How to Create Good Characters

This is not a post about character as in a person's character. It's about charaters, as in books and movies. Keep reading if you want to find out how I create characters.

First off, create a sort of form/character sheet. I gernerally use this one.

Full name:
Nickname:
Gender:
Age:
Personality:
Crush:
GF/BF:
Likes:
Dislikes:
Strengths:
Weaknesses:
Talents:
Description:
Other:
History:

Now, that seems like a bunch of random things. Here's the same form, but with a breif explanation of each word.

Full name: The full name of your character. Such as Lucy Rae McFly
Nickname: Any nicknames your character might have. Include deragatory/harmful nicknames.
Gender: This is pretty obvious, right?
Age: Pretty obvious?
Personality: Use a series of words to describe your character. Such as 'helpful, mistrusting, angrey, loving, silly, bubbly, fun, annoying' and any other adjectives you might come up with.
Crush: Who your character has a crush on.
GF/BF: Your character's boyfriend or girlfriend, if they have one.
Likes: A list of likes. Could be anything from apples to swimming to hand grenades. Both things your character likes to do, eat, see, and what types of people they like.
Dislikes: The opposite of above.
Strengths: This is different from likes. While your character may like some things, they may not be good at them, or the thing may not be able to be a strength. (like apples... how could that be a strength??)
Weaknesses: Opposite of above. Also things your characer doesn't like doing (such as telling lies)
Talents: Choose a few strengths (or even weaknesses, since telling convincing lies is a talent, albeit one we don't really want) and list them here. This is what your character is really good at.
Description: Describe how your character looks. Don't just find a picture and say 'that's it', take time to describe how your character looks. Let's face it, this is great practice for describing things when you're writing as well.
Other: Anything else not covered by the other topics you wnat to include.
History: This is where you write a bit about your character's past. Try to have a decent sized paragraph on this. You don't have to go in depth, just try to have their life outlined in simple sentances.

Now I shall show you a character I've created with this form. In the story this character is in, he is stranded on an island with the rest of his school class.

Full name: Markus James McKethe
Nickname: Mark
Gender: M
Age: 18
Personality: Kind, honest, loyal, stubbon, a little loud, funny, has ocasional bouts of moodiness, can be serious when needed to be.
Crush: It will most likely end up Rebecca
GF/BF: None
Likes: Jokes, honey, coffee, climbing, soccer and football, frisbees.
Dislikes: Losing, not having coffee, people who can't take a joke.
Strengths: Climbing, finding honey and coffee plants, identifying plants, general althleticism, endurance.
Weaknesses: Sprinting for much more than 25-ish yards, making things that stand up to a stiff breeze, math, art of any kind (he's horrible at it).
Talents: Finding and identifying plants, finding honey, climbing, endurance.
Description: Markus is slightly above average height, at 6 feet tall. He is pretty muscular since he has been working out for four years. He has reddish brown hair and green eyes. He has huge feet that he constantly trips over.
Other: He is very clumsy, klutzy would be a beter discription.
History: Markus was born to a 17 year-old girl who made a huge mistake. She knew she wasn't ready for taking care of an infant, so she put him up for adoption. Almost right away he was adopted. Markus grew up in a loving family. He has seven siblings, two sisters who were born naturaly to his parents after they adopted him, one brother who was also 'natural' child, an adopted brother/sister set of twins, and two more adopted brothers, both older than him. He learned how to make himself heard by having that lot for a family. His older brothers are both married. The oldest has two kids already and the younger of them has one child. Markus had a best friend named Rob when he was 13. One day Rob dissapeared and was never found. Markus has always felt guilty about that. He feels as if he could have stopped it.

And there you have it! That is my way of creating a character. Of course, any character that's created has a great chance of growing into something you weren't planning one, so don't worry if that happens and ride the tides of your imagination!

ba-dee ba-dee ba-dee, That's all folks!

I haven't heard

There are a couple words I haven't heard in months. A few words that don't seem that important, but reall are some of the best words girl can hear.

I haven't been called beautiful by a guy since my dad died. Four months ago.

On one website I enjoy playing RPGs on, the players I 'hang out with' have all been girls for nearly as long as I can remember. About three weeks ago, a guy joined our group. We gve him the nickname Dude because he was the only guy. One of the girls strted a chainmail that was called 100 hugs. In it, she wrote hug one hindred times. Then she told us to pass it on. So of course we all sent it to each other in our group.

Dude sent me a copy.

I told him thanks. He sent back a reply saying 'You're welcome, beautiful lady."

I hadn't been called beutiful by a guy for four months.

It ade me sob.

I didn't know how much I needed to hear those words until someone sad them.


I miss my daddy a lot.

Cold Outside and a Mug of Warmth

It's raining.  It has been all day.  This morning I spent an hour, hour and a half doing some science.  Yeah, I know.  It's Saturday.  I shouldn't be doing any school.  But last year I got behind in science due to all that was going on.  Now I've got a provincial exam for last year which happens to fall on my birthday.  Not fun.  But in other news I'm going to get my driver's license.  Not telling what one (the L or the N) because that would give away my age.  But that's was happening.  And I'm sitting here at the computer with a mug of hot chocolate (three and a half very full scoops of powder, a sprinkling of allspice) and almost falling asleep.  I've also had a cold (and still have the annoying thing.  I'm very stuffed up right now) and am trying to get over that before my family goes to the states for a few days for my cousin's wedding.  Flying does not feel good when you have a head cold.  And I get earaches while flying ayways, so I'm not sure how this time will go.

Well, see ya round.