Monday, August 9, 2010

30 Days of Writing: #9

9. How do you get ideas for your char­ac­ters? Describe the process of cre­at­ing them.

 Is this a legit question? I guess there are writers who literally sit down to draw out every detail of ever character, but for me I just bust them out.  When I know a new character is coming in, I don't think about them, I just let them come in and do their thing.  Sometimes the appearance is inspired by a real life person or rendering I see, and sometimes I freely admit I make a character that I just find attractive. (These are usually minor, fluff characters though.)  The only characters I may sit and plan out extensively ahead of time are antagonists, as I usually need them to be a very specific type of entity - plus, let's face it, antagonists are a lot harder to make original and not so cliche.

As for their personalities, I literally discover things about characters as I write them.  I found out that one of my characters apparently really loves black because it's most of her wardrobe (and no, she's not emo or goth, it's just how it worked out/it looks best on her), another character hates cherries, and of course, another character wasn't supposed to exist at all, but she showed up in a scene one day and basically told me, "Biyatch, I'm one of your main antagonists now.  Have fun."

So there is no "process" to writing my characters.  They just kinda exist and I work from there.  That's how it goes, yo.  I'm sorry it's not more fascinating than that...

2 comments:

  1. You know, my undergrad creative writing workshops would call you crazy for saying your characters have personalities of their own.

    I know because they said it to me too. :D

    ReplyDelete
  2. I've talked to lots of other writers who've said the same thing as us bb, so don't panic.

    ReplyDelete

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