How to Write a Captivating Backstory and Lore for Your AI Character
Create an engaging AI character backstory with our guide! Learn tips and see examples to write captivating backstories and lore for your AI characters, which will bring your AI comics and AI webtoons to life.
If you want to skip to the good part and start making AI comics, AI characters, and AI webtoons right away, head over to Komiko.
How to Become the Master of AI Character Lore
The best AI comics and AI webtoons have characters you truly care about. Why would a story be interesting if the AI characters aren’t? ‘Lore’ is a fancy way to say “all the juicy details about a character's history.” Deep, complex lore makes an AI character way more interesting and lifelike. Interesting people usually have interesting backstories, right? So, let’s learn how to write some awesome lore for your AI character that will enhance your AI comics and AI webtoons!
Beyond Skin Deep: How Character Creation Shapes AI Characters
Creating an AI character’s lore begins when you first design the character. The way you use the fundamentals of character creation in your AI character can connect to their backstory, and vice versa. When lore and design work together, the result is an AI character that feels totally real and alive, making your AI comics and AI webtoons much more compelling.
For example, let's say you design a gruff, weathered old cowboy AI character. He’ll probably have a scarred face, heavy brow, and rigid posture. These immediately tell you something about his past. Someone with an easy life without many hardships wouldn’t have those features. So, a character with these features is sure to have struggled. That visual design then gives you a starting point to develop their lore. Maybe they've survived intense shootouts or lost partners along the way. Their backstory and personality traits can then feed back into the design! (Psst…make sure to tweak your AI character’s design if you aren’t happy with it yet. A bad design might be a disservice to their awesome lore, and could weaken the impact of your AI comics and AI webtoons.)
While a good backstory is crucial, great AI character design involves nailing the visual aspects too!
Tame the Info Tornado!
It's important to keep all the little details about your AI character in one place. Think about it! Your AI character has a backstory, personality traits, goals, relationships…need I go on? You’ve crafted a whole bunch of other juicy info here! The last thing you want to do is get lost in it. (Or, heaven forbid, lose some of it.) If that info is scattered all over the place, it'll be a big headache to keep track of it.
That's where a tool like Komiko comes in handy! Komiko lets you build all of your AI characters and original characters. Each character is super customizable, too! You can customize their appearance, bio, lore, abilities, and much more. Having everything in one spot makes it a breeze to reference later. Plus, Komiko lets you upload images and drawings of your AI characters. It's the perfect way to keep your AI character feeling consistent and complex, which is vital for creating engaging AI comics and AI webtoons! Click here to check it out!
The Backstory of a Backstory
Let’s go behind the scenes of a backstory. The first step is to start asking questions. Lots of ‘em! Where was your AI character born? What was their family like? What major events or struggles have shaped them? Dig deep into their past and uncover their roots. From here, your AI character will grow into their personality, beliefs, and worldview. If you understand the "why" behind who they are, they’ll feel richer and more authentic, making your AI comics and AI webtoons even more compelling. It’s time to grab a shovel and get digging!
1) Understand Your AI Character’s Personality
How well do you know your AI character, really? Can you confidently say that you know them completely? If not, here’s your first step. Figuring out your AI character's personality is like being a detective. That means—you guessed it—more questions. Make a list of their likes, dislikes, quirks, and pet peeves. What makes them tick? What are their core values and beliefs? Building an awesome backstory is easy once you know your AI character inside and out, and this will translate into more engaging AI comics and AI webtoons.
2) Consider This!
Think about your AI character as they are now. This is who/what they became because of their lore. What if they started out as the complete opposite? For example, what if your AI character, a criminal on the run, started out as a cop? Or, what if a totally ordinary guy became a divine being? If you’re stumped on what to write for your AI character’s lore, consider this: maybe it’s time for a twist! Get creative with how your AI character got from point A to point B. What would it take to shake them to their core? What would rock their world so much that they had no choice but to change who they are? What would this change do to them? This depth will add layers to your AI comics and AI webtoons, making them stand out.
Do you want your AI Character to be in a chatbot? Interactive stories are more exciting because of AI. Check out this blog for more on how to integrate AI characters into interactive storytelling, which can complement your AI comics and AI webtoons.
Other Examples of AI Characters With Great Lore
The komiko community is full of AI characters with epic backstories. Some started out with little but accomplished amazing things. In this section, we'll explore the lore of a few featured AI characters from CharacterHub. Let’s unearth the experiences and pivotal events that shaped who they are today. Get ready to be inspired by these compelling backstories, which can serve as inspiration for your own AI comics and AI webtoons!
Putting Pen To Paper
Overthinking got you stuck? Just start writing! Don't worry if you don't love (or even like!) what comes out at first. The important thing right now is getting words on a page. Give free writing a try! First, think about what you want to write. Then, set a timer for 20 minutes. Now, write whatever comes to mind. Don’t stop or correct yourself. Once that timer goes off, stop and read what you wrote. Some of it might be totally useless. That’s okay, because this is just a way to get some ideas on paper. You can delete what you can’t use, and be inspired by what you can! (We’ll touch on this in the next step!) Trust me, the first step is often the hardest part. But once you get the ball rolling, the rest gets way easier. And remember, the better your AI character's backstory, the more captivating your AI comics and AI webtoons will be.
When it comes to writing, you just have to start! Stop agonizing over finding the perfect words or crafting the ultimate opening line. Just start typing! Write anything, even if it's totally rough and messy. The key is to get your creativity flowing and not let overthinking hold you back. Remember, the first draft is never your final draft. So, give yourself permission to write something imperfect. Get those creative juices pumping! Once you have something to work with, you can start refining and improving it all. But you gotta start somewhere, right? So what are you waiting for? Grab a pen or open a new document, and let the words start flowing!
Time to Refine!
Now, it’s time to review what you’ve written up to this point. A lot of it might be unusable, incomplete, or just wrong. That’s okay! With a different color pen (or a highlighter, if you’re typing), circle or highlight what definitely doesn’t work. What causes plot holes in the overall story? What is out of character? Where is the fluff? Without deleting anything quite yet, take stock of what you have so far. After all, what you highlight may be important aspects of your AI character! So, you might be hesitant to just throw those bits away.
That’s okay! With a different color pen (or a highlighter, if you’re typing), circle or highlight what definitely doesn’t work. What causes plot holes in the overall story? What is out of character? Where is the fluff? Without deleting anything quite yet, take stock of what you have so far. After all, what you highlight may be important aspects of your AI character! So, you might be hesitant to just throw those bits away.
Make a second document. This time, remove what you highlighted. Don’t just copy and paste, though! It’s been shown that actually rewriting (or retyping!) something helps you refine your writing. You’re more likely to come up with new ideas with this method. Or, you might figure out a new way to write something that didn’t work originally!
Now, read both versions of your original character’s lore. Does removing what you highlighted help the story flow? Without these parts, does your AI character feel complete? Do you have to replace these elements with new ones? Consider if these elements have a place before deleting them altogether.
This part never really ends. You might refine your AI character until the end of time! That’s the tricky part. My advice? Stop when you like it. Your character’s lore doesn’t have to be perfect, and neither does your original character! Think of it this way: It’s better for it to be done and imperfect than perfect and never finished! Plus, how many perfect people have you met in your life? Let’s say you have, somehow, met a perfect person. Would you really want to hear their life story?
Wrapping Up
Wait, a minute, a backstory is just the start, to master character arcs a lot more needs to be done!
Phew, building a backstory for your AI character can be a lot of work. (Honestly, making an original character in general is a lot of work! But it’s worth it, I promise!) Think of it like putting together a puzzle. The more pieces you have, the clearer the full picture becomes. Here’s the thing about puzzles: You usually can reference the final picture while you’re making