Creativity

Hello, My name is Inferoo357, and I am your instructor for today.

We will be discussing Creativity, There are two VERY important things to remember about Creativity
1. To be creative, you must think, and you must do so outside the box
2. Use everything at your disposal, TV, books, comics, they can all be EXCELLENT reference tools

(More to come)

Note, Reference Tools. Not a bowl of copy pasta for you to dip your spoon of Unimagination into and ladle onto our forum. That bowl's been in the Refridgerator of Used Ideas for years now and is starting to stink.

Now, an Imagination is a seemingly hard thing to come by in a roleplaying forum, at least as far as ive seen, First I will cover creativity in character creation

Bear with me if this turns into a rant

Your character is your arms and legs in this roleplaying forum, without a character, your getting nowhere fast, as such, you should put the UTMOST time and effort into making your character

Topics will come and go, but your character should always remain

This being said, you should not be creating a character within 10 minutes, Those of us will more detailed characters spend anywhere from a half an hour to an hour, maybe more

I know what your saying
"AN HOUR! OH MY GOD!"
Well Yes, an hour

Trust me, if you spend more time on your character, he/she/it is going to be far more detailed and is going to allow you to play the character much better than you normally would, because you have probed and thought about the way this character thinks for the last hour, people are going to like this character far more than someone who only spent 10 minutes on theirs, and your going to get a LOT more mileage out of him

Remember
The more you put in, The more you get out

When creating your character you have to analyze him, they should become just as much of a person as you or me

Their name should be something people understand and is linear to their looks, you aren't going to expect a space alien from the planet Mulgothra to have the name Bob Cassidy, but be creative, don't just name your character Joe Schmoe, If your character is a normal human then give him a normal human name, is the character white? maybe Michael, or Jhon, Is the character Asian? Maybe try Shintai, or Nagato, Is he a half dog, half human hybrid? Maybe try Spot or Spike, that was a joke lol, but you get my point right?

Your character is most likely a superhero or villain, so their going to need a name, at this point, try to look at the character from an outside view, If you were a civilian on the street and saw this character laying waste to the town/saving citizens, what would you say? what would you call that mysterious her/villain? and if your character isn't a hero or villain, think up a nickname he might use anyway, maybe his friends call him TJ or something

When your going for your looks don't just picture your character in your head for a quick moment and then scan for pictures, make a 3D model in your head, pick out every little thing your character has on his personage that makes up his look, then maybe try to find a picture that closely resembles it, and even if you find a picture, try to expound upon what the picture DOESN'T show, give your character small quirks, like scars, facial ticks, moles, anything to make your character unique, sure it may never come up, but at least people have IN DEPTH knowledge of your character, it will help them connect better with the character
Your costume is also an extension of your character, if you don't have one, don't put one, if you do, try and make it something your character would believably wear

For personality, put just that, but not only that, put how your character may react to different situations, how he feels about his powers, what he will do if faced with certain types of situations, anything that has to do with how your character thinks, feels, or acts is his personality

History, this is what has happened to your character from birth, to present, incluse his parents, and try to give names to all of the people tin their life, please, be original, we already have enough people who's parents have died, parents don't just keel over as soon as their child hits the age of 10, and for your history put events that have changed their lives, any and all, I'm sure more memorable things have happened then "my father gave me a sword and i started fighting crime" and even if your a cliche amnesiac put your history, I don't care if your character can't remember what happened to him, it still happened

Powers are the bread and butter of your superhero, now, DETAIL, as Slamfist said, is the most important part, but when you are making your powers, be original, don't copy existing characters, THINK, try to make small quirks, weaknesses, or strengths that may make your telekinesis different from Professor X's

and finally, Your RP sample is just an extended post, find more information on this in the Descriptions lessons

Now, I know it may be hard to come up with a unique and original idea when creating a character, with so many superheroes and villains already in existence its hard to do so, but try and use everything at your disposal to help you
I got the idea for my character David from the a stick figure game called Double Wires, so all you have to do if you want an original idea is think, and look around