Of the characters you've written, who is your favorite?

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CharleeVale
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Re: Of the characters you've written, who is your favorite?

Post by CharleeVale » July 5th, 2010, 11:14 pm

Mira wrote:aspiring x - thank you! You made my day. :) And I know what you mean about characters refusing to sit still and play second fiddle - the way that they should. Insubordination!

Funny how these aren't our protags! I'm sort of surprised, I thought they might be. But they're loveable. I seem to love the irritating ones. I have another character called FATE. He only speaks in capital letters, and he's extremely annoying. He brings entire cows to potlucks to slaughter for steaks. I love him. :)
I think that their not our protags because if we screw up a major character, it doesn't sink the whole book. We essentially, have nothing to lose - that can be very freeing. I think we may take our protags too seriously sometimes.

CV

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midenianscholar
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Re: Of the characters you've written, who is your favorite?

Post by midenianscholar » July 6th, 2010, 11:36 am

One of my all time favorites is a character who isn't a protagonist, and (as far as I know) will never have her POV in the manuscript. Her name's May, and she's a sort of Maid Marian character in one of my WIP. She's one of the most complex female characters I've written, and I just love her. She's blunt and smart, but you have to earn her respect and trust. She's a totally different person toward the people she loves. I loved getting to chill out with her when we were exploring her backstory together.

M. L. Cortner
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Re: Of the characters you've written, who is your favorite?

Post by M. L. Cortner » July 6th, 2010, 11:02 pm

Heather B wrote:My favourite character to write is from my WIP. He's eccentric, loud, always trying to seduce my MC and smokes like a fire. Plus, I get to dress him in some funky clothing arrangements...
This character sounds like one of those characters I'd love as soon as I met him on the page. "Smokes like a fire" is such a good comparison.


Inen is my favourite character. He's one of 3 1/2 protagonists in my current WIP. The funny thing is, he was originally a secondary character, and the main aspect I liked about him was how bizarre his appearance was. He dyed his hair firetruck-red, filled himself with enough metal to stick to magnet, and bought gold and turquoise contacts just because it creeped people out when they noticed them. Yeah, that's Inen. He's a real sweetheart, though. He's also exceptionally quirky without coming across as if I'm trying to make him that way. The best example I can come up with off the top of my head is that he was something of a pyromaniac as a child, but in the WIP-timeline, he's actually pretty afraid of fire. And the best thing? The transition made sense!
I adore him.

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Heather B
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Re: Of the characters you've written, who is your favorite?

Post by Heather B » July 7th, 2010, 3:46 am

M. L. Cortner wrote:
Heather B wrote:My favourite character to write is from my WIP. He's eccentric, loud, always trying to seduce my MC and smokes like a fire. Plus, I get to dress him in some funky clothing arrangements...
This character sounds like one of those characters I'd love as soon as I met him on the page. "Smokes like a fire" is such a good comparison.
Thanks, M.L. Cortner. I'll be sure to let you know when it gets published :P
M. L. Cortner wrote: Inen is my favourite character. He's one of 3 1/2 protagonists in my current WIP.
:S Half a protagonist?

And CharleeVale, I totally agree with what you mean about taking our protags too seriously but I also think another reason they're not our favourites is because it can be a lot of hard work to get them right. I love the MCs from both books I've written; I get to spend lots of time developing one of them (who has some awesome banter with the main hottie) and the other is currently going insane. Yep, good fun all around. It's just too bad they're as stubborn as I am...
Journey to the Cuckoo's Nest

http://heathermbryant.blogspot.com.au/

Erica75
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Re: Of the characters you've written, who is your favorite?

Post by Erica75 » July 7th, 2010, 6:15 pm

I have a favorite. She's a scientist know-it-all mother of one of my mc's. People either love her or say "what the h is she doing here?" I LOVE HER AND SHE'S STAYING. Umm, was I yelling there? I don't care. She's staying. She's brilliant, she's sexy, we should all strive to be her. Yeah, that.
we blog - erica and christy - http://lynneawest.blogspot.com/

M. L. Cortner
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Re: Of the characters you've written, who is your favorite?

Post by M. L. Cortner » July 7th, 2010, 10:28 pm

Heather B wrote:Thanks, M.L. Cortner. I'll be sure to let you know when it gets published :P
I'm looking forward to it.
Heather B wrote::S Half a protagonist?
Anti-hero, kinda. He is a protagonist less than half the time, haha.

WilliamMJones
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Re: Of the characters you've written, who is your favorite?

Post by WilliamMJones » July 9th, 2010, 2:19 pm

One of my favorite characters is a half Fey girl living with her adopted brothers in New York. She loves talking in circles and confusing the other characters. She can sometimes see the future, but doesn't tell people what they want to know right away. She calls her little group the Nobodies, because they aren't accepted by humans or Fey.

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Re: Of the characters you've written, who is your favorite?

Post by Elsinora » July 11th, 2010, 9:21 pm

I'm hard at work on my first WIP (epic fantasy), and I have to say my favorite character to write is one I would never have expected! Originally, he was supposed to be just a run-of-the-mill street urchin type who served as a short-term foil to my protag. But in the course of my plotting, he blossomed into something more and ended up a central character. He's an irreverent, illiterate former serf with nothing but hatred for the nobility, who ends up having to work for -- and pass himself off as the husband of -- a very sheltered, naive princess attempting to travel incognito as a peasant. His conversations with and about her have been the most fun parts to write so far.

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AnimaDictio
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Re: Of the characters you've written, who is your favorite?

Post by AnimaDictio » July 15th, 2010, 2:51 pm

So many wonderful characters! I look forward to reading more about these serfs and Feys and punk rockers.

My favorite character to write is a warrior alien from a place with almost no deception or crime. He is frighteningly huge, but gentle in nature, with an over-developed sense of justice and honor. He's naive. Our world fills him with awe. He has a big goofy laugh. He speaks in 17th Century English, and runs around with a sword trying to right every wrong he witnesses. He bemoans apathy and motivates the other characters to fight the impossible fight against the villain, even though they'll most likely die. Of course, he has a balancing companion who tries to calm him down and keep him out trouble.

I love him because he makes me laugh.

bcomet
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Re: Of the characters you've written, who is your favorite?

Post by bcomet » July 15th, 2010, 3:10 pm

I fall in love with all of my characters.

It is hard to let them just live in their stories and, for some, that means they have other stories too, but for others, it means their story holds them completely.

But they remain with me, much like characters I come to love in others' stories too. Once a character is alive in your imagination, it's alive
in your imagination.

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Re: Of the characters you've written, who is your favorite?

Post by SuzieQ » July 17th, 2010, 10:36 am

My favorite characters are usually the ones I'm currently writing (and if they're not, I'd better be asking myself why), but of the characters I've finished writing, there is one who holds a special place in my heart. She's the heroine (yes, a main character) in a contemporary romance novel. She's not all sweetness and light but neither is she chic-lit snarky. She's the oldest girl in a large family and has no problem capitalizing on her older sister status to bully her brothers. She's got a number of rough edges and can be bitchy but she doesn't flinch if someone points that out. Frankly, she's okay with not being everybody's best friend and she has no need to be considered "nice." She was so liberating to write, and I've found that, since writing her, my heroines are starting to lean a little more in that direction which only makes them more interesting (IMO.)

bronwyn1
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Re: Of the characters you've written, who is your favorite?

Post by bronwyn1 » July 17th, 2010, 11:36 am

My favorite characters to write are the ones that are dynamic, the ones that start out a certain way and then throughout the course of the story, they change (not dramatically all the time, but just even in subtle ways). They're the most interesting, imo.

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Re: Of the characters you've written, who is your favorite?

Post by kscollier_mehl » July 17th, 2010, 2:51 pm

To pick only one character is actually hard. Inside me, my characters come to life. I begin to speak of them as though they exist in reality. My favorite of all time, thus far, is my protagonist, Tommie, who is adventurous, brave, and thinks she can do anything a man can do but better. She doesn't recognize her own beauty; a true friend; can keep secrets; faithful to her family. With all of these great qualities, insecurity screams inside of her. Tommie's sensitivity to others is linked to her tear ducts, which she hates to display. Her bravery and nosy nature create situations that require rescuing repeatedly, revealing her vulnerability as a woman. The men in her life are very protective of her, because they know she is all bluff and fluff, though she would never admit inside that she is scared to death.

My characters become my friends as I venture to discover each of them in my stories. Some of the more detestable characters are harder for me to attach to because they frighten the beheebeegeebees out of me, but I still have to write them. Sometimes I give myself nightmares when creating their personalities. (hehehe)

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Re: Of the characters you've written, who is your favorite?

Post by KTKoulos » July 18th, 2010, 8:21 pm

I have many ideas I haven't written yet, but of the one story I'm currently working on, I have probably two or three characters. Okay, maybe four. One is my main characters grandma, who is really annoying at the beginning but she's not that bad once you get to know her. My other favorites are the love interest, Alec, (who doesn't love their love interest?) He's just so cute and sweet and...I hate what I do to him! He's probably the one I torture the most, other than the main character...poor boy...then I love her best friend, Phoenix, and the other character that just makes things more interesting, Andrew. Poor Andrew...I put him through some horrible things. That's only a few of my favorites.

I usually hate my villains, because I get very close to my characters when I write. For me, it's almost as though I become the main character. It really sucks when I have to do something that makes her cry. Sometimes, I end up crying. It's a very odd conversation when I'm sitting there sobbing and my sister asks me what's wrong and I have to tell her I just killed someone off...Some of my main characters though are more antagonistic, in which case I prefer whoever they end up hurting.

In one of my newer ideas, one of the ones that you immediately want to write, my favorite characters are a detective and a little girl who died long before the time of the story. Of course, I'm only starting planning that story. My favorite characters are usually the ones that I'm like, 'Ah...that person was NOT in my plan...' You know, the ones that grow all by themselves, either when you're planning the story or writing the first draft.

In general, I have one or two favorite characters in every story, and then a lot of characters I like a lot too. I'd say in the one I mentioned earlier...actually, Alec is my favorite in that one. the others I love, though.

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Re: Of the characters you've written, who is your favorite?

Post by Fenris » February 27th, 2012, 3:48 pm

My favorite would have to be a young woman named Ren. She's a member of an "accidental" race (I write fantasy) created by another one of my protagonists, a race that's been persecuted by the humans since their creation. Having plenty of reasons to hate the humans, she obscures the features identifying her as inhuman and infiltrates their society, determined to undermine them from the inside. Then she meets the MC (she's a supporting character), learns more about what's been going on behind the scenes all this time, and decides to help him, all the while still hiding her identity from him since he's human.

There are a few reasons why I like her. The first is that she's incredibly conflicted--background activity or not, the humans are genocidal racists who nearly wiped her people out, yet her own morality is telling her to help them. She can't tell anyone who she is for obvious reasons, and she can't even divulge she's female, as women are not allowed into the group she's infiltrated--a detail that leads into my second reason. Since she can't speak for fear of giving herself away (she is not low-voiced for a woman), she has no dialogue, presenting a rather enjoyable challenge as I'm forced to find other ways to let her express herself.

Second place might have gone to my namesake Fenris (yes, the wolf from Norse mythology, adapted to the story), but I've actually gone back and revised a lot of his personality and purpose, so he's a little too uncertain right now for me to say for sure. Instead, I'd pick a 'person' whose working name is Symphony. 'His' plight is somewhat similar to Ren's in that he can't speak, but this time it's because he can't grasp language yet. He's essentially the manifestation of the world's spiritual energy who tries and consistently fails to understand the societies and cultures of the people living there. As words are beyond him, he uses music and sound to communicate emotion, hence the name given him by the people. Like with Ren, working with Symphony is...interesting in an odd and challenging sort of way, but it's not unpleasant.
Hi, my name's Fenris. I'm a thousand-year-old monster who's broken free to destroy the world. Your kids will love me!

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