on since high school? Or does today mark 30 years at the Buttscratch Eat ’n Gas for Nadine, and the chef celebrates the occasion by putting a candle in a sausage patty and leading the regulars in a hearty chorus of “Happy Anniversary”? They’re both waitresses, but Madison and Nadine are two entirely different characters, which means the stories you tell about them, and how they react and behave in the situations those stories present, will be vastly different. It’s all about the details.
In The Guild, all the characters are online gaming freaks. But aside from that shared video addiction, they are all distinct individuals. Here is a partial character breakdown for The Guild from its Wikipedia page:
Knights of Good
Codex (real name Cyd Sherman) is the Priest. Codex is shy and non-confrontational, tending to panic under stress. Outside the game she is a concert violinist (and former child prodigy), unemployed after setting fire to her boyfriend’s cello. She is an addicted gamer who tries at first to control the time she spends online but fails. For this reason, her therapist drops her. At the beginning of the series she is quite reclusive, with no real-life friends; she is often self-conscious and awkward around men. Codex is portrayed by creator Felicia Day.
Zaboo (real name Sujan Balakrishnan Goldberg) is the Warlock. Zaboo describes himself as a “HinJew,” having a Hindu mother and Jewish father. He shows great skill with computers; for example, his stalking of Codex included obtaining (presumably through the Internet) the floor plan of her apartment and all her past residences. His obsessive attitude toward Codex reflects his mother’s smothering. When talking, Zaboo often uses “-’d” after some key word or expression, self-commenting on what he just said (e.g., “bladder’d,” “testosterone’d”). While Zaboo doesn’t appear to have a profession, he admits having attended college for 4 years (to which his mother drove him every day). Zaboo is portrayed by Sandeep Parikh, Indian American writer, director, actor, and producer of comedy and founder of Effinfunny.
Bladezz (real name Simon Kemplar) is the Rogue. He is a high school student who spends most of his time outside school in his mom’s garage playing the game. He is rude to the other male guild members, and he hits on the female guild members and makes lewd sexual jokes and comments. He is worried about being sent to military school, and to save up for college his mom forced him into modeling; he uses the name “Finn Smulders” to keep it a secret from everyone. In Seasons Four and Five, he becomes an Internet meme. Bladezz is by nature a rogue and tends to sneak around, betraying, lying, stealing, and causing mayhem. Bladezz is portrayed by Vincent Caso.
Vork (real name Herman Holden) is the guild leader and Warrior. He enjoys managing the guild and budgeting, and he believes only in rules and logic. He lives frugally (and illegally) on his late grandfather’s Social Security checks and is a certified notary public. When he became guild leader he “cut the fats of life,” including electric power; he steals his senile neighbor’s Wi-Fi (and shed) and keeps his food cold by buying ice with food stamps. In the penultimate episode of Season Three he reveals that he can speak fluent Korean; in Season Four, he speaks Hindi to Zaboo’s mother and claims to know all languages. Vork comes to believe that shared hatred of him is what keeps the guild together. In Season Four, his desire to own a guild hall leads him to manipulate an in-game exchange market, nearly causing him to be banned from the game. Vork is portrayed by Jeff Lewis, an accomplished character actor and comedian.
Clara (real name Clara Beane) is the Frost Mage. Clara is a stay-at-home wife and mother, college partier, and ex-cheerleader. Her three children are all young, with the youngest still breastfeeding, and she is shown to be an irresponsible mother; though proud of her children, she tends to put gaming before her family and sometimes tries to mix the two, such as by recruiting her husband, “Mr. Wiggly,” to the guild. She uses her real name as her avatar name because her kids saw her old name, “Mominatrix.” She comes off as ditzy, scatterbrained, and eccentric, with occasional bursts of insight. In the fifth season she proves herself to be a capable mother when she stops Zaboo from going mad with power and lack of sleep. Clara is portrayed by Robin Thorsen.
Tinkerballa (real name April Lou) is the Ranger. Tink distances herself from the guild, trying not to let them know anything about her personal life; she even keeps her real name a secret from her fellow guildies, introducing herself as Tinkerballa. Her real name isn’t revealed until the fifth season. In reality, Tink is adopted and has two sisters. She also has been lying to her parents about being a pre-med student, when she has actually switched courses for a degree in costume design. She is shown to have a huge video game addiction, always having an alternate game in hand when not playing the guild’s game, even when raiding. She is cold and manipulative, and she uses men to get what she wants, including Bladezz, who deletes Tink’s character to avenge himself after she uses him. Following this, and Vork’s refusal to punish Bladezz, she leaves the Knights of Good and joins the Axis of Anarchy but later finds them too “douchey” even for her (she even says that she went on a date with Fawkes to join). She rejoins the Knights of Good during an in-game showdown with the Axis of Anarchy when they call her “Tainterballa,” and she allows her avatar to be killed off intentionally to give Codex a shot at victory for the guild. Tink is revealed to be possibly the most social of the group, although she is incredibly grounded in the online world. In Season Five, Codex reunites Tink with her family at the gaming con. Tink is portrayed by Amy Okuda.
Granted, this wealth of details was developed over six seasons of episodes. But the fundamentals of each character were there from Season One on. When you create your characters, be as specific as you can. BUT — and this is absolutely crucial — you must also make sure that the specifics you lay out about your character are relevant and telling, that they reveal important things about who your character is on the inside. A laundry list of random details about someone is useless unless those details reveal something significant about who that character is, how she might behave or react to the world around her. Saying your main character Susie’s least favorite color is blue and she has a pet parrot are specifics, but they’re not terribly revealing or important. They don’t tell us much about Susie or the kind of person she is. However, if Susie hates blue, the parrot is blue, and the parrot used to belong to her hypercritical mother who loved blue, and now the parrot mocks and criticizes Susie’s every move just like mom used to do, that’s significant.
CHARACTERIZATION
Character is something internal — the essence of who a person is. So how do you take this internal thing — a person’s essence — and communicate that essence to your audience? Through characterization.
Characterization is simply the techniques by which you communicate internal character to us. It is the externalization or dramatization of the internal. And there’s great news, boys and girls. When you get right down to it, there are really only three ways for you to convey or reveal who the characters in your series are: what they say (dialogue), what they do (action), and the environment they create, like their clothes, car, job, and living situation.
Forget about writing for the moment and think about real life. When you meet someone new, how do you decide what kind of person they are? By taking careful note of exactly the details stated earlier. Each of us is kind of like The Terminator, with an involuntary mental computer that constantly processes data about the world and people around us. You walk into a Starbucks and spot a woman at a nearby table. The computer kicks in: She’s in her 30s, dressed in designer casual clothes, texting on her iPhone with one hand while she alternately sips a chai latte and shares her oat bran muffin with a toddler girl named Chloe in
