Over the years, I have developed characters in different ways. My development techniques especially became diverse during my time in the Star Wars universe. Building characters from scratch has always had a special charm for me, and I’ve done it for different reasons. Sometimes, an idea is formed from a heritage or by communicating with other writers and wanting to be part of their roleplay family, a profession I want to explore, or even just deciding to use a particular play-by (face) for a character.
Sometimes, it was even all of the above.
Finding a face that would work for this particular creature was extremely important. Knowing how the character would look made all the difference in the world.
I will use a few examples for this.
An insight into Curupira Hawk
Curupira Hawk, the mother to our Katrine, whom we have previously talked about, was inspired by wanting to write another writer I admired. My first face choice was Isla Fisher, whom I had seen for the first time in Definitely Maybe. She was quirky, funny, adorable and a little wacky. How I saw her in that movie inspired the character of a character. Curupira became my go-to character for a long time, and her development felt important.
Based on what I knew from the existing character, TiCira (her older sister), I had a background where they originated on the famous planet Dathomir (home of the Witches of Dathomir and Nightsisters). Their clan had been attacked, TiCira had been taken, and it was assumed most members of their clan were dead. The sisters believed the other one was dead.
Curupira is not my first Dathomirian character, so I had a good enough understanding of the race, what they stood for, etc. But Curupira wasn’t going to be a Witch.
She was thrown into the galaxy at a young age, and her origins became the stuff of nightmares. In an attempt to slightly mimic TiCira’s story, her early years were turmoil, but there was a quirkiness to Curupira that I wanted to explore aspects, for which I reached out to another writer who wrote a character we defined as crazy.
Interestingly enough, in the future, this very character, Seth, would end up with TiCira (for a time). But it was decided in the past that he would buy Curupira’s freedom (she was sold into slavery) and raise her as his own.
This allowed for that quirky idea to develop, brought up by someone crazy who followed his rules and allowed me to bring forth a girl who was nuts in his own right. In her development, she has gone to be a Jedi (one of the good guys) in her search for her older sister only to meet the love of her life, who in reality was even more crazy than the man that raised her… sending her into becoming a Sith.
Many of my previous characters regarded their chosen path as the ultimate pursuit, yet Curupira remained childlike. She didn’t care much if she was Jedi or Sith; she was a wild child. To her, life is an adventure; it’s fun. Curupira has never followed rules that ruined that.
Some of the details here include developing a biography for these characters – an act I still do today, in one form or another. Curupira’s childhood was greatly expanded between writers, forming the basis for her biography rather than being roleplayed in threads. The subject of biographies will be covered later in great detail, though. For now, we return to our scheduled programming.
So, when did she have Katrine?
Here’s the thing: Curupira became a mother to two grown-up girls when she was in her mid-twenties because wormholes sometimes bring people back in time (obviously inspired by Star Trek).
Katrine comes from the future with information about future events and the life that Curupira and her other half Ket (commonly referred to as mate in the Witch culture) will have led, but they have not reached that point yet. It gets even more complicated when her granddaughter follows the same path, and the future has, in fact, been changed for the worse with the presence of Katrine and her older sister… but that is another story.
I didn’t realize at first that Curupira’s character was partly inspired by Harley Quinn, particularly in how her emotions towards her partner reflect those of Harley’s. Ket may not be exactly like the Joker, but he does possess some of his madness.
At some point in recent years, Curupira’s play-by changed to Margot Robbie, whose role helped inspire new life in Curupira’s story. Much like Isla fit a much younger, quirkier Curupira, Margot suited to the growing-up version and helped me focus the character onward.
Sometimes, building a character from an image didn’t inspire long-lasting development. Other times, or because it was only part of the process, it made a lot of difference. Changing a face can help, too. Sometimes, the wrong play-by affects the writing, even if the idea is right.
Faces in Just One
In Just One, every character mentioned in the story, major or minor, has its own face. Some of them have changed throughout the years. One face has never changed in the years I have worked on this story—Kate Beckinsale has always been Kivana Eli. My other characters remain consistent in hair colour and eyes but have changed. Much as television teenagers once seemed too old for their roles, I, too, had chosen faces that might have been a little unfitting.
Jenna Ortega is an incredible inspiration for Eveleen, a girl whose appearance matched a couple of previous play-bys. Mackenzie Foy was a great choice, though her eyes were black like Ellie’s. Jenna is a good match with her brown hair and black eyes. She is my first choice, and she was perfect for my vision of Ellie.
Another great choice in my “cast” list is Luke Evans, who, since discovery a few years back, felt like an excellent match for Kivana Eli’s other half – Zannder. Her eyes are blue, though not quite that alien blue I describe in the story, but she has black hair and a good similarity to Asa Butterfield, whom I see as Ellie’s soulmate, Cameron. Picking these faces over the ears has been a combination of different things and has helped guide me through writing.
We will leave this subject here for now as more things relating to character development will be featured in Inspiration Monday. How we develop our creations is very individual to each writer and maybe a long or short process, depending on how fleshed out the idea is already in our heads. I have always found developing character this way to be very creative as it allowed my mind to form descriptions. We will continue this on the subject of biographies in a few weeks. In the meantime, I would love to hear about your development process and thoughts on this blog.
What do you think of Curupira?
Share your thoughts on my development process.
How do you develop characters?
Tell me about your own roleplay experience and creating characters there. I’d love to hear about it.
As always, I hope you enjoyed the read and tune in again next week for the next rendition of Inspiration Monday. For now, this will be the only written blog section covering all previously existing topics (except quotes because I love quotes).
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Until next time…
~ Love, L.V.
L.V. Luca 