Post by Felina on Oct 8, 2007 21:11:49 GMT -5
So, your characters. Where did they come from? How were they inspired? Where did their names come from? All of our characters have a story to be told, from their conception as much as from their lives that we as writers allow them to live. Only the conception is almost as much our story as it is theirs. And, every once in a while, doesn't our story deserve to be told as well?
I'll start with Felina, though she's got one of the most jumbled creations that a character could possibly ask for. She started out approximately four years ago as a mere reflection of myself, a smallish girl with brown hair and dark, unreadable eyes (though mine are dark blue rather than dark brown, though apparently as difficult to read; just ask some of my friends). She evolved, though, to be completely different from me. Always, she avoided company, seeking the reassurance of her own mind and the occasional friend or two. It was then that she diverged from me, for while I could be happy off in the woods alone for a short period, I could never be so wholly removed from society as she so often is. Other bits of her story were dictated to me as she grew to have a voice of her own, an image. Her voice always sounded soft and hesitant, but with a piercing sort of importance in her words that cut through even the clamor of the voices of my many characters. I'd place her somewhere in the Midwest or possibly Canada. She was scarred, though, both emotionally and, as her image became clearer to me, physically. Her story really sort of explained itself in time, though it took a couple of years for it to be told. She was truly a created character, one who was at first forced, and thus didn't have the instant connection with me that others have had.
I suppose before continuing, I should explain a bit about my character creation process. I am one of those who essentially allows my characters to 'live' in my head and develop as they will. I rarely have much, if any, control over who they are, what their history may be... I can make slight manipulations, change the manner of their siblings' death, change the location of their childhood home, but I can't change who they are or what they think or feel. That's entirely up to my characters. Thus, my best characters aren't created, but born of my mind of their own will.
Altair and Corenne were two of those such characters. One day, probably a little over a year back, maybe more, they just sort of were there, Corenne with her piercing eyes, watching me entreatingly, Altair standing protectively next to her, as though to shield her from her own creator (though I could hardly claim such a role). And I knew without having to have it spelled out for me that they wanted their story told, that they wanted to live in words that others than only myself might read. It came to me in dreams; I had little hand in its telling, was only the vessel which they used in order to get their story out there. They are, among other things that set them apart, the strongest characters in my mind. I connect with both them, I am both of them. A lot of who they are stems from myself. In them, I see the way that I apparently look at 'Mat' (name changed to protect the innocent), and the way that I have only recently found that he looks at me. It took a photograph of the two of us together for me to see it, and still I don't quite believe it. For... years, now, people have thought us to be 'together'. Only now do I see why. Corenne and Altair, though... the strongest image I have of them, the one I seek to draw but cannot do justice with my own twisted fingers, is nearly identical to the photograph I have. Perhaps it is a subconscious knowledge, or perhaps mere coincidence, but the evidence begs that it's a subconscious metaphysical of thing, which my rationalist brain cries against.
Either way, those two characters are alive in a sense that so few of my characters have the chance to be. They're real to me. They are what I am, what I wish I could be, what I can never be. I cannot imagine, any more, life without those two in my head, living their lives, allowing me to write them down on paper. I really love these two. That's why it's so hard for me to tear them apart, so hard to watch them be absolutely destroyed by themselves. It's also why, when or if one of them dies or commits suicide (which, I assure you, would never be of my own choosing, but theirs!), a part of myself will die as well. They're the chance I'll never have, and would never take.
So, perhaps, while their names were born of another's writing (if you didn't pick up on it, both are words from The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan; Corenne was a word from the Seanchan, Altair a city), they owe tribute only to themselves, for being who they are without any need of guidance.
I'll start with Felina, though she's got one of the most jumbled creations that a character could possibly ask for. She started out approximately four years ago as a mere reflection of myself, a smallish girl with brown hair and dark, unreadable eyes (though mine are dark blue rather than dark brown, though apparently as difficult to read; just ask some of my friends). She evolved, though, to be completely different from me. Always, she avoided company, seeking the reassurance of her own mind and the occasional friend or two. It was then that she diverged from me, for while I could be happy off in the woods alone for a short period, I could never be so wholly removed from society as she so often is. Other bits of her story were dictated to me as she grew to have a voice of her own, an image. Her voice always sounded soft and hesitant, but with a piercing sort of importance in her words that cut through even the clamor of the voices of my many characters. I'd place her somewhere in the Midwest or possibly Canada. She was scarred, though, both emotionally and, as her image became clearer to me, physically. Her story really sort of explained itself in time, though it took a couple of years for it to be told. She was truly a created character, one who was at first forced, and thus didn't have the instant connection with me that others have had.
I suppose before continuing, I should explain a bit about my character creation process. I am one of those who essentially allows my characters to 'live' in my head and develop as they will. I rarely have much, if any, control over who they are, what their history may be... I can make slight manipulations, change the manner of their siblings' death, change the location of their childhood home, but I can't change who they are or what they think or feel. That's entirely up to my characters. Thus, my best characters aren't created, but born of my mind of their own will.
Altair and Corenne were two of those such characters. One day, probably a little over a year back, maybe more, they just sort of were there, Corenne with her piercing eyes, watching me entreatingly, Altair standing protectively next to her, as though to shield her from her own creator (though I could hardly claim such a role). And I knew without having to have it spelled out for me that they wanted their story told, that they wanted to live in words that others than only myself might read. It came to me in dreams; I had little hand in its telling, was only the vessel which they used in order to get their story out there. They are, among other things that set them apart, the strongest characters in my mind. I connect with both them, I am both of them. A lot of who they are stems from myself. In them, I see the way that I apparently look at 'Mat' (name changed to protect the innocent), and the way that I have only recently found that he looks at me. It took a photograph of the two of us together for me to see it, and still I don't quite believe it. For... years, now, people have thought us to be 'together'. Only now do I see why. Corenne and Altair, though... the strongest image I have of them, the one I seek to draw but cannot do justice with my own twisted fingers, is nearly identical to the photograph I have. Perhaps it is a subconscious knowledge, or perhaps mere coincidence, but the evidence begs that it's a subconscious metaphysical of thing, which my rationalist brain cries against.
Either way, those two characters are alive in a sense that so few of my characters have the chance to be. They're real to me. They are what I am, what I wish I could be, what I can never be. I cannot imagine, any more, life without those two in my head, living their lives, allowing me to write them down on paper. I really love these two. That's why it's so hard for me to tear them apart, so hard to watch them be absolutely destroyed by themselves. It's also why, when or if one of them dies or commits suicide (which, I assure you, would never be of my own choosing, but theirs!), a part of myself will die as well. They're the chance I'll never have, and would never take.
So, perhaps, while their names were born of another's writing (if you didn't pick up on it, both are words from The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan; Corenne was a word from the Seanchan, Altair a city), they owe tribute only to themselves, for being who they are without any need of guidance.
