story so well. Sounds like you're already better than most would-be writers; certainly the ones currently on Netflix!

I think sitcoms are dead in the 2020s, but I think this could work as a "Two and a Half Men" style sitcom. Have you thought about head-casting? (Which actors you'd imagine would play the roles, if it was real.) I used to love thinking about casting, all the time, cause I'm a visual person and seeing people in the roles helps me imagine the dialogue better, even if they're not actually reading the script there in front of you. Before every celebrity revealed just how trash of people they are, on Twitter.

Richard sounds like a Jason Bateman type. Julio sounds like Charlie Day from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. And I could totally play Jarius though, LOL! Usually, high intelligence people (as I am, not to sound arrogant) tend to have low emotional intelligence, making it hard to relate to people, be sociable, friendly, or find a partner. So maybe he could have poor people skills, since he thinks most people are dumb and selfish anyway, but still get lonely cause it's human nature.

And people usually just write themselves when they make shows or movies (especially BAD writers.) Women tend to just write themselves, while men tend to write idealized/fantasy versions of themselves. It's not bad to write an expy character (self insert) like you, but bad writers usually just make Mary Sues.

By the way, I never worked in Hollywood or did anything major on television or whatnot. All my stuff was local and small time plays. I have no IMDb page. Not that I'd ever want to live in California, anyway...

This is one show I used to write. Friday Night Friends. I only chose this one, cause it's a comedy, like yours.

[SnowedIn]

I didn't want to pick! I already like all three. But, Richard sounds the most interesting because his impulsive nature is going to cause adventures that I want to read.

[ElenaMorgan5552]

Awww, it flatters me you like my characters so much already, haha. Thank you so much! I am no professional writer by any means, and only have a high school education, but if one person likes my characters so much then it means I did something right at least, haha.

As for your choice of Richard and the explanation behind it, I will say I like your choice and explanation! A characters who causes the plot to go forward/causes more adventures is always a plus!

I don't know if I'm allowed to pick a favorite since I'm the creator but for me it'd probably be between Richard and Jarius since Julio is sort of the little brother of the group in terms of personality despite being the same age... though I do like the idea of having stories where he breaks out of his usual naive/gullible nature and suddenly outsmarts everyone or something, lol.

[SnowedIn]

As a fellow non-professional writer, I'd tell you that you SHOULD have a favorite. It's not only okay, it's vital. That will transfer through your writing. You should certainly invest the same into each character's writing, but whatever you're writing will benefit from one of them being your favorite.

Best wishes with this! :)

[abc3643]

None of these characters are appealing.
Rename Richard to "Donald T." because that's a more accurate reflection of who he is.

[AngryCarl]

These are all terrible characters. At least one of your characters has to be sympathetic so the reader identifies and cares about them. I was on board with Jarius until you said he's so apathetic that he just goes along with the asshole.

[Debbie14217]

jarius soungs great to me

[Anonymous]

Girl no more options?

[ElenaMorgan5552]

What do you mean? You think I don't have "enough" characters? Good stories can be written even with very few characters. And in my specific story, there would be other characters but only the listed three would be the main recurring ones.