30 Day Meme: Days 26-28
26. Let's talk art! Do you draw your characters? Do others draw them? Pick one of your OCs and post your favorite picture of him!
Nope. I have mental pictures of them, so I guess I could have someone else draw them, if only I knew someone who could draw. I know somebody who uses famous people and "casts" them as characters in their stories, and I kind of like that idea, but I haven't done it yet.
27. Along similar lines, do appearances play a big role in your stories? Tell us about them, or if not, how you go about designing your characters.
I often know what my characters look like, but I have a hard time working it in. One of my biggest pet peeves is characters who go around looking in the mirror and ruminating on their appearance like they've never noticed what they look like before. I HATE that. If a character is narrating in first person or third person limited, it's harder to give them space to talk about what they look like in a realistic way. Because of that, sometimes I leave appearances out of the first draft and then accidentally forget about it, so when I'm reading it later I'm struck by how invisible the characters' appearances are. It's one of my weaknesses as a writer, I think.
28. Have you ever written a character with physical or mental disabilities? Describe them, and if there's nothing major to speak of, tell us a few smaller ones.
Definitely, but mostly because I've written a lot of psychological horror stories in which the characters are mentally unbalanced by some kind of trauma and are uncertain if they're going crazy or if actual supernatural things are actually happening. Physically, a couple of my characters are weakened by serious illness, but in both cases the illness is the cause of magic (or a symptom of magic?). In one story, I tried my hand a writing a blind character with a magical ability to "see" special things about people and places (also magical -- let's say he can "see" magic, is maybe how I should put it) but it turned out to be too hard to balance the two things, at least when I was trying to write the story. That story was also totally influenced by at least three different anime, so I need to work on making it my own story anyway. Haha.
Nope. I have mental pictures of them, so I guess I could have someone else draw them, if only I knew someone who could draw. I know somebody who uses famous people and "casts" them as characters in their stories, and I kind of like that idea, but I haven't done it yet.
27. Along similar lines, do appearances play a big role in your stories? Tell us about them, or if not, how you go about designing your characters.
I often know what my characters look like, but I have a hard time working it in. One of my biggest pet peeves is characters who go around looking in the mirror and ruminating on their appearance like they've never noticed what they look like before. I HATE that. If a character is narrating in first person or third person limited, it's harder to give them space to talk about what they look like in a realistic way. Because of that, sometimes I leave appearances out of the first draft and then accidentally forget about it, so when I'm reading it later I'm struck by how invisible the characters' appearances are. It's one of my weaknesses as a writer, I think.
28. Have you ever written a character with physical or mental disabilities? Describe them, and if there's nothing major to speak of, tell us a few smaller ones.
Definitely, but mostly because I've written a lot of psychological horror stories in which the characters are mentally unbalanced by some kind of trauma and are uncertain if they're going crazy or if actual supernatural things are actually happening. Physically, a couple of my characters are weakened by serious illness, but in both cases the illness is the cause of magic (or a symptom of magic?). In one story, I tried my hand a writing a blind character with a magical ability to "see" special things about people and places (also magical -- let's say he can "see" magic, is maybe how I should put it) but it turned out to be too hard to balance the two things, at least when I was trying to write the story. That story was also totally influenced by at least three different anime, so I need to work on making it my own story anyway. Haha.