I love my characters

I don't know if they're incredibly or amazing or ground-breaking or anything, but I love my characters because they're like friends that I get to spend time with each time I write about them. I try to put as much into their back stories and who they are as I do the plot itself - even if the back stories are something only my eyes will ever see. I have as much fun creating villains as heroes, and I'm constantly wondering what happened before my story began. It becomes quite overwhelming sometimes actually... I want to write it all but I can't do it all at once (and I only have so much attention span....)!

I fall asleep thinking about my characters and their many adventures, constantly wondering how I could craft them into an interesting storyline to be written at a later date. I wish I could draw them, but that usually escapes me (unless it's in the form of cartoons of course... I have examples of that in previous posts). I can't help but talk about my characters and when things remind me of them I laugh, wishing the whole world was in on what I consider an inside joke between my characters and myself. (Every time I see the first star, for example, I think of my dearest Lawrence Habberdash. If only he were real, we would have so much fun watching for it!)

I think its always a character that sparks a new idea for me too. It was a picture of Lawrence that inspired Happenstance, the idea of a character like Luka Nills (I will later explain) who brought out Zone-E, and of course I have many other references from my head that I don't even want to mention right now for fear that I'll get so excited about them that I'll want to start writing their stories now (Let's finish Zone-E and the sequel to Happenstance first, shall we?)

Okay, so now I'll tell you about Luka, just a little bit. She's the youngest person to have ever become a head guide in the N.A.T. (She's 23), and she's very fun. She's happy, optimistic, and a darn good leader too! I think the first time I ever thought about her it was a scene where she comes in from the snow, all bundled up in snow-clothes to the point that you can't tell if she's a boy or girl. She surprises whoever she's meeting by turning out to be a girl in fact - its not a job that many girls get into. This later translated into a scene in the book, I couldn't resist. (I feel no shame in giving this away, its no secret). I don't know why I love her so much, or why I was so attached to her in the first place, it just happened. I have to say she "guided" me to a pretty great story though.. teehee.

And then I love Lyza too. She's my spunky, annoying, lovable little protagonist. I couldn't have done this story without her (it is told from her P.O.V. after all). She filters in my sense of humor quite a bit and gives the story a fun voice. Of course, she can also get a bit serious (I do consider this a sort of coming of age story of her after all, among its other ideas...) Although, I have to give credit for Lyza's purple hair to my little sister. It was her love for hair color that inspired that one :P ....I don't think I could ever go purple

Okay, so now that I've got myself talking about Zone-E characters, I can't help but mention Ollie. Believe it or not, he started out as a girl, but I scratched that pretty quick. He had to be perceived as an heir to his father, a threat, a chance to be just like him - but then its obvious he's not. Oliver channels my shy side, but shows strength and growth too.

So I guess that must make you wonder, Hey you! Who's Oliver's father and why is he so important? Well, Ollie's father is the villain of course! Lord Avarice is mean, corrupt, and had a love for collecting treasures. He's actually one of those characters that I want to write a spin off about (What made him so mean? Trust me, I've got ideas)

You know, all this talk of my characters makes me want to write about them.... (Haha, ulterior motive achieved) I'm off to edit more of Zone-E so I can share all of my fictional friends!