Character Geneses Series

I'm immersed in revisions on ECHOES right now, which means that not only am I prone to shoot off to Twitter or Blogger to procrastinate at the strangest times, but I am also eating, sleeping and behaving erratically and am making a rather poor fiancee. Steve has been neglected the last few days. But it's okay really, because he's busy reading Jeffrey Archer's A Prisoner of Birth (great book, by the way).

This lot of revisions, however, have got me thinking about characters. Specifically, how they're born. Sometimes characters just appear fully fledged in my head and demand to be written. Like, now. As in, 'Erm, Sangu? Get cracking on it, I've got so many witty and excellent things to say!' Familiar with that type?

Other times, I know I need a character for a specific reason or in a specific situation and I have to painstakingly create them. This is obviously more difficult because it means they take actual work to flesh out, but it's also easier in the sense that they might actually do what you want. At the start, anyway. Then they take on a life of their own and... sigh. They've taken over the story.

And then there are characters that are born in other ways, whether by accident or because they've been inspired by something, etc etc.

So I thought I'd explore this. That over the next couple of weeks, every couple of days or so, I will write up a series of posts when I can find the time, explaining and exploring the genesis of several of my characters. 

These will offer up a lot to anyone who's interested in the characters, but will also hopefully explore the topic in general. I'm doing this because I'm terribly curious about the general idea of how we create fictional characters.

Sound like fun?

If it does, great! Because I need you too, it'll be a lot less fun if it's just me going on about it. I'd love for people to spread the word and chime in in the comments! Give me stories of your own characters' geneses! Tell me how you imagine a famous writer came up with a favourite classic character! Feel free to write up your own blog posts about your characters' births and link me to them!

As of now, I imagine writing about six or seven posts in total, but that might change depending on whether or not people actually enjoy reading them. If you guys hate them, let me know and I'll stop and do this exploring and explaining to myself (and to Steve, who has to bear with this whether he likes it or not, poor lad).

Happy weekend, everyone!