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1LShelby
Authors, please tell us all how you create your characters.
Where did your characters come from? Do you laboriously create them using character sheets you designed for that purpose? Do they just walk into your head?
How do you name them?
How do you keep track of them all? Is making them different from each other easy or difficult?
Do you draw pictures of you characters (or hunt for photos online) so you know what they look like?
What sorts of scores do your character get on the Mary Sue Litmus Test? (Is there a different Mary Sue Litmus test you prefer? Post a link so we can test our characters again.)
How do you treat your characters? Are they like your children, or are they just tools?
Do your characters ever take over your story and make it go in directions you didn't expect?
Where did your characters come from? Do you laboriously create them using character sheets you designed for that purpose? Do they just walk into your head?
How do you name them?
How do you keep track of them all? Is making them different from each other easy or difficult?
Do you draw pictures of you characters (or hunt for photos online) so you know what they look like?
What sorts of scores do your character get on the Mary Sue Litmus Test? (Is there a different Mary Sue Litmus test you prefer? Post a link so we can test our characters again.)
How do you treat your characters? Are they like your children, or are they just tools?
Do your characters ever take over your story and make it go in directions you didn't expect?
2A.W.Black
It really depends on which character it is.
My flagship character, June Anderson, AKA the Stormbringer, is named after the Deep Purple song of the same name. I decided to make her female after thinking there was a lack of strong female characters (9 years ago). Thanks to my preference for super heroes, I gave her the rarely used power to create portals. Mainly I wanted to try something that hadn't been done very often before.
Then I created other characters to fill the world around her according to the needs of the story.
Boris Petrov, AKA the Teslageist, is a sidekick of sorts who came from my daily walks to work. I often considered strapping powerful magnets to my hands and grabbing onto the sides of passing buses. Then I figured I'd need to be invisible, so some sort of cloaking field would be beneficial.
Magnets + Invisible = Teslageist.
Delta Stevens, AKA the Amber Wasp came from a Power Rangers fan fiction I wrote a long time ago. The whole team had an arthropod motif, and one of the characters was wheelchair bound; upon transforming into the Amber Wasp, she gains the ability to walk, run, jump and even fly! After all, how many main characters are confined to a wheelchair?
Names mainly come from the people around me, more from work colleagues than family.
Most of the other characters only appear in one story or another, though the details of a few recurring supporting characters are stored in a big text file. Making different characters has been easy so far, but it may get harder as the series progresses.
The only characters I've drawn are the main characters for the cover. I'm not a very good artist, so I used a picture of a random girl I found online as the basis for June. I used the image for the basic outline and features, then drew over it with vector objects to hide the identity of the original person.
For the Amber Wasp I used the same process on a real wasp head, using a human jaw for the mouth.
June scores 23 on the Mary Sue Litmus Test. Boris rates 25, while Delta is 26.
My characters feel much like children, though not my real children.
My characters are often carried along by the story, unless the question of "What would they do?" is more engaging than what I had originally planned.
My flagship character, June Anderson, AKA the Stormbringer, is named after the Deep Purple song of the same name. I decided to make her female after thinking there was a lack of strong female characters (9 years ago). Thanks to my preference for super heroes, I gave her the rarely used power to create portals. Mainly I wanted to try something that hadn't been done very often before.
Then I created other characters to fill the world around her according to the needs of the story.
Boris Petrov, AKA the Teslageist, is a sidekick of sorts who came from my daily walks to work. I often considered strapping powerful magnets to my hands and grabbing onto the sides of passing buses. Then I figured I'd need to be invisible, so some sort of cloaking field would be beneficial.
Magnets + Invisible = Teslageist.
Delta Stevens, AKA the Amber Wasp came from a Power Rangers fan fiction I wrote a long time ago. The whole team had an arthropod motif, and one of the characters was wheelchair bound; upon transforming into the Amber Wasp, she gains the ability to walk, run, jump and even fly! After all, how many main characters are confined to a wheelchair?
Names mainly come from the people around me, more from work colleagues than family.
Most of the other characters only appear in one story or another, though the details of a few recurring supporting characters are stored in a big text file. Making different characters has been easy so far, but it may get harder as the series progresses.
The only characters I've drawn are the main characters for the cover. I'm not a very good artist, so I used a picture of a random girl I found online as the basis for June. I used the image for the basic outline and features, then drew over it with vector objects to hide the identity of the original person.
For the Amber Wasp I used the same process on a real wasp head, using a human jaw for the mouth.
June scores 23 on the Mary Sue Litmus Test. Boris rates 25, while Delta is 26.
My characters feel much like children, though not my real children.
My characters are often carried along by the story, unless the question of "What would they do?" is more engaging than what I had originally planned.
3LShelby
>2 A.W.Black:
Hmm... maybe I should have said that I didn't really expect people to answer ALL my questions. Although it's fun that you did. I think I will too. :)
"After all, how many main characters are confined to a wheelchair?"
Well, it would be something that hadn't been done very often! >:)
...I gotta admit though, if you're writing adventure fiction, or, in your case, superhero fiction, that would be a very difficult limitation to overcome. It would be easier to do a detective story or romance. (I've read a romance with a paraplegic heroine).
On the other hand, if your main character was confined to a wheelchair, then even ordinary situations might seem more adventurous... so it would sure be a great way to up the tension.
"The only characters I've drawn are the main characters for the cover"
So, this would be one?
Writing superhero fiction appears to have given you a bit of a boon in the "lets just grab a picture from somewhere else" department. The last author I talked to who had found a picture that was all right except for the face, ended up doing a cover layout that had the character's head cut off. You've got it easier -- just add a mask! :)
"June scores 23 on the Mary Sue Litmus Test. Boris rates 25, while Delta is 26."
So what scores them the most points?
Anyway, on to my own responses:
I usually say my characters just walk into my head, or words to that effect.
I suspect that's a bit too easy, though. Just because I don't actively build out my characters and they appear to arrive "whole" so to speak, doesn't mean they don't come from somewhere. Batiya, the heroine of my Across a Jade Sea trilogy, is a female engineer from a family of engineers. I myself come from a family a lot like that, so it's pretty obvious where I came up with that.
On the other hand, the male lead, Chunru, a noble-warrior from an asiatic-esque background, is not the sort of person I find in my own backyard. But it occurs to me that I did start writing that story after I had been introduced to Korean dramas. That might possibly have something to do with my choice of heroes, maybe?
(And so, now that we've been discussing main characters in wheelchairs, my next new story idea might well end up having one. Who knows?)
Another thing I've come to realize about character creation over the years I've been writing, is that just because they appear as who they are, doesn't mean I understand them. I typically start by describing what they are doing, and frequently it's quite a bit later that some aspect of their character or background clicks into place, and I go "Oh! that's why they are like that!"
I mostly name characters based on the linguistic background that they come from, and then based on what sorts of names that I thought their parents might have chosen. (If they are minor characters, and I don't know anything about their parents and don't want to, I just go for random.) :)
But in my space pirate graphic novel most of the pirate characters' names are 'stolen' from either fictional or real-world pirates -- it just seemed so appropriate. The theory is that if a pirate doesn't have a suitably piratical name to begin with, then he changes his name when he joins up.
Once I name a character I need to write it down somewhere, (especially for the minor characters) or I simply will not remember. Since leaving college, I have written 14 books, and a handful of novellas, graphic novel scripts and short stories. I have a zillion characters... oh, no, pardon me, my site statistics box says I only have 375.
I think maybe I haven't got them all in the database yet.
As for keeping them all different, I think that was something I grew into. I started 100 stories in my teens, and just eventually got tired of all the heroines being like me and "white knight" type heroes, so I started diverging. I continue to diverge. I keep coming up with main characters with traits I never thought I was going to have in a main character, because I don't much like those trait. But I guess the part of my brain that does characters has decided that I need to keep expanding my range. ::rueful::
I do end up drawing some my characters. I also make pictures of some them using 3D graphics software. I would link everyone to the character page of website's image gallery, except I just went over there to get the link and discovered some bugs in my code AND some ratty data in the image database. Oops! So, er, I will come back an post a link after I've got those fixed.
As for my Mary Sue scores, they tend to be low. From Across a Jade Sea, Batiya:12, Chunru:11. From my space pirate romance graphic novel Silver:25, Bonnie Anne:10, Blood:12.
Silver is one of my top scoring characters from any story, actually, with a tragic backstory, extreme good looks, and even a "special power" of sorts (faster than usual reflexes). Most of my characters are relatively angst free, and although very competent at one or two things, are not usually super-powered.
I tend to think of my characters as allies, or friends. They face big problems, and it's my job to help them find a solution. (I know, technically, I am the one that created the problem, but I think of the problems as coming out of the world, or because of the antagonists. If I thought it was my job to create problems, I could easily create problems that would be completely impossible to overcome -- and I don't like that kind of story.)
My characters pretty much always do what I know they will do, but they don't always do it in the manner I am expecting.
For example, I sent my epic fantasy hero to a parley with a guy he couldn't possibly like, and so I expected him to say something insulting and the talks to break apart. He did say a few insulting things (he can't seem to help himself) but he also managed to invite himself to become a guest in the enemy encampment. And I said, "What the heck are you doing? Next on our list of important things to have happen is you looking for shelter for the people you are trying to protect." So he took the enemy's tent to use as shelter...
Hmm... maybe I should have said that I didn't really expect people to answer ALL my questions. Although it's fun that you did. I think I will too. :)
"After all, how many main characters are confined to a wheelchair?"
Well, it would be something that hadn't been done very often! >:)
...I gotta admit though, if you're writing adventure fiction, or, in your case, superhero fiction, that would be a very difficult limitation to overcome. It would be easier to do a detective story or romance. (I've read a romance with a paraplegic heroine).
On the other hand, if your main character was confined to a wheelchair, then even ordinary situations might seem more adventurous... so it would sure be a great way to up the tension.
"The only characters I've drawn are the main characters for the cover"
So, this would be one?
Writing superhero fiction appears to have given you a bit of a boon in the "lets just grab a picture from somewhere else" department. The last author I talked to who had found a picture that was all right except for the face, ended up doing a cover layout that had the character's head cut off. You've got it easier -- just add a mask! :)
"June scores 23 on the Mary Sue Litmus Test. Boris rates 25, while Delta is 26."
So what scores them the most points?
Anyway, on to my own responses:
I usually say my characters just walk into my head, or words to that effect.
I suspect that's a bit too easy, though. Just because I don't actively build out my characters and they appear to arrive "whole" so to speak, doesn't mean they don't come from somewhere. Batiya, the heroine of my Across a Jade Sea trilogy, is a female engineer from a family of engineers. I myself come from a family a lot like that, so it's pretty obvious where I came up with that.
On the other hand, the male lead, Chunru, a noble-warrior from an asiatic-esque background, is not the sort of person I find in my own backyard. But it occurs to me that I did start writing that story after I had been introduced to Korean dramas. That might possibly have something to do with my choice of heroes, maybe?
(And so, now that we've been discussing main characters in wheelchairs, my next new story idea might well end up having one. Who knows?)
Another thing I've come to realize about character creation over the years I've been writing, is that just because they appear as who they are, doesn't mean I understand them. I typically start by describing what they are doing, and frequently it's quite a bit later that some aspect of their character or background clicks into place, and I go "Oh! that's why they are like that!"
I mostly name characters based on the linguistic background that they come from, and then based on what sorts of names that I thought their parents might have chosen. (If they are minor characters, and I don't know anything about their parents and don't want to, I just go for random.) :)
But in my space pirate graphic novel most of the pirate characters' names are 'stolen' from either fictional or real-world pirates -- it just seemed so appropriate. The theory is that if a pirate doesn't have a suitably piratical name to begin with, then he changes his name when he joins up.
Once I name a character I need to write it down somewhere, (especially for the minor characters) or I simply will not remember. Since leaving college, I have written 14 books, and a handful of novellas, graphic novel scripts and short stories. I have a zillion characters... oh, no, pardon me, my site statistics box says I only have 375.
I think maybe I haven't got them all in the database yet.
As for keeping them all different, I think that was something I grew into. I started 100 stories in my teens, and just eventually got tired of all the heroines being like me and "white knight" type heroes, so I started diverging. I continue to diverge. I keep coming up with main characters with traits I never thought I was going to have in a main character, because I don't much like those trait. But I guess the part of my brain that does characters has decided that I need to keep expanding my range. ::rueful::
I do end up drawing some my characters. I also make pictures of some them using 3D graphics software. I would link everyone to the character page of website's image gallery, except I just went over there to get the link and discovered some bugs in my code AND some ratty data in the image database. Oops! So, er, I will come back an post a link after I've got those fixed.
As for my Mary Sue scores, they tend to be low. From Across a Jade Sea, Batiya:12, Chunru:11. From my space pirate romance graphic novel Silver:25, Bonnie Anne:10, Blood:12.
Silver is one of my top scoring characters from any story, actually, with a tragic backstory, extreme good looks, and even a "special power" of sorts (faster than usual reflexes). Most of my characters are relatively angst free, and although very competent at one or two things, are not usually super-powered.
I tend to think of my characters as allies, or friends. They face big problems, and it's my job to help them find a solution. (I know, technically, I am the one that created the problem, but I think of the problems as coming out of the world, or because of the antagonists. If I thought it was my job to create problems, I could easily create problems that would be completely impossible to overcome -- and I don't like that kind of story.)
My characters pretty much always do what I know they will do, but they don't always do it in the manner I am expecting.
For example, I sent my epic fantasy hero to a parley with a guy he couldn't possibly like, and so I expected him to say something insulting and the talks to break apart. He did say a few insulting things (he can't seem to help himself) but he also managed to invite himself to become a guest in the enemy encampment. And I said, "What the heck are you doing? Next on our list of important things to have happen is you looking for shelter for the people you are trying to protect." So he took the enemy's tent to use as shelter...
4reading_fox
How do you think of names for your characters?
As a reader I'm sometimes (frequently) troubled by umpteen characters who either all have very similar names - similar lengths, initial letters etc, - or else are just bizarrely unobviously pronounceable. I appreciate not every book can be filled with Tom Dick Jane and Sally, but the name is the key way of distinguishing them, and keeping them unambiguously simple would help.
As a reader I'm sometimes (frequently) troubled by umpteen characters who either all have very similar names - similar lengths, initial letters etc, - or else are just bizarrely unobviously pronounceable. I appreciate not every book can be filled with Tom Dick Jane and Sally, but the name is the key way of distinguishing them, and keeping them unambiguously simple would help.
5gilroy
My characters tend to walk on the stage in my mind and give me something interesting, making me focus on them. Some I call one scene wonders, because that's all I get. Others won't leave me alone. :)
Names either come with them, or I'm told to figure it out based on the description I see in my head.
Names either come with them, or I'm told to figure it out based on the description I see in my head.
6A.W.Black
That's one of my covers, but it wasn't quite as simple as putting a mask on her. I took the photo from Google Images and drew over it entirely, simply using it to get the proportions right. Aside from a few outlines, there's nothing from the original image in the final product.
June's main points score comes from her being orphaned and being the best at what she does. She's also driven by revenge.
Boris' enhanced intelligence makes him learn new skills at a very fast rate, earning him quite a few points. He's also bilingual.
Delta's ability to shapeshift from human to humanoid wasp grants her the use of her legs temporarily. I also wanted to name one of my daughters Delta, but my wife didn't. Additionally, Delta is an heiress, giving her all the cash she could ever need, which pushes her score just above the others.
Your Mary Sue test scores are very low! I think we're both in safe territory though.
June's main points score comes from her being orphaned and being the best at what she does. She's also driven by revenge.
Boris' enhanced intelligence makes him learn new skills at a very fast rate, earning him quite a few points. He's also bilingual.
Delta's ability to shapeshift from human to humanoid wasp grants her the use of her legs temporarily. I also wanted to name one of my daughters Delta, but my wife didn't. Additionally, Delta is an heiress, giving her all the cash she could ever need, which pushes her score just above the others.
Your Mary Sue test scores are very low! I think we're both in safe territory though.
7LShelby
>4 reading_fox: "As a reader I'm sometimes (frequently) troubled by umpteen characters who either all have very similar names - similar lengths, initial letters etc, - or else are just bizarrely unobviously pronounceable."
The same initial letter thingy is actually why I started originally keeping databases of my characters -- way back in the 1980s (this was before home computers were common, so I used card files).
I'm not sure how much it has helped me. ::rueful::
>5 gilroy: "My characters tend to walk on the stage in my mind and give me something interesting, making me focus on them."
So what sorts of "something interesting" do you usually end up getting? Could you share some examples?
>6 A.W.Black: Ah, sorry! I misunderstood what you said you were doing with the picture in the first message. Thanks for the more detailed explanation.
"Additionally, Delta is an heiress, giving her all the cash she could ever need, which pushes her score just above the others."
Chunru is from wealthy background too, but the question was "Does your character always have money to spend on extravagant frivolities or whatever xe really wants or needs at the time?" During most of the first book Chunru has no money at all, having been forcibly separated from his luggage. >:)
"Your Mary Sue test scores are very low! I think we're both in safe territory though."
It doesn't look like we write Sues, that's true. :)
But I don't know about "safe". That assumes writing a Mary Sue is dangerous, and at least two pro authors I know have told me what sounds like the opposite. They claim that writing fiction is about providing wish-fulfillment for the reader, and lots of readers want the same things that authors who write Mary Sues want, so authors should be looking for ways to give it to them.
I think I don't really want to have readers who are looking for things I don't like. Other authors should write for readers who like what they like, and I should write for readers who like what I like, and that way we are all happy.
But I consider high Sue scores to be just as likely an indication of certain kinds of tastes as an indication of a lack of writerly virtue.
The same initial letter thingy is actually why I started originally keeping databases of my characters -- way back in the 1980s (this was before home computers were common, so I used card files).
I'm not sure how much it has helped me. ::rueful::
>5 gilroy: "My characters tend to walk on the stage in my mind and give me something interesting, making me focus on them."
So what sorts of "something interesting" do you usually end up getting? Could you share some examples?
>6 A.W.Black: Ah, sorry! I misunderstood what you said you were doing with the picture in the first message. Thanks for the more detailed explanation.
"Additionally, Delta is an heiress, giving her all the cash she could ever need, which pushes her score just above the others."
Chunru is from wealthy background too, but the question was "Does your character always have money to spend on extravagant frivolities or whatever xe really wants or needs at the time?" During most of the first book Chunru has no money at all, having been forcibly separated from his luggage. >:)
"Your Mary Sue test scores are very low! I think we're both in safe territory though."
It doesn't look like we write Sues, that's true. :)
But I don't know about "safe". That assumes writing a Mary Sue is dangerous, and at least two pro authors I know have told me what sounds like the opposite. They claim that writing fiction is about providing wish-fulfillment for the reader, and lots of readers want the same things that authors who write Mary Sues want, so authors should be looking for ways to give it to them.
I think I don't really want to have readers who are looking for things I don't like. Other authors should write for readers who like what they like, and I should write for readers who like what I like, and that way we are all happy.
But I consider high Sue scores to be just as likely an indication of certain kinds of tastes as an indication of a lack of writerly virtue.
8A.W.Black
I guess the only other time I've heard the term "Mary Sue" it was given a negative context. For me the ultimate Mary Sue would have to be Superman, who has so many powers and so few weaknesses that he becomes a little boring at times. Don't get me started on his personality!
I'll admit that it comes down to personal preference; some readers might prefer idealised characters with few limitations, others like an underdog who has to work to push their limits. There's a wide spectrum in between.
Ultimately if you have a high-scoring character and a low-scoring character, it may be possible to cater for all tastes, at least within your chosen genre.
I'll admit that it comes down to personal preference; some readers might prefer idealised characters with few limitations, others like an underdog who has to work to push their limits. There's a wide spectrum in between.
Ultimately if you have a high-scoring character and a low-scoring character, it may be possible to cater for all tastes, at least within your chosen genre.
9gilroy
>7 LShelby:
Well, if the character walks in stage and says "Hi, my name is George." and that's all I get, he's normal, nothing interesting.
If, on the other hand, he walks on with set dressing, some form of argument, or other item that draws my attention, then he offers something interesting and I write out what scene they give me.
I've had a character show up with a war on her heels. I've had a character show up with Death draping its arm across the character's shoulders.
Interesting.
Got it?
Well, if the character walks in stage and says "Hi, my name is George." and that's all I get, he's normal, nothing interesting.
If, on the other hand, he walks on with set dressing, some form of argument, or other item that draws my attention, then he offers something interesting and I write out what scene they give me.
I've had a character show up with a war on her heels. I've had a character show up with Death draping its arm across the character's shoulders.
Interesting.
Got it?
10greendragon9
My characters start with a characteristic, usually. A quirk, or a personality trait. Then I build the story around them, and they gain more. I do write them down before I start writing the book, in a character sheet. That does change as the story progresses.
An example of my MC in my current WIP, The Enchanted Swans (historical fantasy set in 500BCE Ireland, based on the Children of Lir):
Fionnuala – Efficient young lady, age 14, full of energy and strong of opinion. Sasses back to her father regularly, but he loves it. Training in weapons. Great at the bow, but wants to learn spear on the sly. Hates cooking, but learns it as her duty. Reddish-blond hair, freckles, gawky and thin, but has some muscle tone. Beginning to bloom and is in love with her father's fosterling, Tadhg, gets in trouble for that. Very concerned about her duties as the eldest daughter of a king, protective of her three younger brothers. Has talent in healing magic, but is learning other disciplines from her raven teacher, Hawlen. Is terrified of the idea of having to move 'below the hills' as per the agreement with the Milesians. MMO/RPG/Original Fiction: Low chance your character is a Mary Sue.
I do test my characters against Mary Sue, and most do pretty well. I like giving my characters flaws, and putting them through hell. One beta reader said, 'You aren't afraid to torture your characters'. I took it as a compliment, whether she meant it as such or not. :)
Another character (in Call of the Morrigu, historical fantasy set in 1798 ireland) decided she wasn't at all like my initial write-up of her personality. She took it in complete different directions, which was fine - I just updated he description and went with it.
I love coming up with unusual names for my characters, but not so unusual as they are difficult to remember. Some of my names are: Valentia McDowell, Theodosia Lambert (Dosey for short), Fionnuala, Esme and Eithne Doherty (twins), Eamonn Doherty, Lochlann MacCrimmon, etc. Since most of my books are set in Ireland, I search the Ireland baby name sites. I try to keep away from the over common or modern names, but nothing so unusual it's difficult to pronounce or remember.
I try to keep the names with different letters, though that has proved difficult in The Enchanted Swans. It's based on an Irish Myth where the main characters are well-known in Ireland. Many of them start with A: Aobh, Aed, Aoife, Ailva, Aed (again), etc. I want to stay true to the tale, but not confuse people too much. So I've given them nicknames, as is common in Ireland. Aobh Ban (blond Aobh), Aoife Rua (redhead), Aed Mor and Aed Og (Big Aed and Young Aed). This happens in real life. Anyone remember the Quiet Man movie? Michaleen Og was the matchmaker.
I don't draw the characters (even though I do draw and paint) but I have a firm picture in my mind.
An example of my MC in my current WIP, The Enchanted Swans (historical fantasy set in 500BCE Ireland, based on the Children of Lir):
Fionnuala – Efficient young lady, age 14, full of energy and strong of opinion. Sasses back to her father regularly, but he loves it. Training in weapons. Great at the bow, but wants to learn spear on the sly. Hates cooking, but learns it as her duty. Reddish-blond hair, freckles, gawky and thin, but has some muscle tone. Beginning to bloom and is in love with her father's fosterling, Tadhg, gets in trouble for that. Very concerned about her duties as the eldest daughter of a king, protective of her three younger brothers. Has talent in healing magic, but is learning other disciplines from her raven teacher, Hawlen. Is terrified of the idea of having to move 'below the hills' as per the agreement with the Milesians. MMO/RPG/Original Fiction: Low chance your character is a Mary Sue.
I do test my characters against Mary Sue, and most do pretty well. I like giving my characters flaws, and putting them through hell. One beta reader said, 'You aren't afraid to torture your characters'. I took it as a compliment, whether she meant it as such or not. :)
Another character (in Call of the Morrigu, historical fantasy set in 1798 ireland) decided she wasn't at all like my initial write-up of her personality. She took it in complete different directions, which was fine - I just updated he description and went with it.
I love coming up with unusual names for my characters, but not so unusual as they are difficult to remember. Some of my names are: Valentia McDowell, Theodosia Lambert (Dosey for short), Fionnuala, Esme and Eithne Doherty (twins), Eamonn Doherty, Lochlann MacCrimmon, etc. Since most of my books are set in Ireland, I search the Ireland baby name sites. I try to keep away from the over common or modern names, but nothing so unusual it's difficult to pronounce or remember.
I try to keep the names with different letters, though that has proved difficult in The Enchanted Swans. It's based on an Irish Myth where the main characters are well-known in Ireland. Many of them start with A: Aobh, Aed, Aoife, Ailva, Aed (again), etc. I want to stay true to the tale, but not confuse people too much. So I've given them nicknames, as is common in Ireland. Aobh Ban (blond Aobh), Aoife Rua (redhead), Aed Mor and Aed Og (Big Aed and Young Aed). This happens in real life. Anyone remember the Quiet Man movie? Michaleen Og was the matchmaker.
I don't draw the characters (even though I do draw and paint) but I have a firm picture in my mind.
11LShelby
>8 A.W.Black: "I guess the only other time I've heard the term "Mary Sue" it was given a negative context"
It's almost always used that way -- but I think it's like condemming cliches. They got to be cliches, because they were used a lot, and they were used a lot because they work.
Having an example of each type of character actually sounds a bit dangerous to me. I would assume that it's very difficult to do a balancing act between two main characters one of whom is an over-the-top superman type and the other is a reasonably competent but otherwise ordinary Joe. But if you did succeed in balancing them, that really would be awesome -- so I wouldn't want to discourage anyone from trying.
>9 gilroy:"Well, if the character walks in stage and says "Hi, my name is George." and that's all I get, he's normal, nothing interesting."
I would find it very interesting myself, but that's because my characters don't usually come with names attached. So I would want to know why the name George was so important to this person.
But I can't remember ever having a character appear with so little to say for themselves either, so I'm pretty boggled by your expanded explanation. How can a person "walk in" if all they are is a name? Don't they need to have legs, and therefore their own unique way of walking, and aren't they wearing clothing, and... ?
I suspect we don't create characters in nearly so similar ways as our initial description made it sound like we did.
"I've had a character show up with a war on her heels. I've had a character show up with Death draping its arm across the character's shoulders."
That last one would catch my attention also. I don't have a single world with a personified death, and I'm not sure I want one. I would probably complain about it for months, just like I complained about the character with the head of a dog. "But he's a furry! Why a furry? I don't DO furries! Now I'm going to have to build a world where it makes some kind of sense to have furries! Well, I won't. I'll just forget about it..." But I didn't forget.
>10 greendragon9:
Oh, hooray! Someone who actually does use character sheets. Are they fill in the blank type sheets or more freeform?
I actually started writing because of character sheets. They were one of the options of "things you may write in your writing journal" in English Class, and so I wrote some up, and decided it was pointless to have the characters if they weren't going to have a story to go with them. So the rest of my writing journal was me writing that story.
But nowadays I typically don't write hardly anything down before I start on the actual book, and what I put into the database hardly seems to count. There's nothing about their personality, or situation or anything like that. Just physical stuff like hair and eye color and so forth. Oh, and their parents, if they are also in the database, so that I can make family trees.
I don't draw the characters (even though I do draw and paint) but I have a firm picture in my mind.
My first reaction to that was "What? Why not!" But then I realized that a good part of the reason I'm so fond of drawing characters is because I can't "picture them in my mind" very well. I don't really picture anything in my mind well, my brain just doesn't work that way.
Anyway, I have a tendency to doodle characters whenever I have a pen and paper and nothing better to do with them, and frequently I don't even know who they are until I've drawn them. The pencil just wanders about, and I say, "hmm, you know that might look like..."
So, for example, this guy:
Ended up being drawn in the margin of a page of notes. (I removed the blue lines of my notepaper through the marvels of modern image manipulation software.) I know now that he's the future son of one of the characters in Flag in Flames, but when I started drawing him, I had no idea who would emerge.
When I was a kid, it was pretty common for me to start from such a sketch, and then create the character and story from there, but that doesn't happen anymore. I think because I'm actively trying NOT to start new stories. I've already got a backlog! Most of my new story ideas nowadays come from dreams, because that's when they can catch me off-guard and ambush me.
Here's a link to the portrait page on my website, in case anyone is curious to see more.
It's almost always used that way -- but I think it's like condemming cliches. They got to be cliches, because they were used a lot, and they were used a lot because they work.
Having an example of each type of character actually sounds a bit dangerous to me. I would assume that it's very difficult to do a balancing act between two main characters one of whom is an over-the-top superman type and the other is a reasonably competent but otherwise ordinary Joe. But if you did succeed in balancing them, that really would be awesome -- so I wouldn't want to discourage anyone from trying.
>9 gilroy:"Well, if the character walks in stage and says "Hi, my name is George." and that's all I get, he's normal, nothing interesting."
I would find it very interesting myself, but that's because my characters don't usually come with names attached. So I would want to know why the name George was so important to this person.
But I can't remember ever having a character appear with so little to say for themselves either, so I'm pretty boggled by your expanded explanation. How can a person "walk in" if all they are is a name? Don't they need to have legs, and therefore their own unique way of walking, and aren't they wearing clothing, and... ?
I suspect we don't create characters in nearly so similar ways as our initial description made it sound like we did.
"I've had a character show up with a war on her heels. I've had a character show up with Death draping its arm across the character's shoulders."
That last one would catch my attention also. I don't have a single world with a personified death, and I'm not sure I want one. I would probably complain about it for months, just like I complained about the character with the head of a dog. "But he's a furry! Why a furry? I don't DO furries! Now I'm going to have to build a world where it makes some kind of sense to have furries! Well, I won't. I'll just forget about it..." But I didn't forget.
>10 greendragon9:
Oh, hooray! Someone who actually does use character sheets. Are they fill in the blank type sheets or more freeform?
I actually started writing because of character sheets. They were one of the options of "things you may write in your writing journal" in English Class, and so I wrote some up, and decided it was pointless to have the characters if they weren't going to have a story to go with them. So the rest of my writing journal was me writing that story.
But nowadays I typically don't write hardly anything down before I start on the actual book, and what I put into the database hardly seems to count. There's nothing about their personality, or situation or anything like that. Just physical stuff like hair and eye color and so forth. Oh, and their parents, if they are also in the database, so that I can make family trees.
I don't draw the characters (even though I do draw and paint) but I have a firm picture in my mind.
My first reaction to that was "What? Why not!" But then I realized that a good part of the reason I'm so fond of drawing characters is because I can't "picture them in my mind" very well. I don't really picture anything in my mind well, my brain just doesn't work that way.
Anyway, I have a tendency to doodle characters whenever I have a pen and paper and nothing better to do with them, and frequently I don't even know who they are until I've drawn them. The pencil just wanders about, and I say, "hmm, you know that might look like..."
So, for example, this guy:
Ended up being drawn in the margin of a page of notes. (I removed the blue lines of my notepaper through the marvels of modern image manipulation software.) I know now that he's the future son of one of the characters in Flag in Flames, but when I started drawing him, I had no idea who would emerge.
When I was a kid, it was pretty common for me to start from such a sketch, and then create the character and story from there, but that doesn't happen anymore. I think because I'm actively trying NOT to start new stories. I've already got a backlog! Most of my new story ideas nowadays come from dreams, because that's when they can catch me off-guard and ambush me.
Here's a link to the portrait page on my website, in case anyone is curious to see more.
12greendragon9
Mine are free form in a paragraph, but they touch on particular things. Appearance, age (birthdate), name, genealogy (very important in my 5 generation trilogy!), physical quirks, motivations, vices, virtues, etc. I like my heroes to have decent vices and my villains to have some virtues. No one is perfectly evil or good.
For instance, Eamonn Doherty is a gambler, womanizer, and sometime drunkard. He plays women and dice regularly. He dallies with a young lady, and then falls in love with her sister. She's married off to another man, though, so he follows, even though there's no legal way they can be together. Impetuous. But in the end, she is widowed in the Jacobite war, and they can finally marry. He loses interest in gambling because of a charm he gets that allows him to manipulate others, so it's no longer fun. Lots of ups and downs, there :)
For instance, Eamonn Doherty is a gambler, womanizer, and sometime drunkard. He plays women and dice regularly. He dallies with a young lady, and then falls in love with her sister. She's married off to another man, though, so he follows, even though there's no legal way they can be together. Impetuous. But in the end, she is widowed in the Jacobite war, and they can finally marry. He loses interest in gambling because of a charm he gets that allows him to manipulate others, so it's no longer fun. Lots of ups and downs, there :)
13Cecrow
Chiming in on character sheets, but it goes beyond physical.
There's some good templates out there for drawing up character profiles. Not only do they help you keep track of physical characteristics (so she doesn't grow/shrink or magically change hair colour when you're not looking), they also make you think about the character's background, motives, personality strengths and weaknesses, goals and dreams, relationships with others, etc. "Flat" characters are the ones who are evidently missing most of these things.
It's work to do it, but going through the process can suggest to you how that character is most likely to react in a given situation because you'll know why, and it'll be consistent with other things that character has done. Readers instinctively know when a character is doing something out-of-character; you're closer to the work (and trying to shape other things like plot, etc. that might get in the way), so you need to be more rigorous about monitoring for that.
There's some good templates out there for drawing up character profiles. Not only do they help you keep track of physical characteristics (so she doesn't grow/shrink or magically change hair colour when you're not looking), they also make you think about the character's background, motives, personality strengths and weaknesses, goals and dreams, relationships with others, etc. "Flat" characters are the ones who are evidently missing most of these things.
It's work to do it, but going through the process can suggest to you how that character is most likely to react in a given situation because you'll know why, and it'll be consistent with other things that character has done. Readers instinctively know when a character is doing something out-of-character; you're closer to the work (and trying to shape other things like plot, etc. that might get in the way), so you need to be more rigorous about monitoring for that.
14gilroy
>11 LShelby:
I actually designed an entire short story collection around Death and his ... exploits. Lead to some fun things.
To me, George is like John. A common name where I live, so doesn't really beckon. They don't always come with names. I have a story where a werewolf is known as "Moonbite" by others, but she's never offered me her name in anything she's told me.
And if they arrive with a common name, they arrive like everyone I see around me. Normal gait, standard dress, nothing to make them stand out. However, Byron showed up with a 18th century outfit, walking cane and a sword, but a cell phone attached to his hip. And he wasn't a vampire. THAT made look more closely and figure out why. At the same time, his name came from when someone tripped into him and apologized. He never gave it.
Character sheets for me vary depending on the length of the piece and whether I run into plot issues. Novels are more likely to have a character sheet written, whereas short stories are not. (Unless the character crosses multiple stories, then I have to track changes per story.) As @Cecrow says, there are many templates out there that gather a lot of information. I use a hybrid RPG/writing sheet, which is what works best for me.
I actually designed an entire short story collection around Death and his ... exploits. Lead to some fun things.
To me, George is like John. A common name where I live, so doesn't really beckon. They don't always come with names. I have a story where a werewolf is known as "Moonbite" by others, but she's never offered me her name in anything she's told me.
And if they arrive with a common name, they arrive like everyone I see around me. Normal gait, standard dress, nothing to make them stand out. However, Byron showed up with a 18th century outfit, walking cane and a sword, but a cell phone attached to his hip. And he wasn't a vampire. THAT made look more closely and figure out why. At the same time, his name came from when someone tripped into him and apologized. He never gave it.
Character sheets for me vary depending on the length of the piece and whether I run into plot issues. Novels are more likely to have a character sheet written, whereas short stories are not. (Unless the character crosses multiple stories, then I have to track changes per story.) As @Cecrow says, there are many templates out there that gather a lot of information. I use a hybrid RPG/writing sheet, which is what works best for me.
15Cecrow
I might not use a character sheet through the first draft and just wing it (who needs encumbrances when you're just pounding your way to the end?) but then fill it in before editing based on that draft, using it to check for inconsistency. Although at that point you're hoping you don't have to challenge your first draft instincts and throw out two chapters and a secondary plot; risky.
16DeannaJewel
Characters come to me at odd times, like traveling or shopping, perhaps on a walk. Some bring a friend or two with them and they begin to show me their world like a movie in my head. This was the case when I wrote my Native American time travel, Never Surrender. The female and her warrior popped into my head while I visited my brother in the Rockies of Wyoming near Yellowstone and they wouldn't leave me alone until I had their story down. This book nearly wrote itself as the Kate and Taima acted out each scene in my head and as fast as my fingers could fly over the keyboard. These two argued constantly, much like real life, and their souls get reconnected 100 years later in the present....or was it in the present that Kate needed to go back to reconnect 100 years in the past? That's actually what happens...she touched petroglyphs and is transported back to 1835. The warrior who attracts her attention is a blue eyed, one-woman man who refuses to accept that he could love a second time, but now I'm off topic.
Most of my characters tap my shoulder until I at least write down their characteristics and those of their friends. Eye and hair color are important, as well as facial features, flaws and personality. My writing program allows me to save all this info in character sheets, with pics, for future reference. Naming them is a bit more difficult. The names can't be similar because I personally don't like reading books that have names starting with the same letters, like Dave and Dana, Martha and Mitch or Mike.
Locations come from my travels and characters step in when I visit their locations. Wilmington NC is where Whispers at Ghost Point takes place and Dana made herself present. I love lighthouses, especially haunted ones. I originally created a ghost for the lighthouse, but unknown to myself at the time, had used the wrong character as the ghost. The villain from a prior story took a month of invading my thoughts for him to make me realized HE would make the better ghost. As soon as I made that change, the story fell into place!
I'm lucky that I don't experience writer's block often because my imagination is always conjuring up plots and characters who fit. Currently, as I write a sequel to Never Surrender, a new character from my next series is vying for my attention. He is showing me how many body parts he can collect and sell from one small coastal town who has no idea he is the culprit! Watch for stories of Pebble Cove! You can find that info on my website. Thanks for reading. I'll be back soon!
Deanna
Most of my characters tap my shoulder until I at least write down their characteristics and those of their friends. Eye and hair color are important, as well as facial features, flaws and personality. My writing program allows me to save all this info in character sheets, with pics, for future reference. Naming them is a bit more difficult. The names can't be similar because I personally don't like reading books that have names starting with the same letters, like Dave and Dana, Martha and Mitch or Mike.
Locations come from my travels and characters step in when I visit their locations. Wilmington NC is where Whispers at Ghost Point takes place and Dana made herself present. I love lighthouses, especially haunted ones. I originally created a ghost for the lighthouse, but unknown to myself at the time, had used the wrong character as the ghost. The villain from a prior story took a month of invading my thoughts for him to make me realized HE would make the better ghost. As soon as I made that change, the story fell into place!
I'm lucky that I don't experience writer's block often because my imagination is always conjuring up plots and characters who fit. Currently, as I write a sequel to Never Surrender, a new character from my next series is vying for my attention. He is showing me how many body parts he can collect and sell from one small coastal town who has no idea he is the culprit! Watch for stories of Pebble Cove! You can find that info on my website. Thanks for reading. I'll be back soon!
Deanna
17LShelby
>14 gilroy: "they also make you think about the character's background, motives, personality strengths and weaknesses, goals and dreams, relationships with others, etc. "Flat" characters are the ones who are evidently missing most of these things."
Personally, I never stop thinking about those things. I don't usually write any of it down until it shows up in the story, though.
(And the whole bit about having to worry that the characters were acting out of character is just foreign to me. My characters do what they do, and I write what they did down. Them acting out of character is hardly even possible.)
>16 DeannaJewel: "The female and her warrior popped into my head while I visited my brother in the Rockies of Wyoming near Yellowstone and they wouldn't leave me alone until I had their story down."
Oh, darn. Yellowstone is too far west for me. (This is in reference to my reply to your post on the introductions thread, in case you haven't seen that yet. I said, 'hey I've got a native american story!')
Actually I'm from the west (Alberta, Canada), so you would think I would end up writing westerns... and I did have some that I started in my juvenilia period. (I read a lot of Louis L'Amour growing up). But I abandoned my juvenilia wholesale when I left college, because there was just too many story starts and story ideas (about eighty), and I knew I could never write them all, so it seemed better to start fresh.
My native american character (he's a half-breed, actually) happened because I moved to Ohio and had lived here for ten years or so, and I still hadn't learned to identify any of the plants or trees or whatever. I kept telling myself, "I should start learning this stuff, I would enjoy knowing it" but somehow it never happened. Finally I said to myself, "I know what I'm like. If I just say 'I would like to know this', I will never find the time/energy. But if I set a story in Ohio, and have the main character be some kind of naturalist or someone who would recognize all the plants and animals, then I would learn this stuff."
And a day or two after reaching that conclusion, the story fabulator that hides out in the back of my head said: Okay, the Ohio story is set in the time when the white settlers are just starting to move into the area, and the protag is the offspring of a white trader and his native wife, and he's waging his own personal war on the whiskey trade. Oh, and it's from your alternate history fantasy world, so he is also a wood-carver mage.
And shortly after that "In My Head Theater" started playing scenes of him running away from irate traders and encountering the daughter of an up-and-coming land speculator. :)
My most recent story idea happens to be set in the same world, and features a were-wyvern. I have no idea where those characters came from. I probably did know once, but how that story came about must have been boring because I no longer remember. A dream maybe?
The characters I remember. They are really fun characters (at least, I'm finding them so) and look forward to getting to write about them.
Someday. When I've written the score of other stories ahead of that one in the queue.
...Too many stories, too little time/energy to write them all!
Personally, I never stop thinking about those things. I don't usually write any of it down until it shows up in the story, though.
(And the whole bit about having to worry that the characters were acting out of character is just foreign to me. My characters do what they do, and I write what they did down. Them acting out of character is hardly even possible.)
>16 DeannaJewel: "The female and her warrior popped into my head while I visited my brother in the Rockies of Wyoming near Yellowstone and they wouldn't leave me alone until I had their story down."
Oh, darn. Yellowstone is too far west for me. (This is in reference to my reply to your post on the introductions thread, in case you haven't seen that yet. I said, 'hey I've got a native american story!')
Actually I'm from the west (Alberta, Canada), so you would think I would end up writing westerns... and I did have some that I started in my juvenilia period. (I read a lot of Louis L'Amour growing up). But I abandoned my juvenilia wholesale when I left college, because there was just too many story starts and story ideas (about eighty), and I knew I could never write them all, so it seemed better to start fresh.
My native american character (he's a half-breed, actually) happened because I moved to Ohio and had lived here for ten years or so, and I still hadn't learned to identify any of the plants or trees or whatever. I kept telling myself, "I should start learning this stuff, I would enjoy knowing it" but somehow it never happened. Finally I said to myself, "I know what I'm like. If I just say 'I would like to know this', I will never find the time/energy. But if I set a story in Ohio, and have the main character be some kind of naturalist or someone who would recognize all the plants and animals, then I would learn this stuff."
And a day or two after reaching that conclusion, the story fabulator that hides out in the back of my head said: Okay, the Ohio story is set in the time when the white settlers are just starting to move into the area, and the protag is the offspring of a white trader and his native wife, and he's waging his own personal war on the whiskey trade. Oh, and it's from your alternate history fantasy world, so he is also a wood-carver mage.
And shortly after that "In My Head Theater" started playing scenes of him running away from irate traders and encountering the daughter of an up-and-coming land speculator. :)
My most recent story idea happens to be set in the same world, and features a were-wyvern. I have no idea where those characters came from. I probably did know once, but how that story came about must have been boring because I no longer remember. A dream maybe?
The characters I remember. They are really fun characters (at least, I'm finding them so) and look forward to getting to write about them.
Someday. When I've written the score of other stories ahead of that one in the queue.
...Too many stories, too little time/energy to write them all!
18DavidMKelly
I buy them at a local store. I usually get a big jar with at least 40 or 50 of them swimming around inside. When I need one I open the lid and out one pops. Need to be quick though so you don't let more than one loose at the same time... That can get real messy. :-)
19greendragon9
LOL! And be careful not to close the lid when one is halfway out - REALLY messy...
20Cecrow
>19 greendragon9:, yes, you're supposed to save that scene until nearly the last chapter .
21gilroy
>18 DavidMKelly: I think mine figured out how to open the lid...
22Cecrow
>21 gilroy:, whew, now THAT's a problem! I've seen evidence of that happening to certain authors mid-series.
