How To Create A Yandere (+ free characters)

Step One - Personality

Step One: Give them a personality.

Your yandere is a person. Giving them a well-developed personality adds more depth to the character and allows you to create a more personalized yandere. It'll help you stem away from the general tropes that may not fit your character or the setting of your story. Evermore, if the general tropes do actually fit your character and setting, then your characterization will be enriched because everything makes sense and aligns well. Here are some aspects you can build on: The surface level of their personality, their content state, their upset state, how others view them, and how they feel about it. Notably, I would suggest not thinking too much, or even at all, about their backstory during character creation. Let yourself think freely in order to create a character that feels like a real person to the reader.

Read this paragraph if you need me to go more in-depth; The surface level of your character's personality can include things like their likes & dislikes, hobbies, how they carry themselves, and perhaps their vibe. These are things that people would notice at first glance or things your character would easily reveal to strangers. The content state of your character is how they behave when they're in a positive, happy headspace. Are they mellow or energetic? Are they very extroverted or very introverted? Do they take a while to gather their thoughts or spew the first thought they have? Diligent, reliable, smartmouth, flirtatious, stoic? Whatever way you feel most comfortable explaining their personality, whether that be a list of traits or descriptions of significant parts of their behavior, is what you should use! Likewise, the upset state is how your character behaves when they're in a negative headspace. Perhaps they find people to take their anger out on or maybe they self-sabotage. Next is how others view them, which would be the people in their immediate environment. You could have a school setting where your character is viewed as the class clown delinquent. You could have a work setting where your character is viewed as the boss's favorite. You could have a fantasy kind of setting where your character is viewed as the village's hero. Lastly, you need to deem how your character feels about the way they're viewed. Do they like the perception people have of them? Do they take advantage of it anyhow? Would they do anything to change it? With a strong foundation of your character's personality, you have a lot of avenues to divulge into their yandere characteristics.