I heart my characters

[PancaKe]

So, we all love our characters (I would hope). And I guess, after a while, when you work with the same characters for a while, they become like people.

So, how much do you love your characters? Or hate your characters? Or other peoples characters? I mean, in terms of their personalities, how involved in their lives do you find yourselves, how do you handle it when one dies etc? I know ultimately you are in control of them, but I guess it can still be really painful.

Like, there have been times when my characters have appeared in dreams. And yeah, the thought of killing my characters makes me so sad. It makes me cry actually.

I don't want them to die! :(

But yeah, what about you guys?

[DivineAll]

My characters always have a little bit of my own little quirks and personalities within them as well as quirks and personalities that I wish I had. In other words, my characters are, more than often, alternate variations of my own persona, which kinda makes sense once you think about it hard enough. Look at Hermione Granger: she's supposed to be be loosely based off of her writer, or so I've heard.

[Gavin Luper]

I've been with most of my LTL characters for more than seven years. I can't help but feel emotionally attached to them after I've put them through all kinds of trauma over the years.

Moreover, I think I agree to an extent with the theory DivineAll mentioned - I've heard that discussed before with reference to JK Rowling and I do relate to the idea as a writer.

I really love Lisa, of course - she has this naturally curious spirit and overall stubborn hardheadedness, qualities which I think stem directly from myself; she can lighten up and enjoy the moment, too, and she's rarely quiet when threatened, which is a quality I've always admired.

Gavin is kind of a huge part of me - especially his dialogue, his tendency early on in the book to be reticent about serious things, his frequent immaturity and stupidity.

I also really love plenty of my characters, such as Marina (she kicks arse) and Darius (he's not entirely likeable at the moment other than his good looks, but I think his personality is going to be very interesting).

Actually, I think I have too many characters to keep track of, considering all the ones who have come and gone. Of the newer ones - the Guard members - I like Donovan best - he has such a short fuse, it's great.

So yeah, seven years of inventing and knowing these people ... I feel the same way as you, Tara: if/when it comes time for some of my characters to be killed off, I'm fairly sure I'll be quite shaken up.

[Chris 2.1]

Naturally I'm at the beginning of a new fic, so I'm not so attached that I cannot do something drastic. I'm still at the stage where I'm deciding where these people go, but I am very fond of them all.

The Pokemon Masters League was also based off ASB People, but I did find it hard killing characters because the fic had this huge community, and everyone was important. As such, the first character to be killed in the fic was Henry/Elitos, a charater only just introduced, who did not exist in ASB.

Of course, with a big cast you do look at what people are set to achieve during your tale and when they have achieved that, you may be able to finish them. Knight of Time was the first ASB-based character who died in Chapter 31, The War. His story had all been about facing his fears, returning to the village after he fled in shame some years earlier. He now fitted back in to the village and was redeemed, but he had a lot more aspects of his character to explore. His death at the hands of Ecks also caused problems, as Kyle had been a mentor to Ecks' son, Gregg/Hanada Tattsu.

So due to a large cast I did kill a few of them off. I was able to, really. But Grey/The Arbiter, was not easy to kill. I had drafted him in to die about three times during the fic, but the more I tried, the deeper his character grew!


However, in The Monica series, I love the cast. I do! I feel I haven't done them justice seeing as Vendetta drifted into oblivion. I planned a fourth fic because all the characters are really strong, so real, and there is so much to explore. In hindslight, it probably isn't a good idea.

[Goodnight Seadra]

I too love my characters a lot. NE I have been doing for over two years and many of the characters in there I grew attached. A lot of them I came up backstories for them, but half of the time I'm not able to fit their history into the story. Also, sometimes it's fun writing out how they're changing, whether it be good or bad. For instance, don't remember if I posted it here, but one of the characters' personality made a 180 degree turn and I had a blast writing that.

[Dark Sage]

Glad you asked. I loved the characters who first appeared in "Legend of the Sorcerer Kings", Yumi and the others, very dearly. After starring them in two fics, however, I knew that it was time to move, no matter how much it hurt. So I ended the second fic by making their dreams come true (as I assumed their dreams entailed) and left. But I felt saddened for having to leave.

Like Gavin said, a lot of my characters have a little of me in them. Yumi was more-or-less my attempt to show my feminine side, something I don't do very often. Her favorite Monster (which she ultimately turned into) has some significance to me; I own an original TCG Dark Magician Girl, and its a keepsake that always reminds me how much I love the card game.

Sam was also a side of me; in the first fic, she was my competitive side, my id more or less, which represents someone I used to be, a "selfish period" I had when I was a teenager which was a low part of my life. When the transistion was made to "Soul of Silicon", she mellowed a bit, which represents how I mellowed out and grew out this period.

You get the idea. I put some of myself into these characters, and they reflect me in different ways. So I can't help but be close to them.

I did the same thing in "Shadowchasers"... But since those characters are still developing, I'll leave the explanations for another time.