Creating characters and wasting them
I got an email yesterday from someone telling how much they had enjoyed reading PWK. Apart from the warm fuzzies this gave me, they made an interesting comment about one of the characters. They told me I even made them care about Meredith, the Auror who appears in chapter 13.
Now, as far as I was concerned, Meredith was just a bit player - he's an all purpose MOM git, created for the sole purpose of chasing after Sirius and Harry. This was interesting because I was IM-ing a friend of mine the other day, and we were talking about attitudes to minor characters and characters created for a specific purpose. It got me thinking about how and why I create characters.
To me, Meredith isn't a particularly good example of a good character - I don't have a very clear vision of him, he exists for a function in the story, so I wouldn't have any qualms about killing him off. However, in the current tome, I created a character in the prologue who was supposed to be another bit player. But, I rather liked him - he had more depth to him than I had anticipated he would. What a waste of a good character not to have him contribute further. So I sat down and thought about it, and yes, I can see where he fits in later on (perhaps). Of course, I would never dream of spending six months on a character checklist, as some posters here seem inclined to do - my characters spring fully formed from my fevered imagination like Athena (most of the time). However I can still recognise a good character when I see one and I hate wasting them cos see, I'm a hoarder.
If a good character walks onto the stage then my vision for the story is usually flexible enough to accommodate them later on if I want to. Equally, if someone who originally had a larger role doesn't really merit it, then I can reduce that role - write them out. It's often not even a particularly conscious process - they're just not there as much as I thought they would be.
Another good example of the expanding role would be Davis in All Debts Must be Paid. He's one of my all purpose MOM gits, but he was rather good and ended up being far more important to the story than I thought he would be.
Anybody else hate wasting characters?
Now, as far as I was concerned, Meredith was just a bit player - he's an all purpose MOM git, created for the sole purpose of chasing after Sirius and Harry. This was interesting because I was IM-ing a friend of mine the other day, and we were talking about attitudes to minor characters and characters created for a specific purpose. It got me thinking about how and why I create characters.
To me, Meredith isn't a particularly good example of a good character - I don't have a very clear vision of him, he exists for a function in the story, so I wouldn't have any qualms about killing him off. However, in the current tome, I created a character in the prologue who was supposed to be another bit player. But, I rather liked him - he had more depth to him than I had anticipated he would. What a waste of a good character not to have him contribute further. So I sat down and thought about it, and yes, I can see where he fits in later on (perhaps). Of course, I would never dream of spending six months on a character checklist, as some posters here seem inclined to do - my characters spring fully formed from my fevered imagination like Athena (most of the time). However I can still recognise a good character when I see one and I hate wasting them cos see, I'm a hoarder.
If a good character walks onto the stage then my vision for the story is usually flexible enough to accommodate them later on if I want to. Equally, if someone who originally had a larger role doesn't really merit it, then I can reduce that role - write them out. It's often not even a particularly conscious process - they're just not there as much as I thought they would be.
Another good example of the expanding role would be Davis in All Debts Must be Paid. He's one of my all purpose MOM gits, but he was rather good and ended up being far more important to the story than I thought he would be.
Anybody else hate wasting characters?