Picking Up Strays

I've been thinking about additional characters. What sort of interesting folks are our three heroes going to come across? Will any of them tag along for the ride?

My reason behind this idea? Well, I've been listening to a lot of Fall Out Boy lately, for some reason. And so all these bits and pieces of songs keep popping up in my head and giving me ideas. I'm sure I've mentioned it before, but music is a huge inspiration for me, for writing and otherwise. The inspiration for the current idea? This:

"I don't know where you're going but do you got room for one more troubled soul?

I don't know where I'm going but I don't think I'm coming home"

- Alone Together

What kind of person could this be? A friend? Or not so much? Where do they come from, and where are they going? They have to come out of some pocket of weird, knowing this story. But is that evident from the get-go? Or do they seem perfectly normal up front, and it's only after time that it all starts to unravel?

I have a lot of questions, as you can see. And not a lot of answers.

Now, you'd think I'd break out the ol' character questionnaire and start uncovering every detail of my main characters. What are their fears and catch phrases, and what do they most regret about when they were five. But I'm not going to. And here's why. I hate it. I know that it's how I "should" do it. That's why they make these things and people swear by them. Because it's the "right" way to do it. You figure out everything about a character, and then you stick them in a story. But I don't like it. The constraints of it, the structure… it's suffocating. It takes all the fun out of character creation and makes me hate the character before they even have a chance to prove themselves. I tried it, and I can't do it.

So for now, I'm going back to the more organic approach where I randomly add things to the character as I'm going. They might not even have a personality until Chapter Five. And that's okay. It's my story, and that's how I roll.

All I really need to start is a few character traits for each main character. Just something to set them apart from each other. The rest will follow. It's worked just fine for me in the past.

"But all your past projects are half-assed rough drafts," you might say.

And they are, but they had some great characters with the misfortune of being trapped in a poorly executed plot.

So I welcome all the random characters that wander into this story, whether they're just stopping by or they decide to stay a while.

I'll see you Tuesday.