: Re: How to use sociological and/or psychological studies in character building? A story I’m trying to write have several characters who have been raised in foster families. None of them have been

@Mendez196

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Doing research for characters can only be good, as it will make sure that they do not break the suspension of disbelief. If you make characters that do not fit with their upbringing, they will seem too fake to be able to relate to.

The difficulty with character building is finding a good balance in each character between interesting and believable.

A character who is a charming genius, who backflips everywhere and earns their living through juggling street performances but also moonlights as a ninja-for-hire is an incredibly interesting character, but hardly believable.

On the other hand, a story about a middle manager in an accounting firm who has a cat is a believable character, but not very interesting.

Possibly with doing so much research into what makes your characters believable, you have stripped away any semblance of a personality or uniqueness that they may possess, making them formulaic. That's not to say that they can't be interesting, but you will need to add layers to their personality so that they're not one-dimensional.

Having a character be defined as an orphan isn't really a character. What makes them a person? Being an orphan would be just one facet of their personality. They may well possess all of the personality traits that you have mentioned, but if that's all that they are then they will not be someone to write a story about.

In the same way that children from poorer backgrounds generally do worse than those from rich backgrounds, that doesn't mean an individual child from a poor family can't go on to become a Nobel laureate, or someone from a rich background can't go on to be homeless and destitute. They will be the exceptional statistic, but those are the ones who get stories written about them.

So your characters can have some, or all of, the traits associated with children growing up in foster care, as that will make them believable. But siblings, even twins, who grow up in the exact same conditions can still be polar opposites. So even if they all have attachment issues, one might be sullen all of the time, whilst another is jealous and quick to anger, and a third may be laid back but vindictive.

So whilst your research is not useless, and will make a very good background for your characters, make sure to add more to each of them in order to distinguish who they are, what their motivations are, their goals and dreams, and also make them interesting enough so that they are worthy of being characters in a story.

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