: Re: How/When to create deliberately boring characters? Among a million other ambitions under the general heading of "Writing," I have this fantasy where I write a major series, several books long

@Hamaas631

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I suppose for me, the answer is not choosing to give someone personality or not, it is about how important the character is to the story. I have written people who are mainly identified by a name, and maybe a few lines, because that is the limit of my characters interaction with them - looking from their view, they know very little about the other characters, so the reader also knows very little about it.

Sometimes, you can define all that is needed about a character in a short line, and that gives you all of the relevant facts:

"Snodgrass behaved, as always, with sniveling acquiescence"

If all you need is a character who does what he is told, you have it all there. You need to know nothing else about him if that is the limit of his function within the story. He could play a major role, appearing a lot, but if he is just taking messages, doing jobs, you can refer to him as Snodgrass, and you have everything about him.

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