30DoW: Day 9
9. How do you get ideas for your characters? Describe the process of creating them.
If I knew that I'd be able to stop the flow of them. I have so many characters, a lot of them not doing anything right now, that sometimes I wonder why I don't just chuck a portion to focus on the ones actually accomplishing things. And then that gives me an idea for another character, and it all becomes a vicious cycle of creativity.
Ideas can come from any number of places. When I wrote what would become the beginning of a mafia noir story, I had been surfing TV Tropes. Others have come about by just thinking "Well, what kind of person would do this?"
A lot of times it's just me thinking up interesting characters, because I think they're interesting, and giving them form and function; well, maybe not function, because I created them without having anything for them to do (yet). So they just sit in notebooks and flash drives, waiting to be plucked and put to use.
The creation process varies from character to character, depending on how much I really know about them. Some I have a grasp of fairly quickly, and figuring out a history to work from doesn't take long. Others are difficult, and while I could write in their voice, I don't have a real sense of who they are, which isn't going to get me far.
One thing I do like to do is write up profile documents that go into detail about them; looks, personality, favorite quotes, measurements, colors, family, history, known knowns, unknown knowns, it can go on for pages. And even then, sometimes that process takes on a life of its own, and I'll create faux documents that might be seen in their lives, like pyschiactric reports, classifed articles, sometimes even pictures when I feel really daring.
Sometimes it helps, other times it's just a waste of minutes until I think of something I can actually use. But how much I know about the character doesn't always dictate how well I can write them.
If I knew that I'd be able to stop the flow of them. I have so many characters, a lot of them not doing anything right now, that sometimes I wonder why I don't just chuck a portion to focus on the ones actually accomplishing things. And then that gives me an idea for another character, and it all becomes a vicious cycle of creativity.
Ideas can come from any number of places. When I wrote what would become the beginning of a mafia noir story, I had been surfing TV Tropes. Others have come about by just thinking "Well, what kind of person would do this?"
A lot of times it's just me thinking up interesting characters, because I think they're interesting, and giving them form and function; well, maybe not function, because I created them without having anything for them to do (yet). So they just sit in notebooks and flash drives, waiting to be plucked and put to use.
The creation process varies from character to character, depending on how much I really know about them. Some I have a grasp of fairly quickly, and figuring out a history to work from doesn't take long. Others are difficult, and while I could write in their voice, I don't have a real sense of who they are, which isn't going to get me far.
One thing I do like to do is write up profile documents that go into detail about them; looks, personality, favorite quotes, measurements, colors, family, history, known knowns, unknown knowns, it can go on for pages. And even then, sometimes that process takes on a life of its own, and I'll create faux documents that might be seen in their lives, like pyschiactric reports, classifed articles, sometimes even pictures when I feel really daring.
Sometimes it helps, other times it's just a waste of minutes until I think of something I can actually use. But how much I know about the character doesn't always dictate how well I can write them.