As a writer there are many things you must do right to have a sucessful story. I'm not even talking about being published or famous. I don't mean that type of sucessful, although we all kind of hope one day we'll see our book sitting on a library shelf, but any writer would agree that to have a successful story, you need good quality characters.
I got thinking today about what a character really says about me. In the story, they have to be engaging. It doesn't matter if you love them or hate them or wish they had a labadomy. You just have to write them well. Now, we've heard it a million times: WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW... and that leads me to my experiement. I wondered how well I really knew my characters.
I've written three big pieces with very detailed characters and I pulled out all the main characters in those three pieces and that left me with a total of 19 main characters. Sounds like a lot for three stories, but not really. Not for an old pro like me. :)
Then I started my poll. I wanted to see how my characters were alike and so on... but what I found out was what they actually had to say about me. It was kind of fun. I recommend doing so, besides if you think you don't have time. Do it during writers block it might get you back on track.
Out of 19 Characters:
15 have lost their virginity
10 are male
9 are female
9 hate their parents
6 were raped by evil creatures (scifi story)
6 were sent away to a special help school
6 are hiding in an abandoned building
4 were raped by someone they knew
3 were raped by complete strangers
4 suffer from depression and hurt themselves by form of cutting or bulimia
2 are prostitutes
2 are above the age of 20
1 is a movie star
fun times!!! What do you think?
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