How Are Characters Born (or Conceived)?

[Lunaairis]

I often draw my character before I even have a personality for them, name, or story. Its after I'm done that I take a moment to think about who they are, often starting with names. Yet there have been times I got an idea for their story before finding their name.

Names are often the hardest part for me to come up with, I may even start writing without a name for them.

 

[Tom]

Bonus Track:


Ninja Nimue!
Whatchyu gonna do
When you're posting a rhyme
And she sneaks up on you?

[instrumental]

(CHORUS: Ninja Nimue!)​

When you're posting a rhyme

(CHORUS: Ninja Nimue!)
​

And at the very same time
Ninja Nimue
Sneaks up on you

(CHORUS: Ninja Nimue!)​

When you're posting a rhyme

(CHORUS: Ninja Nimue!)
​

And you're out of Thanks bullets
There's nothing you can do
She's ninja'ing you

This is a single from Legendary Sidekick's breakout album, Trying My Hardest to Derail This Thread!, released through Mythic Scribes Records. Available on 78 vinyl, cassette, and Eddisonian wax phonograph cylinder. This record will not be coming soon to the shelves of a music store near you.

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

It's my thread and I'll derail if I want to—

Ooh! My thanks bullets are back! Yay!



STEALTH EDIT - Aww, I only had two. Just enough for this page.

 

[Trick]

I, like a few others, tend to draw my characters before fully realizing them but first I have this thing I do that most people call daydreaming but I call it invisible movie watching. My subconscious creates characters, writes a scene, decides on lighting and other movie stuff I don't actually know anything about and then sticks a screen in front of my eyes, usually during something important like a work meeting or a project on a deadline, and I sink into my own little world for a bit while I watch it.

I like to justify this by complaining that I very rarely have memorable dreams at night, which is true but...

If I like what I see, I work up some plot points in my ever-growing writing project notebook and it gets fleshed out a little bit at a time, this is where character drawings start, until I think it's ready for outlining. Then I write a loose outline, rework it a bit, and then free write from point to point, editing the outline as needed along the way. My outlines are loose but there's one for every main character as well as the over-arching plot so they're kinda long most of the time.

These invisible movies hit me like two to three times a day unless I'm very bogged down by real life so I have to reject a lot of ideas.

 

[Xitra_Blud]

My characters come from so many different places, it really would be impossible to say how I come up with them. Sometimes they are inspired by a doll, a picture, an actual human being, or even a character that already exists. Most of the time, I have a character and I will write a story that fits around the character but, often times, the character will come because the story called for it such as a character named Earnest in my recent project who interestingly was brought up due to another character and the way I could see them interacting. The project is one I started back in November, I believe and, mentally, the story is practically complete but I added this character only last month. I wasn't sure if he was going to make it but he's still there, and honestly, I like him.

All in all, I can't tell you how much character development happens, it just kind of does. It's wherever my imagination takes me.

 

[cjweyrauch]

I like to find a friend in life that somewhat reminds me of what i'd like to see in a character and I spin on that friend until it is a completely different but vaguely resembling character. Usually this all happens over the course of a minute or two and when I'm done I have a great idea of what the character behaves like. I go back and add a description of the character later once I have seen how they act and where they end up in my story. Once I get it rolling it kinda tells me what to write. I think we're hearing that a lot now though.

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

I actually had a character whose personality was inspired by a good friend who lived on the same floor as me in grad school, and was a classmate and, a few times, a project partner. The character based on his personality (a wise-ass, but in a good way) was I intended to kill off from the start—and I did.