I enjoy getting to know someone new, to know what they've experienced and what makes them tick. This weekend I did get to know someone new this weekend, and it was fun and interesting to hear the stories he told. I'm also getting to know several other new people. I am engaged in writing character bios for the characters of the book on which I am working.
It's a little strange because these characters are fiction, right? I'm, in a sense, inventing them, right? To both of those questions I would have to answer, "Sort of."
Just as poems and stories seem to write themselves, my characters seem to create themselves as I write the bio. For instance, Logan, my main character, is an 11 year old boy with red hair and a vivid imagination. These things I knew. This is the part of the character I created. What I didn't know, until I started writing his bio, is that he is afraid of spiders and loves Superman ice cream even though he doesn't care for that particular superhero. He prefers Batman because he has to find a way to defeat his foes with things he has invented or paid others to invent. Batman wasn't born a superhero, nor became one through negligence or happenstance. He became one through his own hard work and ingenuity.
I didn't know these things about Logan, but now I do. It will make my character more real since he's now more real to me. I definitely advocate writing bios as well as getting to know new people in real life!
It's a little strange because these characters are fiction, right? I'm, in a sense, inventing them, right? To both of those questions I would have to answer, "Sort of."
Just as poems and stories seem to write themselves, my characters seem to create themselves as I write the bio. For instance, Logan, my main character, is an 11 year old boy with red hair and a vivid imagination. These things I knew. This is the part of the character I created. What I didn't know, until I started writing his bio, is that he is afraid of spiders and loves Superman ice cream even though he doesn't care for that particular superhero. He prefers Batman because he has to find a way to defeat his foes with things he has invented or paid others to invent. Batman wasn't born a superhero, nor became one through negligence or happenstance. He became one through his own hard work and ingenuity.
I didn't know these things about Logan, but now I do. It will make my character more real since he's now more real to me. I definitely advocate writing bios as well as getting to know new people in real life!