Building Character - Creating people for your stories.

[Anya]

I'm going to make my wishing thing its own thread, so I can explain the worldbuilding and expand on everything.

I'm pretty much jumping on 'The Art of Wishing' and 'The Fourth Wish' magic sytem, so if anyone is interested in reading them I have the first book in pdf.

[Bluelantern]

I have this idea/setting, called “Lighthouse” for a story for a couple of years now, but never manage to get off ground partially because of my blind spot for the main character.

I re-using a good chunk of my ideas from the Luminosity Fanfic “Never Forgotten”, mainly the odd family structure with one cheating father, multiple mothers and six siblings (the number of mother was changed from five to three).

The main protagonist in Lighthouse would be, Temperance Greengard/Grayson - She has the power to copy powers from others, but only one at time. Her powers had been recently activated and she would have issues controlling them, since she doesn’t have to control a single power, but any power she is coming by. Also, she just discovered that she has five half-siblings and has to live with them and cope with that.

Aside from that, I don’t have much, her past is a huge blind spot. I can imagine things for it, but they never quite seem “real”. You know when you see something and thinks “Character-X would totally do that”? I don’t have that with Temperance.

I know it is partially because of her power, and partially because the story starts with her being place wher she has no attachments. There was also the fact that she is a biracial cishetero teenage girl... and I am not, and I don’t want to portray her incorrectly.

So far the only template characteristics that I have for her is that her powers tends to be versatile, not necessarily strong, but stuff with multiple uses (metamorphing, waterbending, very precise telekinesis, etc.). There is also the fact that her father tends to have multiple spouses/children but that would his template.

Temperance is the fifth child. Her half-siblings are the following

---

• Arya Blackwell. Replacing Never Forgotten Harry and now is a twin with Ezra. It is a pretty much a new character, and after reading Zev’s I can’t help but feel that Arya is much less inferior quality. :/
• Ezra Blackwell (based on Thomas from Never Forgotten). I don’t have huge character portrayal problems with him except making him slightly less like me, because Thomas was too much like me due to being the first character I wrote extensively. While the main in Never Forgotten his role is diminished in Lighthouse enough that I don’t think it is a big deal.
• Franklyn Whitepond. The other day he told me he is actually biromantic. I try to be accepting of his lifestyle choices, but I think it would have too much impact in the story in ways that I find unnecessary
• Meghan Whitepond. I might need to make her a little less alpha bitchy, or at least work out her alpha bitchness with more realistic depths.
• Adam Whitepond. Needs to have more flesh to his character, but being the youngest and shy, it can be somehow excused.

I have basic stories and events for most main characters and even for very minor characters (like the estranged brother of Franklyn’s werewolf girlfriend becoming a reporter), but I can’t just think of anything for Temperance.

[anthusiasm]

Bluelantern: Sorry if this seems rude, but why is Temperance in particular your protagonist? She seems to interest you less than all the other characters. Maybe the story's really about someone else. (Also, if you want an example of a well-developed "alpha bitch" character, Billie from Dumbing of Age has a surprising amount of pathos).

DanielH: As someone who has trouble giving my characters distinctive voices, one thing that I try to do is maintain a document listing common turns of phrase and speech patterns for each major character. I'm not sure how much it's helped, but it's nice to have a reminder. (I know Cara and Parvati talk in a similar way, but that's partially intentional because they're both introverted bookworms).

[Bluelantern]

Bluelantern: Sorry if this seems rude, but why is Temperance in particular your protagonist? She seems to interest you less than all the other characters. Maybe the story's really about someone else. (Also, if you want an example of a well-developed "alpha bitch" character, Billie from Dumbing of Age has a surprising amount of pathos).

I might create a separated thread to talk about this story/setting, but the main idea is that Temperance gets kidnapped and in an attempt to find her, the family triggers a mass empowering event. The dormant mages in the world start to activate and there is the consequences/tension caused by this, with Temperance being the cause. In this context I feel she is the only possible protagonist even if I give the spotlight to one of her siblings, she would get tons of attention.

However, there was the other siblings story.

I was going to have something where the non-Temperance siblings got involved in the uprising that disbanded the previous supernatural leaders, and Temperance would often think how the situation feels like a YA novel and she (Temperance) arrived late, years after the ending for the epilogue. I suppose I could work with that.

A main problem with Temperance and how hard it is to come up with stuff for her is that *anything* I could create for her background is sort of detached from what the main story is about. I think you are right that she is less interesting, but I feel that is half the truth. She is less interesting because any character or trait from her past needs to exist isolated from her present.

Sorry if it is too confusing, I need to sleep.

[Shoal]

Temperance sounds a lot like Addy to me.

[Bluelantern]

Temperance sounds a lot like Addy to me.

While they have a level of magical curiosity, they aren't much alike. Temperance got her megamaning from her Dad, who can do pretty much the same thing, plus the fact that she has something of... a passion to try new things by herself. I don't think Temperance would be very scientific about trying new powers, she would just try them out for the experience.

although, it is not like I have much more to work with... hum...

[anthusiasm]

I don't know, Temperance being sort of a laid-back, goofy kid who likes playing with different powers as opposed to an Addy-style mad scientist sounds pretty fun to me, if that's where you wanted to go with her.

[Bluelantern]

I don't know, Temperance being sort of a laid-back, goofy kid who likes playing with different powers as opposed to an Addy-style mad scientist sounds pretty fun to me, if that's where you wanted to go with her.

I was thinking in making Temperance be sort of like Renée, she picks hobbies/things to try but never get serious about anything, to the point it manifested when she got her powers. That said, yeah, that is the direction, goofy kid that got lucky in the power lottery + family drama (Funny how i sounds so easy when other people point it out to you, I am now starting to wonder how purely pyschological this writer block is...)

Edit: and thanks

[Bluelantern]

So... what I need to know to RP a cismale that likes to wear skirts?

[Anya]

They like to wear skirts! ;)