I promised, a while ago, that I would write a journal that addressed the writing
and creative process as much as anything else - how I start, and even why.

What makes a memorable character?
What are the themes?
How much do you care about popularity - ie. is it a project you're doing for
yourself, or because you hope it will generate a huge, mainstream audience?
What age-range is it?
And as mentioned earlier - why is it important you do it?
But let's start with...

Where do you get you ideas?

Great ideas do not come fully-formed out of the ether. Even the ideas I've
had that were born of dreams, and dragged screaming from my subconscious
before I forgot them, were an accumulation of living experiences. In Metawhal
Alpha the setting is somewhere I lived as a boy. I know every inch of the
Clock Warehouse, the noises and smells of the place, as well as the referenced
folklore. The Pub in Death and the Myrmidon was indeed a local, and it does
have a well covered in glass that you can imagine some ancient, slime-slick
creature inhabiting...



The point here is that it pays to write about what you know.

I've broken that down more specifically into three areas to write about:

1. What you live
2. What you love
3. What you learn

What you live is your first-hand experience - your direct knowledge
of interfacing with the world. That is your feelings, your emotions, what
scares you, excites you, angers you or gives you peace. This includes the
people you know - which will become important for how you build your
cast of characters. You know from living how people interact, how they
respond to things. You know from living how everybody responds to
the same stimulus in unique and individual ways. You know from
living how things smell, how they feel, how they look. And you can
extrapolate whole imagined worlds from this knowledge. Use it!

My life in Shardlow informed Metawhal Alpha and my upcoming
novella 'Paradise Rex Press, Inc.' My life in London informed
'January Man'. My life in the UK and the US, as well as what I
have witnessed historically and culturally, has informed 'Captain
Stone'.

Mature Content

What you love is part of what defines you, and you will almost
certainly be an expert in these areas! It will help you chose the kind
of characters that populate your world, the genre, the period, the
the smells, sights and sounds. Your love will give your project one
of the most essential ingredients - authenticity. This is crucial to
any fiction if it is to be believed, no matter how outlandish!

I'll comeback to this in the next section!

What you learn is where your world gets its depth. In most great
stories you learn something from the author, and quite often it is
something the author learned that triggered an idea in the first place.

Over the years I've gone from blindly believing in God, for instance,
because my teachers told me I should, to discovering evolution at
a young age, to realizing that there are many compelling points of
view around just about everything. There is no one answer. Over
time my views have radically changed, but my trajectory took me
from blind faith, to science, to a wider look at all religions, to finding
a deep love of anthropology, to new age hippy spirituality, to a
fascination with particle physics and astrophysics, to agnosticism,
to pretty much atheism, and still onwards. My point isn't to say my
path is the RIGHT and only path, it's just to say that my questing
and inquisitive mind led me to a wide and wonderful variety of
subject matter - material that has informed ALL my writing over the
last couple of decades, and the net result is richness and balance.
'The more you know the less you know' is a cliché, and therefore a
truism. It's is also the best way to generate story ideas. Learning
and research will form the bedrock of your story. You need to
know the answers to any questions that may be asked of you. 

What makes a memorable character?

The best characters feel real, and that is generally because they
are based on somebody the author knows, or a fusion of two or
three people. Giving your character the voice of a friend - or
enemy - gives them an immediate cadence. You can imagine
precisely what they sound like, their use of language, their
mannerisms, etc. The way they look can also play a big part.
A friend of mine very precisely matches a character I drew in
'Spawn: the Dark Ages', and he later became Tunny MalTuboly
in my novel 'God Killers'.

You may also be inspired by historical figures, or aspects of
yourself. You may find that a character represents all the aspects
of yourself that are suppressed. He or she may be the calmer,
spiritual aspect of yourself, or the fearless, uncaring beast.
There's fun to be had with wish-fulfillment, setting yourself on
a journey within these stories, this world you are building -
though you should be wary of creating a perfect protagonist
who wins at absolutely everything.

When it comes to imaginative characters you can go way
more exotic. Here your knowledge - what you have learned,
your research - will really help. You might have discovered
the incredible clothing styles of the Inca's, for example (maybe
you watched Apocolypto!) and think, hey - this flying reptile
would look amazing covered in dried white chalky mud, and
festooned with Indigo gemstones!

Alway go a step further than you think you need to. The
added layers of thought will bring your character more life.
He/she/it will seem to have lived more years, and have a
mind unique to them. Remember, your characters have
generally lived a long time. With that comes nuance.

While I was writing 'God Killers' almost out of the blue
it struck me that my character Cherry Longorn could get
really ill at some point. She developed psoriasis, which almost
killed her, and directly informed how she looked and acted
in the wake of such an experience. In fact if she hadn't had
this (unnamed, undiagnosed) condition in the book much
of her resulting experiences would have seemed, well, lame!

Here's a character I am currently developing. I know he
needs to be powerful, and ancient. He needs to have horns,
but I want to somehow not be overboard with that. I'm
fixed on the beard, but should it be white or brown?



A little detail is the tattoo on his face, which represents his
familiar - a horned snake.



And with the musculature - because he's so far beyond human
concepts of strength and power is it OK to go really over-the-
top with him? Or should I reign myself in?



Do I show his face, or does he wear a mask?
Is his face always in the shadows?
How do I make him more alien and other?

When you create your characters you need to know what
part they play in the grand scheme. Are they pivotal? Do
we need to care about them? Even love them? What is their
most prominent quality? Their kindness, or the fear they
instil? Or does the way they look not conform in any way
with the way they actually are?

Regardless of all the above - nothing will ring as true unless
YOU fall in love with your characters and believe in them.


Next up:

What are the themes?
How much do you care about popularity - ie. is it a project you're doing for
yourself, or because you hope it will generate a huge, mainstream audience?
What age-range is it?

Meanwhile:

Which fictional characters have you most identified with over the years?