McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft

Proper practice???

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Lanodantheon:


--- Quote from: Snowleopard on March 25, 2012, 08:43:41 PM ---Vorpal swords are from Lewis Carrol's - The Jabberwocky I believe.

--- End quote ---


Yup, part of Through The Looking Glass.


"He took his vorpal sword in hand:"[/size]And later, "[/size]One, two! One, two! And through and throughThe vorpal blade went snicker-snack!He left it dead, and with its headHe went galumphing back."[/size]


I also like World-Building....mostly because it's easy during the slow times at work. Also, Tolkien once wrote that as a Catholic, "World Building is the closest I will ever come to playing God" or something like that. ;D


World-building is also a good starting point for characters by asking, "Who lives here?" "What unique people are produced by this Magical Dystopia?" "What kinds of people will I find here and nowhere else in the Literary Multiverses?" .

Jabberwockey:
Thank you all so much.  As far as the fan fiction goes, I usually take a different turn than most.  My current project is a Supernatural fan fic which goes on the assumption that Agent Henricksen survives Lilith's attack on the police station.  My appologies to those who dont watch Supernatural and have no idea what I'm talking about here.  Henricksen is actually the only original character that remains.  The rest are of my creation.

The Snowflake program Im using actually has a really good tool for building your characters.  It requests all different types of info from the basics of height and weight  to what their sense of humor is like and even asks what they carry in their pockets.  My appologies for not being specific enough.  I have a VERY BAD habit of trying to over explain a characters motivation so end up explaining way too much.  So when I said character development, I misspoke although there were some very good ideas for that.  Especially since its so much harder to write characters that you may not care much about. 

Ok, sorry all.  Been doing yardwork all day and very ready for bed so having trouble focusing, especially since my wife is playing acoustic guitar music on Pandora!!
In a nutshell, how do you develop a character that you dont necessarily like without making them a soulless douchebag and without oversharing?

I really like your idea Lan of world building.  My problem on that is the world will build with the story.  The initial story takes place pretty much locally for the protagonist, within say 200 miles or so of his village.  The next book will take him almost global and the final book will go interstellar.

Again, sorry if Im rambling but yardwork and lack of sleep are taking their toll!.  Good thing you dont have to see how many times I have had to backspace to fix typos!!!!!

cenwolfgirl:
lol sleep well
i have to do that fixing typos thing a lot and i still miss some  ;D

Lanodantheon:
Ah...you're using the Bottom-Up approach to design. I personally prefer the Top-Down approach because I like seeing the big picture of a place before I put characters in the middle of nowhere.


Overexplaining a character's motivation can be a problem. A way to easily solve it is to first go through the sections that you think you are overexplaining things...then rewrite them using the least number of words possible. Pretend you have to pay the printer per word so you have to keep your costs low. Maybe that'll work.


How do you develop a character you do not like?


Ask yourself why you don't like the character. An action they take? A political position they hold? Did they kick the dog too many times? 


From here you can either change the character so that you do like them or throw the character out and replace the character with one you do like.



But what about characters that are soulless feminine hygiene products? If that's their job description in the story...that's what they are supposed to do.


Either way, it's your story. You are The Creator Deity of your fictional world. You control their Fate, their state of Karma and whatever else. Look forward to knowing that those soulless feminine hygiene products will be punished by the divine for being the way they are...


But say you have a character that can't be thrown out, needs to be there. It will make the story better, but isn't your cup of tea. How do you develop that character?


Step into their shoes. Divorce yourself from their role int he story and see the world how they see it. Then fill in the worksheets.


What if they are a villain?


Brandon Sanderson summed it up best in the Podcast Writing Excuses, "Every Villain is the Hero of their own story." They just don't succeed at the end of it usually.


But that's for villains.


The last thing you can do is related to that: Find a part of the character, just a part that you do like. Concentrate on that. "This mailman character is trite and boring!...but he also has a mortgage to pay despite being chased by an angry Wizard over postage. "


Example of what I'm talking about:


Like so many of us, I'm developing an Urban Fantasy Series with an ensemble cast. I know I don't need Vampires, Were-forms and Faeries in my world, but it's supposed to have the DNA of the other kinds of shows on the market in it so Vampires, Were-forms and Faeries have to be there and they need to be represented int he ensemble by token members.


Also important to note that I hate Vampires and Werecanines. They aren't my thing and I don't find either cool or romantic...


At first I thought of representatives of these creatures and what they would be used for and I didn't like any of them. But, all of them are part of the ensemble and need to be present. 


How could I give them as character as the main characters I really like?


For the Token Vampire I thought of a personality that made sense with the mythology that I had and made a Vampire that makes me laugh and want to do bad things to. I also strangely developed a backstory that makes me want to hug him...


For the Token Were-Form, I thought of a character I would like on its own and then added Were-form to it. That way, the story gets what it needs and I get character that doesn't suck.


For my Token Faerie, I just accepted that I would not really like the High Sidhe I know I needed...and decided no one else would like him either.




That's all I got.

OZ:
Something that bothers me in many books is characters that don't make sense. They seem to be evil simply for the sake of being evil. ( Of course I have met some people in real life that seem just as two dimensional. Usually they seem to get promoted to supervise other people.) I have found if I create a back story for my villains that explains why they act the way they do, it makes them much more complex. I don't include the back story in my book unless it's essential but the fact that I know why the villain acts the way they do allows me to write them as a much more complete character rather than a paper doll.

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