Hark! (Characters)

[becroberts]

Sometimes I'll have a great-sounding idea for a character name and their personality and background automatically fills itself in based on that name. Other times I'll have a need for a particular type of character first, and the name and other details come in later. Courtesy of wacky RPG-creating with my brother, I have a stock of a hundred or so characters with names, looks and personalities that I draw on and adapt to suit my purposes in a story. There's a certain amount of mixing and matching involved, of course, and I do occasionally throw in personality quirks or history inspired by RL people and events. That's one of the great joys of writing fantasy - it's okay for characters to be as offbeat and strange as you need them to be!

Because I write mainly from a first-person perspective, it isn't often that other characters show up to demand that the story be all about them. The characters with the most extreme/memorable traits tend to be given smaller roles anyway, so they make the most of their moments to shine 

[The Corvidian]

Mine usually come from dreams.

[Roaram]

From the posts I've read, I may be the odd man out. In my stories I have always created the universe as a whole before I come up with a plot  or a character. Granted, sometimes the universe comes from acool scene in my head, but the character or plot isn't the big deal in the begining.  Once the universe is established, I then create a conflict, something that people in the world will have a problem with. Or a bad guy hatches some fiendish plot, like blowing up a moon, or usurping a throne, or maybe making some quick cash. Then I ask around for someone who would want to solve this conflict, and then once I find said character of charter, I ask why they would be involved. After I have the characters and their motivation, I ask how would they go about solving the conflict. It keeps the charters in their skill set, and keeps me from throwing in a whammy just to get the character out of some jam. Unfortuantly several of my favorite characters died in their heroic attempts, simply because I-they couldn't find a way out of a tight spot. On a side note, does anybody else feel like you some how let a character down when you kill them?

[trboturtle]

I approach Characters from the POV of "What is their purpose?" Then I decide how to make them unique, starting with something that forms the core -- apperance, personality, name -- something that I can build a character around

Example: For a Fanfic based on the anime series Bubblegum Crisis, a cyberpunk-style series. A trio of police officers are visiting a underground contact for data on a vigilante. The contact is a gang leader by the name of Skeeter Karns. So how to make him stand out?

First, I made Karns a giant -- large man, powerfully built. Then I decided that this guy had an IQ of 180. So he's smart and strong. But how to make him stand out even more?

I decided that Karns was an orphen that had seen the dark side of the city and decided to do something about it, but in his own way. He became a powerful gang leader who rules a large district. But unlike most gang leaders, he doesn't terrorize the district. In fact, he acts more like a benovolent dictator. He helps the people, puts kids back into school and encourages them to go on to college, establishes clinics and helps the orphanage whenever he can. The police leave him alone because his area is one of the few places where crime is not out of control

That doesn't mean he's all goodness and light. His gang is heavily armed and defend their turf from other gangs fircely. Illegal drugs are kept out, the pushers who try to work on Karns turf don't live long enough to realize their mistake. It's mentioned that a triad tried to run drugs through Karns territory, then tried to kill Karns. The result was that Karns gang wiped out the triad in question.

So, on the one hand, I have a character who was trying to do good, but on the other, was not someone you wanted to cross or have angry at you. Great.

But something happened. For some reason, Karns managed to insert himself into the story that occures before the one I had created him for. (I was writing three stories in the series at the same time, going from one to another when I had writer's block) Not only that, but he became an inportant part of the story line. A throw away line about him in the second story became the basis for an entire chapter in the first story that expanded on the people around Karns and why they were so sucessful. In short, he went from minor character to major on the strenght of his character.

Scary, no? 

Craig

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

It depends on what the story is.

What comes to me first is usually either a story shape or a world.  So I often find myself doing the metaphorical equivalent of shouting into the darkness at the back of my head "OK, I've got a vacancy here, 1998 real-world setting, male, early 20s, nurturer, pretty much asexual, has to be someone who will respond to key event X this way in chapter 9 and behave this way in key scene Y in chapter 27. Any takers ?" Then when someone turns up who can fit that part, I start writing and learn about them as I go along - got a whole subplot out of that guy, largely to do with a couple of younger people assuming that because he was not noticably responding to women in a couple of situations where they assumed all straight men would, he must be gay rather than just someone with almost no sex drive; and there was his family background, and what he did with his life, and so on. Complications ensued.  On the other hand, I get people who come out of that darkness and don't fit any current projects and just sort of mill around, more or less well-behaved.

[SirThinks2Much]

I kind of steal. Or rescue, if you prefer.

It usually comes out of watching a film or reading a book that pretty much sucks. They have a cool character or two but dumb things happen. And I think, "So-and-so would be much cooler if he did..." and come up with a whole bunch of things for said character. And come up with more things. Then lay the character aside for a while then come back and add more things. Then change the name, and voila, totally new character.

I don't do this with all my characters, though.

Other times I take stereotypes and turn them upside-down, usually in a fantasy setting. I have a short and stocky archer and a beautiful ogress as a couple of heroes, for example.

And then I'll do photocopying. I have a stock character. I throw him in whatever story I'm thinking up. Then as the story progresses, jazz him up to fit the story.

For minor characters though, I have no clue. Either I borrow traits off of people I know, or they just randomly pop up.

[Tasmin21]

the character just shows up inside my head  one day and says,  "HEY! Oy! *Waves arms* Listen to me!"

This is exactly it.  Sometimes they come for a visit, sometimes they move in and set up house keeping.  They all have a story that wants told, and some of them are more patient than others.  I talk to them, get to know them (their likes, dislikes...somehow, it's very important to me to know what all my characters' favorite foods are), and eventually, I figure out what they want the world to know.

It seems easier to me to base the world around the character, than try to fit the character into the world.

[The Corvidian]

Mine usually show up in my dreams.

[Jack_of_Names]

I like to think I'm a writer but I'm probbaly being pretentious lol

Anyway!

It is my very firm belief that in the center of by brain, and ever so slightly to the left, there is a gateway which leads to every point in in time and space, in every reality there ever was. Now, somtimes, well, quite often, people and/or events come screaming out of this gateway only to find themselves trapped in my imagination. Now, for most of my life, my imagination has been a fun place to be, at least if your a goodie. They could lounge about untill somthing came up, pick up a sword and run around beating Evil into submission, making little witty comments and double entendresm, supported by a colourful array of characters that range from amazonian warrior woment to self-delusional geeks with a highly inflated opinion of their own martial and mental prowess.
Now, however, the hero's get beat up quite a bit.  There's no edge when you characters are invincible. Poor little guys...
What all that means is that yes, my characters just happen in my head. As far as I can remember, I have never created a character step by step that wasn't for some sort of RPG lol.

I don't know if this happens to anyone else, but, if for whatever reason I try to take my characters in a direction that they would not normally go down, I get partial writer's block untill I let them get back on a path that their personalities like. Anyone else get that?

[terioncalling]

Posting because I find this amusing...I'm slowly forming a character who's spawning from a poem that was inspired solely by the word snickersnack.  And he has a mentor/trainer guy who's dead but not dead.  Beyond that, I've got nothing.


But it was all spawned by the word snickersnack.  And I felt I should share.

[Tasmin21]

I've written almost an entire novel, inspired by one word in one song by Flogging Molly.  Doesn't sound weird to me at all. 

[terioncalling]

Heheh, that's neat.     Out of curiosity, which word in which song?  'Cause Flogging Molly is awesome.

[Tasmin21]

"Seven Deadly Sins" off the Within a Mile of Home album.

I thought "Hey, Avarice would make a good name for a pirate ship..."  And it kinda went from there.

[terioncalling]

Indeed it would!  That's definetly one of my favorite songs of their's.  Love the piratey one's, love 'em! 

[prime_spirit]

I think of a begining and an ending and make characters as I go along, as long as it'll get me from one end to the other. I usually get characters from outside sources, like an existing political figure or a maternal person in the news who did a good deed. I also ready other books to get inspired, particularly in areas of conflict and redemption.

I'm mostly plot-driven, so it depends on the situation in the story on what character to some up with at the right moment. If I like the character, I'll tweak the plot to bright him/her back. Something like that. My characters actions are based on how I would feel if I were in their shoes. That one's tricky as sometimes I had to go back and review what I've written in light of their development to make sure I get them to make the right choice, good/bad.