Characters

I know it's a popular topic to write about, but it's always interesting to hear about other people's work on their characters.

Characters are usually very personal, or at least they are to me. The majority of mine often have some aspect of myself; my temper, my belief's, nearly always my sense of humour or one of my favourite hobbies, just to name a few things I can give them of me. One of my friends said that in every character of mine she sees, she recognises part of me in them.

I also find that a character is usually the basis for any story I wish to write. They walk into my head and nag me until I write them in something. Currently, I have two characters who won't stop bugging me whenever I write anything. I always find the hardest part is trying to write them a story that justifies them because- to me, if no one else- they seem so real to me. I know their likes, dislikes, their secrets and dreams. They walk into my head and tell me what genre they belong to, like my two current characters seem determined to be in Science-Fiction/Fantasy, despite the fact that I've never written in that genre before (even though I quite enjoy these two genres).

In this way, I suppose, the story for me is alive before it's even written purely because my characters are alive. I can't ever abandon a character, I can write them down and 'leave them on the shelf' so to speak, until I've found them a new home and indeed, at the moment, while I haven't had enough life experiences to properly create a world for them, this is where most of my characters end up. But I could never leave them.

I don't know if this is the same for any other budding writers to be, but I feel completely responsible for my characters. It doesn't matter if I ruin their lives, as long as I put them somewhere; they are not just 'on the shelf'. So, I very much hope, that all the characters I create can come off the shelf sooner rather than later.