Personally, I'm lazy. I look at what I need, fill it with a stereotype, then fill in some traits that break the stereotype. It gives the readers someone they can identify with, but it makes for nice little surprises through the story as well - just when the reader thinks that they've fully figured out the character, they see something new. For a mystery story that I'm writing, I have the good ole, hard core NY cop who's been there, done that, doesn't care what people think of her, is divorced from her husband and is trying to cope with a slightly too grown-up teenager. And when the going gets tough, the tough get ... a facial. She doesn't need to have the biggest balls in the department; she simply needs to be the best detective in the department. She sees no reason why she can't be the best while remaining a woman. I also try to give each major character a quirk. I cheat here, too. I've got so many quirks that I just select one of mine at random and give it to the character. (I suspect that I'm slightly obsessive-compulsive. I've racked up idiosyncracies like business travelers rack up frequent flyer miles.) So, what's your secrets to character building?

Thank heavens in my chosen genre the only character is the one within yourself.It would seem, in the other disciplines, it requires far more thought and planning than I use.I need only wait until the next poem manifest itself in my mind and then transfer it to paper. Strange as it seems,they are more born than built.

When my son was in grade school, and still listened to my advice :), he and I had an ongoing D&D game where his character was a paladin; the ultimate do-gooder knight. I thought it was a sneaky way to instill some moral values by forcing his character to abide by the lawful good limitations and reap the rewards. But one day he complained that all the good guys were boring and all the bad guys were cool. So I began to invent characters with dark powers who possessed good intentions. The result was that I came up with well rounded characters that inspired me to write again.
Looking back now I think my weekly challenge of creating a fresh campaign to excite the imagination of a seven year old boy gave birth to my most dramatic fictional characters and settings.

Recently I've been trying out role reversals for heroines. I'm trying to create heroines who fight the forces of evil without having to give up their femininity. Getting in touch with my feminine side - oh that tickles.

Isn't it strange, that regardless of sex in this forum, people tend to focus on female subjects? Of course, as a male who thinks the female figure is an absolute work of art, I can understand why. So, why not carry it further and "give them life"? As to characters, I don't write. As all of you know. I mention writing as what I fall back to since my artistry skills are lacking so much. Let me see if I can "run" out there now and extract what I said... ----------------------------------------------------- "I have often been called opinionated. Bullheaded. And cynical. (and a few other words I won't mention) Suffice it to say that I always seem to be running my mouth. Or in this case, my fingers. Those of us who dream about earning a living doing something other than what we are engaged in at the time will understand the sad reasoning for this page. If I could do anything in the world for a living and earn money enough to survive on, I'd be a painter. Where my visual imagination could manifest itself on canvas. Where there would be no limits other than the colors to choose from. Alas, I cannot paint so much as the wall of a house without leaving streaks. So, I turn to my second choice, writing. I have, upon many occasions, wondered if my thoughts were similar to the what the average person thought about. Wondered if others are cursed with thinking the same kinds of things as I do. I sometimes wondered if I could write a book about what a simple person like me thinks about and if anyone would be curious enough to read it and see if what I had written reminded them of themselves. But like so many, I lack the gift to twirl words so that the reader will be captivated. Lack the energy to expend on a pointless venture. And, like so many people in this world, lack the time to do it." -------------------------------------------------- There! The intro to my pages of writing and rants. So, back to the topic. I think, if I needed to develop a character for a story, I'd probably use a morph of someone whom I have known. Someone memorable. Tweak a few bits of the personality into what was needed and go from there. Like Ram, I spent a LOT of time "fleshing" characters in D&D. (grin) I'm afraid I would use too much personal information in developing a character, also. I suspect I'd tend to favor a less-than-handsome/beautiful person who somehow found him/herself thrust into a situation they would have ran from, given the chance. Underdog sort of character. Who wins out somehow. One whom the average audience can relate to and hope for. (the Thomas Covenant series comes to mind) The discussion above makes me wonder if THAT would be a nice exercise. To make up a character and summarize his/her personality for some sort of "target" story. Or just a character in general.

Waving first hello to Chuck. :)

Can character be separated from the story? Because when I have written, the two seem intertwined. I don't write much now, because I realized it wasn't publishable and it wasn't that much fun to write just for myself (ego shows, doesn't it) but when I write, it is as if the characters are telling me their story and I don't have a choice of characters. They are who they are and there's no persuasion on my part that will cause them to become someone else. Whe I try to force the characters, the story falls apart and stops.

It's the same with the graphics. I don't choose to do a graphic about a man or about a woman. I see a scene, as if from a play or a movie, and that scene is what I try to duplicate in the graphic. The process, for me, is the same for writing and doing graphics. When I write, the scene activates with words and movements and I have no choice how it plays out. I write down what I see with my mind's eyes and hear with my mind's ears. When the writer's block shows up, they become silent and I don't see or hear them anymore.

One reason I took up Poser was because I wondered if creating the visual representation of my scenes might break apart the writer's block, but that isn't what happened. I just ended up with a new set of characters completely visual based that resist having words written about them by me.

But here is where it gets strange. Several of my friends have seen my graphics, crude as they are, as springboards for stories they want to tell. I think that is very wayward of the creative spirit to desert me and fly from my graphics to become characters in someone else's story.

The process is a puzzle to me.

This is my first posting here. I hope I don't intrude. The art of creativity is one of interest to me, and Chuck thought I might find discussions of interest to me here. He's right. :)

Welcome to the forum, dialyn. (sheepish grin). I read what you had written in another forum and judged you to be one to enjoy a bit of creativity in this forum as well. Crescent is a wonderful "host". So, stop by once in a while and offer up your insight to other interested members. I can already tell from your introductory "spiel" that you enjoy some command over vocabulary AND have some deep thoughts to add to the forum. That aside, there may even be prizes in the future...hehe. (did anyone see a dangling carrot?)

Well, if there is a prize for verbosity, I can compete for that! Thank you for the kind invitation. I appreciate it.

I suspect you are humble and can compete for much more than that...grin. After all, us 50-year-olds have many more experiences with which to draw from...hehe.

Unadulterated luck. Three of my main characters have been in existence for some 12 years or more. A lot of them started out in role-playing games, and developed out from there. Usually, I start with trying to work out what I want from the story itself, gathering the basic outline and deciding genre. From there, it's to the characters that I need to achieve the basic goal of the story: noble warrior, sneak thief, hacker, accountant, etc. When the basic concept is worked up, I go into more detail to figure out what I need from the character, both in personality and skills. Sometimes I get lucky, and background and motivation for the character comes easy. Sometimes I have to fight them all the way, and keep reworking them until they fit the template that I need for the story. It always seems to come easier when I'm working with someone else. Brainstorming has led to some fantastic collaborative works.

Ah, it's nice to have the computer working for a change . . . How did my characters pop out of my mind? . . . well they each had their own way of becoming their own person. Much like dialyn stated, the characters are who they are, and once a certain quirk or personality trait appears, there's no going back. My characters definately have minds of their own, I just put their stories down on paper. Most characters that inhabit the world I'm presently creating for them developed out of a 'what if' and just blossomed from there. Example: Duoe S'val, who's basically a god in the sense that he created the worlds we live in--he didn't create life inself, just the worlds that life inhabits--came out of what my friends affectionally call a 'brain fart', where you go to say one thing and all that comes out is hot air. That hot air became the inspiration to include a god-like character within the folds of my little corner of the world, and the attempts to make him unique. Thus the premise of a half-human, bastard son of one of the fathering races, the Aoli. Duoe is small in stature, but has more power than his father's entire race put together. This conflict between his human half and his Aoli powers brings upon a character who is ancient yet dying from the inside out. It's the same thing for the other main characters, his wife and two sons. Seikyuu is a tall, blond, ex-assassin with a tortured soul and a rapid-fire tongue--quite the opposite from her do-good husband. Schaen, the eldest son, is a mute angel (he even has wings), with powers to heal and a horrendously deep case of depression. Lastly Mac, the youngest, basicly came out of the 'what if' question of Duoe's powers mixed with Seikyuu's loud mouth and a hyper-active personality. Can you imagine this group as the royal family of the Universe? -_-;; Each character develops within the story at their own pace, pushed forward by their own decisions and and the events that go on in the world around them. Of course, that's just the way my characters came into being. It's different for every writer, I believe, just as every person has different ways of attempting any obsticle in an field of art, business or just life itself. Man, I talk a lot. I'll shut up now. :):) ~Maj

I think it would be pretty boring if you knew everything about a character before you wrote their story. Writing, for me, is an act of discovery. The Rashamon</> model is a great way of discovering if you used the right point of view for a story. Has everyone here read The Good Soldier? In the course of the story, you realize the narrator understood anothing about what was going on around him. It is a slender book that has a lot to teach about character development, because your perspective of the characters is completely turned around by the end of the story, and how the author manages to conceal the facts behind his narrator's viewpoint is interesting to observe.

I was just agreeing with you. Characters are everywhere. That's why I like riding the bus. I met a man on the bus who worked as a legal secretary, majored in religious philosophy in college, taught history at the college level, studied in an Italian monastary, was an authority on motion pictures, was an avid surfer, and perhaps the most joyous person I have ever met. How do you make up someone like that? I'm not an expert by any means. Unpublished here. The Good Soldier; a story of passion (a very ironic title and subtitle) is by Ford Maddox Ford (the one I'm thinking of), easily obtainable from libraries everywhere. It's a bit old fashion in style but read it with some care and there is a reward. It's a sly little book with undertones under the undertones.