[Writing Meme] And Then I Got Lazy
Oct. 30th, 2010 11:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dmjewelleActually I have to sleep early, so one question today only!
9. How do you get ideas for your characters? Describe the process of creating them.
Today I am going to show you two approaches from two different ideas - Nejiverse and Dragonverse.
Nejiverse:
I was walking in Kino, because Kinokuniya is totally the best place to run through ideas. So I'm at the old Japanese section and they have these really big bookshelves arranged so that if one fell you could imagine the rest toppling over like domino blocks. I think, "that would be a good idea in a story" and then I try to imagine stuff in my head. Maybe a guy crouching at the bookshelf and when he got startled he pushed the bookshelf over and the domino effect happened. So what kind of guy is this? I like the antichrist...antichristantichristantichristantichristantichrist ok he could be an antichrist! But what's the twist about him? Ohh he doesn't have magic! All these chosen people always have magic *picks up random manga ooo this is a nice pic* so he's gotta look normal *picks up another manga* like this one! Except maybe his hair could be brown to show NORMALNESS. So what happens after the bookshelf falls? Maybe a bunch of people freak out and SHOOT HIM! How about NINJA THROWING BOOKJACKETS! But he's normal, so who's going to throw the bookjackets? Wait, how will we introduce him to the world as the antichrist? So we'll start out with him walking a bookstore, and who is the enemy anyway? *Pick up another manga* TERRORISTS! That's what they'll be! The Leader'll be...Leader! Cuz he's the LEADER and all! I R SMRT.
The end.
Dragonverse
The idea for a story first started when I wanted to write a story about political intrigue, but wanted some kind of fantasy trapping. I like dragons, but I don't like JUST dragons, so I first sort out what sort of dragons are there, distinguishing each type of dragon with a physical trait and placing them on a hierarchy. How could I tie in different species of dragons with their eventual evolution to more humanlike physiques? Then I start thinking about the main chara - how about a guy who's a lazy apathetic bum? You don't see that often in stories, so how is he going to get things done? Maybe he could be a token of such importance that everyone's bending over to manipulate HIM. Is he aware of this? Can he be bothered? Since he's a lazy arse he probably would notice but go whatever and let everyone do as they like. Is he rich? If he's related to the royal family, in what way? Could he get away with being lazy in his position? I WANT to let him be in the royal family now, so I start shifting bits around to accomodate his royalness.
Then I start wondering how the royal family came to be, and I create another idea that takes the timeline several centuries back. Remember how I said I like history books? I like to see how would things go until that fateful day of a lazy shiftless king-to-be, so I am now absolutely distracted by another shiny new story. What about humans? Would there be notable human characters in certain eras? What if White Dragons weren't the dominant race at first? How would they have come up to power? Who would be the dominant race first? Would any of these dragons get on well with humans? OK let's go further and further back in time. Who would be a noteworthy character of that era? *Goes play some FFT* Where would a white mage who gets faint at the sight of blood fit into this epic Dragon-filled world? What about crossbreeding?
And on it goes. It's a matter of either thinking really long how the world should be and what would make sense, but it involves a lot of asing questions and doing the difficult job of discarding the idea if it doesn't work. Sometimes like Neji it's a lot easier letting my head go nuts; Aleister Hargreaves was born from a chapter about making homunculi I got from a witchcraft book in BORDERS, Singapore.
It's all about the catalyst.
1. Tell us about your favorite writing project/universe that you've worked with and why.
2. How many characters do you have? Do you prefer males or females?
3. How do you come up with names, for characters (and for places if you're writing about fictional places)?
4. Tell us about one of your first stories/characters!
5. By age, who is your youngest character? Oldest? How about “youngest” and “oldest” in terms of when you created them?
6. Where are you most comfortable writing? At what time of day? Computer or good ol' pen and paper?
7. Do you listen to music while you write? What kind? Are there any songs you like to relate/apply to your characters?
8. What's your favorite genre to write? To read?
9. How do you get ideas for your characters? Describe the process of creating them.
10. What are some really weird situations your characters have been in? Everything from serious canon scenes to meme questions counts!
11. Who is your favorite character to write? Least favorite?
12. In what story did you feel you did the best job of worldbuilding? Any side-notes on it you'd like to share?
13. What's your favorite culture to write, fictional or not?
14. How do you map out locations, if needed? Do you have any to show us?
15. Midway question! Tell us about a writer you admire, whether professional or not!
16. Do you write romantic relationships? How do you do with those, and how “far” are you willing to go in your writing? ;)
17. Favorite protagonist and why!
18. Favorite antagonist and why!
19. Favorite minor that decided to shove himself into the spotlight and why!
20. What are your favorite character interactions to write?
21. Do any of your characters have children? How well do you write them?
22. Tell us about one scene between your characters that you've never written or told anyone about before! Serious or not.
23. How long does it usually take you to complete an entire story—from planning to writing to posting (if you post your work)?
24. How willing are you to kill your characters if the plot so demands it? What's the most interesting way you've killed someone?
25. Do any of your characters have pets? Tell us about them.
26. Let's talk art! Do you draw your characters? Do others draw them? Pick one of your OCs and post your favorite picture of him!
27. Along similar lines, do appearances play a big role in your stories? Tell us about them, or if not, how you go about designing your characters.
28. Have you ever written a character with physical or mental disabilities? Describe them, and if there's nothing major to speak of, tell us a few smaller ones.
29. How often do you think about writing? Ever come across something IRL that reminds you of your story/characters?30. Final question! Tag someone! And tell us what you like about that person as a writer and/or about one of his/her characters!
9. How do you get ideas for your characters? Describe the process of creating them.
Today I am going to show you two approaches from two different ideas - Nejiverse and Dragonverse.
Nejiverse:
I was walking in Kino, because Kinokuniya is totally the best place to run through ideas. So I'm at the old Japanese section and they have these really big bookshelves arranged so that if one fell you could imagine the rest toppling over like domino blocks. I think, "that would be a good idea in a story" and then I try to imagine stuff in my head. Maybe a guy crouching at the bookshelf and when he got startled he pushed the bookshelf over and the domino effect happened. So what kind of guy is this? I like the antichrist...antichristantichristantichristantichristantichrist ok he could be an antichrist! But what's the twist about him? Ohh he doesn't have magic! All these chosen people always have magic *picks up random manga ooo this is a nice pic* so he's gotta look normal *picks up another manga* like this one! Except maybe his hair could be brown to show NORMALNESS. So what happens after the bookshelf falls? Maybe a bunch of people freak out and SHOOT HIM! How about NINJA THROWING BOOKJACKETS! But he's normal, so who's going to throw the bookjackets? Wait, how will we introduce him to the world as the antichrist? So we'll start out with him walking a bookstore, and who is the enemy anyway? *Pick up another manga* TERRORISTS! That's what they'll be! The Leader'll be...Leader! Cuz he's the LEADER and all! I R SMRT.
The end.
Dragonverse
The idea for a story first started when I wanted to write a story about political intrigue, but wanted some kind of fantasy trapping. I like dragons, but I don't like JUST dragons, so I first sort out what sort of dragons are there, distinguishing each type of dragon with a physical trait and placing them on a hierarchy. How could I tie in different species of dragons with their eventual evolution to more humanlike physiques? Then I start thinking about the main chara - how about a guy who's a lazy apathetic bum? You don't see that often in stories, so how is he going to get things done? Maybe he could be a token of such importance that everyone's bending over to manipulate HIM. Is he aware of this? Can he be bothered? Since he's a lazy arse he probably would notice but go whatever and let everyone do as they like. Is he rich? If he's related to the royal family, in what way? Could he get away with being lazy in his position? I WANT to let him be in the royal family now, so I start shifting bits around to accomodate his royalness.
Then I start wondering how the royal family came to be, and I create another idea that takes the timeline several centuries back. Remember how I said I like history books? I like to see how would things go until that fateful day of a lazy shiftless king-to-be, so I am now absolutely distracted by another shiny new story. What about humans? Would there be notable human characters in certain eras? What if White Dragons weren't the dominant race at first? How would they have come up to power? Who would be the dominant race first? Would any of these dragons get on well with humans? OK let's go further and further back in time. Who would be a noteworthy character of that era? *Goes play some FFT* Where would a white mage who gets faint at the sight of blood fit into this epic Dragon-filled world? What about crossbreeding?
And on it goes. It's a matter of either thinking really long how the world should be and what would make sense, but it involves a lot of asing questions and doing the difficult job of discarding the idea if it doesn't work. Sometimes like Neji it's a lot easier letting my head go nuts; Aleister Hargreaves was born from a chapter about making homunculi I got from a witchcraft book in BORDERS, Singapore.
It's all about the catalyst.
2. How many characters do you have? Do you prefer males or females?
3. How do you come up with names, for characters (and for places if you're writing about fictional places)?
4. Tell us about one of your first stories/characters!
5. By age, who is your youngest character? Oldest? How about “youngest” and “oldest” in terms of when you created them?
6. Where are you most comfortable writing? At what time of day? Computer or good ol' pen and paper?
7. Do you listen to music while you write? What kind? Are there any songs you like to relate/apply to your characters?
8. What's your favorite genre to write? To read?
9. How do you get ideas for your characters? Describe the process of creating them.
10. What are some really weird situations your characters have been in? Everything from serious canon scenes to meme questions counts!
11. Who is your favorite character to write? Least favorite?
12. In what story did you feel you did the best job of worldbuilding? Any side-notes on it you'd like to share?
13. What's your favorite culture to write, fictional or not?
14. How do you map out locations, if needed? Do you have any to show us?
15. Midway question! Tell us about a writer you admire, whether professional or not!
16. Do you write romantic relationships? How do you do with those, and how “far” are you willing to go in your writing? ;)
17. Favorite protagonist and why!
18. Favorite antagonist and why!
19. Favorite minor that decided to shove himself into the spotlight and why!
20. What are your favorite character interactions to write?
21. Do any of your characters have children? How well do you write them?
22. Tell us about one scene between your characters that you've never written or told anyone about before! Serious or not.
23. How long does it usually take you to complete an entire story—from planning to writing to posting (if you post your work)?
24. How willing are you to kill your characters if the plot so demands it? What's the most interesting way you've killed someone?
25. Do any of your characters have pets? Tell us about them.
26. Let's talk art! Do you draw your characters? Do others draw them? Pick one of your OCs and post your favorite picture of him!
27. Along similar lines, do appearances play a big role in your stories? Tell us about them, or if not, how you go about designing your characters.
28. Have you ever written a character with physical or mental disabilities? Describe them, and if there's nothing major to speak of, tell us a few smaller ones.
29. How often do you think about writing? Ever come across something IRL that reminds you of your story/characters?30. Final question! Tag someone! And tell us what you like about that person as a writer and/or about one of his/her characters!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2010-10-31 12:26 pm (UTC)This dragonverse idea sounds really interesting to me, since I'm kinda into dragons and all.. I once went through wikipedia on all things related to dragons.. the folder I ended up with all the saved files was so large I never opened it again.. T_T; lol
no subject
Date: 2010-10-31 02:12 pm (UTC)How did the folder end up being so big??
no subject
Date: 2010-10-31 02:15 pm (UTC)It was one of those search "Dragon" on wiki, then click all related links, and click related links in those links, on and on and on~ i didn't even go all the way because I got so disoriented @_@;
I thought you went to sleep @@;
no subject
Date: 2010-10-31 03:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-31 01:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-31 03:11 pm (UTC)