Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Creating characters

“Every human being has hundreds of separate people living under his skin. The talent of a writer is his ability to give them their separate names, identities, personalities and have them relate to other characters living with him.” --Mel Brooks

Do the characters you create have a little bit of you in them? If so, what? Is it the way they look? Their mannerisms? The way they talk or walk? Their hobbies or habits? Likes and dislikes? Hopes and dreams? Please share.

7 comments:

  1. My main character has a combination of some of my characteristics and my daughters. From me, love of reading, loyalty. But my other characters are really their own people. I think it might get boring to have all the characters in your story like you. Though I think we tap into the personalities of friends and family we know. At least I do.

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  2. A lot of my characters have aspects of my personality; it's inevitable. After all, I know myself better than anyone else. For the bad characters I just draw on my dark side and exagerate, and vice versa. But like Natalie said, I also draw on people I know.

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  3. Most of my characters have some aspects of my personality. Especially Alexia, the MC in my fantasy YA novel. She was me, back when I first started writing the story in the 6th grade. (literary, I wrote during class. :) )

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  4. Oh Gosh no. My characters are what I would do if I was...But aint.

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  5. Nat, Marcy and Nicole, I'm with you girls. There is a lot of me in my characters and a lot from others (family, friends, etc.) For example, even though I'm a girl, I would so do some of the things Freaky Frank does. One time I squeezed a dirty sponge on the teacher's chair when he got up to get a drink. He was reading us a book. These were in the days when we washed blackboards! Anyway, he sat down on the puddle of water and... let's just say he knew who did it right away and screamed my name. I was in BIG trouble. I was really a brat at times. I would kill my kids if they ever did anything like that. Anyway....

    and E. there's not even a teeny tiny little bit of you in any of your characters? (Smiles)

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  6. Hi! The main character in my WIP is a little girl and she's a lot like the little girl my mother was. I didn't intend her to be, but I guess you absorb the stories and memories you're told all your life and eventually they find their way back out of you...

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  7. My characters are compilations of people I know...I'm sure I leak into them somewhere. My grandparents are a huge source of character development of the mg hf novel I'm working on right now.

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