That's A Good Charicter!

What is it that makes or breaks a charicter?
First off, a good charicter is real. S/He has real emotions, real thoughts, and real relationships with those who are around them. A bad charicter is one who is basically a steriotype or charicature of a charicter. A good charicter can still fall into those steriotypes. But they need something different about them to set them apart.
For the record, this isn't just in improv. This is part of good story telling/writing. One of the things that makes good science fiction or fantasy good is when aliens or robots or whatever is science fictiony about them has human like qualities about them...they think...they feel (about things AND towards those who are around them)...they have wants and desires that are unique to them. This is why B-Rate science fiction pics from the 1950s and 1960s were so MST3K worthy because they were all around bad. Aliens who came to earth were a representation of the "communist threat." This means that, no matter what an alien was doing, it was evil by default. No matter what, it was..."THEM...The Other Guy...The Outsider." The evil ones were usually giant spiders or giant praying mantises...or blobs...or just something to run...not walk away gingerly from. Even the good ones (The original Day The Earth Stood Still) he was bad because he wanted earth's nations not to destroy eachother...so, naturally, he was evil and had to be shot down (I'm being sarcastic here).
But I'm going off on a science fiction tangent on a blog entry simply about charicters. What I'm trying to say is that charicters become better when they are developed 3-dimensional charicters with real wants and desires, feelings, and relationships. When I read the Second City Almanac of Improvasation, there are a section in it devoted to charicter in improv performances (workshops, rehearsals, or shows) that your charicter is so much better without the usual steriotypes and cliches that come with the charicter you're playing. The Italian doesn't always have to be a mafia hitman who eats pizza all the time...or a plumber for that matter. An Asian doesn't have to be incredably good at math while being bad drivers. I can't remember word for word. I just know those are a few of the steriotypes that exist.
Now, if you have a charicter that just follows preconceived steriotypes, all you're doing is going for the easy laugh or a joke. This may or may not be ok when writing a story...depending on what you want from the story. But if you do this in improv...well first of all, you shouldn't. You shouldn't go for the easy laughable joke in improv anyway and if your charicter is just a joke to begin with, you will loose the interest of the audience before the scene/show ends...but good luck to you if your try and pull that stunt. Hopefully, you're new to improv if you do try it. It's easier to forgive beginners with that since they are new to it.
However, like any work of fiction, if you're doing an improv scene, your charicter should have good real relationships with your scene partners' charicters as well as a real wants and real charicters.
I'd probably have more to say about charicters if it weren't after 3:30am. Maybe I'll come back to this subject sometime.