Character Development

Inspiration Thursday

I want to take the time to talk about one of my favourite subjects in this week’s Inspiration Thursday. You should notice that I’ve spoken about roleplaying and fan fiction in the two previous weeks, two subjects that describe my writing background in a broader term. Still, I haven’t entirely stepped into the subject of the characters I’ve created, nurtured and developed over the years (or how many).

Building a Biography

Writing biographies for fictional characters can be fun, especially considering the long way they’ve come when I’ve been on message boards. Initially, it was a small form, asking for name, age, picture, and maybe force powers or species (depending on the universe). Since then, these things have developed into beasts of their own, where you can spend time building a character’s personality and history, listing out strengths and weaknesses, theme songs and lots more.

In the beginning, building a biography may seem like a lot of work, especially where you can’t roleplay before the text has been completed and approved by staff (it’s not the case everywhere). Still, I grew to love and appreciate it, especially when I view these biographies as places where I can add on as other things happen to my characters. It’s a record of their life, so I’ve saved a few of them over time.

Reasons Why They’re Created

Creating a character can start in a few ways, and some of this may apply a bit more to roleplay than the rest. One of those ways is a face, which was quite common. Discovering an actor, singer, etc., would inspire me to create a roleplay character easily. Not all would stick around too long, but they would definitely get some attention.

Another way would be in collaboration with another writer in roleplay, as you and someone else settle on writing two sisters, mother and daughter or any other combination. Writers tend to work together in creating individuals to ensure the details match. In the same way, I’ve made characters in fan fiction and Just One from knowing two characters would be having a love affair down the line and building their illegitimate child.

Some of my Favourites

I’ve created characters for less, like having a rule where you can have three female characters and one male before going back to females. So, when I would build an idea for a girl, I’d also start creating a guy to respect those roles. There are a few male characters I absolutely love.

On top of my head was a great dystopian site called the Draft (a version of it still exists online), and my two favourite characters there were Ainsley Cooper and Alec Jameson. Jai Courtney and James McAvoy for their play bys. In fact, Ainsley was a “main character” listed by staff to be filled as part of a motorcycle group (inspired by Sons of Anarchy), and Alec was a personal ad by a writer looking to get their female in trouble…

But because of excellent writing partners, these two became one of my old-time favourites, and I still have their biography saved and many threads.

There are plenty of ways to develop characters.

Writing Minor Characters of Just One

I have multiple word documents filled with character information regarding Just One characters. They all contain the picture of a current imaginary play by name, age, family information, facts relevant to the story the document is for and gifts. These used to be updated as I wrote since I write as half a panser and half an outliner (we’ll get back to that).

To this day, I’ll start with basics and begin to write characters, realizing facts that hadn’t occurred to me before from the text itself. Part of this process is writing from that character’s point of view (POV), allowing me to see more inside said individual. It’s a way for me to get to know them, as strange as that may sound to someone else. I’m sure someone might disagree with this method of writing, but most writers will agree that writing styles and techniques are very personal.

Writing minor characters can sometimes be a problem because they get no attention. They remain uninteresting (I learn nothing about them without their POV), or I give them the time, and suddenly, these are not as minor as they were meant to be; as I learn their history, their dreams or broken dreams, people they love or used to love. There are actually four characters like that in Just One.

Douglas “Doug” Granger is my Chief of Police in Colletown, and when I began, I knew my fantasy play by for the character is Bruce McGill, and I knew that Doug was a good man and his heart was in the right place. But when I had to write from his POV, reaching out to one of our characters, I began to understand why he didn’t have a family and had never married; there was a whole story I hadn’t realized until I began to type away.

Trevor Jordan, the mayor of Colletown and Rebecca’s father is another exciting character like that. He’s an impressive man who finished High School early, went out to attend college earlier than necessary, and when he returned to Colletown, it was his own secret. It’s a good secret, I promise. As the bit about Rebecca has always hinted, Trevor pushes his daughter to be better and wishes her to have a bright and secure future, even if she doesn’t see it like that. And as I previously hinted, I’ve seen Trevor as Denzel Washington from the moment I created him.

Finally, the two agents of my Division, the FBI team, are hunting our aliens. Two of them are aliens and hail from two planets that haven’t been previously mentioned. They’re meant to be the bad guys, working for an organization that is not on the side of good. Yet, as I gave them time, I realized there was a lot more to them as well, so Moira Dunn (who hails from Eeran and has red eyes) and Harrison Clarke (from Nediv, with purple eyes) will have more space in Just One: Edge of Never than initially intended. They will both have a redeemable arc.

Alien Races and Eye Colours

And speaking of the eyes that I always mention, I’ll let you know. In my alien race, it’s not about skin colour. This doesn’t matter in the slightest. However, each race has a different eye colour (in some cases, hair colour), making it obvious where they hail from. So, we have seven planets with seven eye colours.

However, since the races have mixed across the millennia, it’s not always apparent that someone with a particular eye colour was born on a specific planet anymore.

Dominic Dimitrov is an excellent example of this as he was born on Vetri, whose eye colour is black (regular sized), but he has emerald green because his mother is Ferroan.

Another example is Cara Bonnet, who, despite being from Vetri, has enlarged black irises (Ryctorian eyes). My mysterious character, Ren or Rebecca Jordan, may seem to have black eyes because of their parents, but that decision has a deeper meaning.

You can do many things with your characters, especially when you choose to develop an alien race. I decided on a humanoid one because I grew up to the likes of Star Wars and Star Trek, and the idea of little green men works in some storylines, but it shouldn’t be a defining trait of each story. For example, why do we look the way we do? That was my starting reasoning.

In the End…

Another fun topic to fall into, as I’ve always loved developing characters with different purposes. I’d love to hear your thoughts on the subjects and stories you’ve written or even started…

There’s plenty to discuss on this subject.

Unintentionally, I’ve given you a few more sneak peeks into Just One about characters that probably wouldn’t be getting their own pages, but now you know.

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Until the next one…

~ Love. L.V.