Say Hello to. . !

Only a few more days (omgomgomgomg)!

And for the first time in history I know (omg, I know!) what one of my human character look like!!

Now perhaps I haven't said anything about this but I'm usually extremely indecisive when it comes to what my characters look like, particularly the main characters (I don't really have a problem throwing out some random looks for a random character). One day I think their eyes are blue, the next green. Later, hazel. Brown hair? Blonde hair? Black hair? Who knows.

Consequently, if you were to read most of my stories, you'd notice that there is very vague or no explanation at all for what some character physically look like. You may know what their presence feels like, but not really anything like eye color, hair color or facial structure.

But, lately, I've become a bit more decent at drawing human faces and while I was doodling some random ones, trying some different nose shapes, I found one of my characters!

I was doodling some random dude and was like "Hey, this guy looks sorta cool," so I redrew him a bit better and I was just like, "Oh my God this is one of my characters." I knew exactly who it was just all of a sudden, it was pretty cool.

The character is a relatively new addition, added probably in the last year or two. I couldn't think of any name for him until the last week or two and has before been referred to in my head as simply 'The Mentor.' Now, I'm tentatively calling him, last name Quivyr (Qui as in quiver, vyr as in veer), first name currently unknown.

This is the prototype sketch of him:

Not anything like I would have imagined him to look like. I mean, for one- bald?? Would have never, ever guessed that. Ever. And yet, somehow, this is definitely him.

It's pretty awesome how this sort of things happens. :)

NaNo Day 10

Argh!

Today has been sloooow goooing. I've written 1,222 words so far, giving me a total of 7,735. I'm still hoping to get in maybe 3k today. There's still a few hours left of the day!

The good part is that I'm almost to the more exciting bits of the story. My character Emily is about to have to fend for herself with little money that will quickly dwindle into nothing.

But an unexpected character has snuck her way into the story. Emily's maid, Clavre. Clavre was completely unexpected but in the beginning it made sense that a rich person back in the day would have a servant of some sort. So in came Clavre and now she's gotten left with Emily in another country. Except, for Clavre this country is the place of her birth and in her country she is considered free and not a slave to anyone (unless she signed up for it anyway). I'm not really sure what Clavre is going to do. So far she is helping Emily but she could leave in a heartbeat if Emily treats her wrong.

I had planned for it to just be Emily on her own, but with Clavre I'm not really sure what to do now. perhaps something will happen to her. . . I don't know. Guess I'll find out if I get back to written eh?

Getting More Characters/ROW80 Update

Wow. Looks like I took a bit of a break there! Well. I've no excuses.

So. . . Looks like I won't win camp nano this month. I've only written about 15k and there's no way I'm going to catch up now. But, I have been trying to keep up with my ROW80 stuff and have been plotting and planning everyday for the last couple days. I've got to admit that I didn't do a lick of planning until a couple days ago. But! It's been awesome. I've expanded my cast of characters immensely! And this is good.

You see, before, I only had the MC, his sister, his dad, his mom, and one other character. That was it. No one else. It's a bit boring only having five characters and I didn't really know where I should put another character. So yesterday I decided that I would work on a family tree. The MC's family because there wasn't any other families to be had. I've now discovered that the MC has two uncles, two aunts and three cousins on his fathers side. As well as a great aunt and uncle and a grandmother and two first cousins once removed. Almost all family on the MC's mother's side is dead except for the great grandmother, and she's nearly dead herself.

And, thank goodness, I've given my poor MC some friends! I've got parts of their families figured out but not much passed the mothers and fathers (yet anyway). I am extrememly happy with what came out of this whole family tree thing. When I first started it I didn't think much would happen but now look, family and interesting characters abound! I can't wait to write about these people! Some of them are quite strange but that just makes it more fun right?

So, I'd say things are going well, and perhaps I'll be ready for Nano next month in just a couple of days?

I'd also like to say hello to my new followers who found me through the Gearin Up to Get an Agent blogfest! I hope you like it here :)

Characters

So, how do these strange people come into existence?

Some people say that they burst into their minds, demanding that their story be told. Others have carefully crafted their characters to fit into the plot. But this, of course doesn't speak for everyone. There are undoubtedly endless ways for characters to be created. Maybe he or she started as a mere notion of a person, just knowing that they really liked dogs or something. Or maybe you saw some random person and liked the way they looked or acted and wanted a character that mirrored that, and so started to work on this character, possibly without even a story in mind.

To me, I believe that characters are wonderful, sometimes strange things. They are moldable, but not overly so. They are undoubtably their own person and cannot be overly changed into you're ideal character because you simply can't. Just like you can't just change the way your next door neighbor is like.

And as for how I create them, well, I think that's putting it too strongly, cause it doesn't often feel like I created them. Sometimes, it's the character that comes to me first, I get a feeling of what they're like, what their background and circumstances are and a vague notion of what their story (plot) might be. Like they are a person I am just getting to know. But for some reason, the characters that come to me this way are the ones that are jotted down in a journal and then forgotten about.

But then there are the other characters. These ones are birthed from the idea of a plot or world I have been thinking about. It almost feels like the character is coming to me, saying that he is the character in that story I've been thinking about. These are the characters whose stories get written, unlike the others.

But even then, sometimes it's wrong. Sometimes, it seems like I'm forcing my character to be someone they're not. This makes them very hard to write. And as I stop and start writing these stories it's like they reveal themselves more and more before they finally become who they were supposed to be all along, not the image I had in the beginning, but something totally different and unexpected. For some reason I fight this sometimes, believing that if I change the characters attitude or opinion to something else they just won't be who they were supposed to be. In these instances, I'm usually always wrong.

But these characters, even though they were born from the story and world, these stories are hugely character driven. The story simply wouldn't work if that character was replaced with someone else or if any one thing about them were changed. In these stories the character is equally as important (sometimes more so) as the plot.

So, how are your characters created? Do the characters influence you're stories or the other way around? Are they closer to people or tools in your eyes?

Characters and Contests

Hello everyone!


I don't think I've said anything yet (cause I've been so busy reading The Name of the Wind) but I've got all my writing help books in! Well, except for the one about making languages because, apparently, it took them four days to figure out they no longer had that book before shipping off the other three.  And unless I want to buy a new one from 84$ and a used one from 190$ I don't think I'm going to be getting one very soon.

Anyway the other three books are awesome! I got How to Write a Damn Good Novel which is awesome so far and Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting which is awesome as well. Though so far I like the damn good novel one more than the screenplay one. The Tough Guide to Fantasyland isn't exactly what I had expected, it's more like an encyclopedia of cliche's than. . . Well, a 'help me write' book.

I'm actually starting to do some character development as well, for only my main character so far. It's fun, I learned a few things about him that I didn't know (like an unfortunate encounter with acid) so things are coming along nicely. However he's not very nice and if he ever met me he'd probably try to kill me, being his author and all. . .

Oh! For those of you interested in contests Tahareh at Grab a Pen is giving away two gift cards for those who follow her and comment on this post. You can do a couple other things to up the number of times your entered, just read the post. If you enter I wish you luck!

Have a nice day everyone!