Building a Good Persona

So, you’ve decided to take the plunge. You’ve watched the movies, read the books, hung out with other Steampunks, and now you’re ready to enter into Cos Play.

Now Steampunk Cos Play can differ from you may be familiar with. From what I’ve experienced it actually may have more in common with Live Action Role Play (LARP). What you will find is that many of your new Steampunk friends create their own Steam Persona. They will assume this character when in costume at Conventions or other events. Our own SANVA members have created extremely creative personas such as Mr. Saturday and Sixpence the Mime.

So what makes a great persona? Is it the costume? The Gadgets? The Make-Up? Or the voice?

Well, it is all those things, but the most important part is the story.

That’s right, if you want to create a truly unique and powerful persona you’ll need to do a little work on building the character and its story. So where do we start?

Concept

A concept is the beginning of anything and everything. This inspiration gets you excited to create. Coincidentally, this is also the hardest part to come up with because there is no direct science. My best advice is going with your gut. Sometimes you’ll have a great idea of a look or feeling that you want to capture. Once you have that, run with it and start fleshing out your character.

This process may come easier for writers as it very closely resembles character creation. You may want to look for source material to help solidify what you want your character to be. Here you can turn to your favorite movies, books, comic books, plays, or any other experiences you need. It is okay if your source material isn’t Steampunk, it is ok if it isn’t even in the realm of geek or gamer media. You can use whatever helps to fuel the creative fire.

If you’re stuck and nothing is coming to you try thinking back to your favorite story. One of mine is Shakespeare’s  Othello. Do you have your story?

Ok good. Look back to the story, who was your favorite character? What about that character do you most enjoy or identify with? Is that something you would like to incorporate into your persona? Keeping with my example, my favorite character is Iago because I think he is one of the best villains in English Literature. I like how he orchestrated the fall of Othello through social manipulation. That is something I want to explore in my persona.

That brings us to an interesting question. Good or Evil? Do you want your character to be a good guy, bad guy, or that fun shade of ambiguously gray? Well before you answer, think about it this way.

There is no such thing as an evil person.

That’s right I said it, but it doesn’t make it any less true. There is no such thing as an evil person, no one wakes up in the morning and says, “You know, today, I’m going to be evil.”

Doesn’t happen. We interpret their actions as evil. Villains in stories truly think that they are doing what is right. Look at a character like Iago, in his eyes, his actions were justified. Passed over for a promotion, slighted by the rise of Othello, and he felt that the scales needed to be re-balanced. In our eyes, he did some truly evil things, but to him, he was just trying to get through his day to day.

For you and your persona, it really boils down to how they view the world and what they want from it. What are their goals, why do they have these goals, what drives them, and what shaped them into who they are today?

By the time we start asking these questions, we most likely have a good idea of what and how we want our persona to be. Next, we need to learn more about why they are the way they are. How do we do that? Well, the sum of a man is the collection of his life experiences. The same is true with any character created. There is a saying among writers that your viewers/readers will really only see 10% of what we create for our characters. For a character like Iago, we are only seeing 10% of the back-story and work that Shakespeare most likely did in creating him. So why do it? Because the other 90% heavily affects how that 10% acts and appears.

Next week we are going to go into some exercises on how to flesh out your persona’s background and why it is important.