[Yellow]

Mr.James, on May 23 2009, 11:11 PM, said:

?

off topic: where can I post some of my feeble attempts at poetry to get some feedback? do I start a new topic or do I post them in the existing thread? I saw that it wasn't active recently so that's why I'm asking !!!!

Up to you, mate. I'll warn you now though that this board is pretty quiet, especially with poetry, so it may be a while before you get feedback

[Mr.James]

okay...Posted them in new thread...hopefully someone will read them!!!

This post has been edited by Mr.James: 25 May 2009 - 09:04 PM

[Use Of Weapons]

This may sound incredibly poncy, but my characters arise organically out of the situation I discover them in.

What I mean by that is: I will have a situation, and a world, and a magic system, long before I have any people or other creatures in it. So when I focus on a particular time, the history of the place means that there will be people in some positions as a consequence of the demands of the history. And those people will have personalities and individual situations that arise from their position in the created society and its milieu.

Thus: in my WIP, I have a few hundred immortals who have been around since the creation of the world (almost), but whose members can be added to or eliminated through choice. (One out, one in.) They have specialisms, and are known by what they do (the Architect, the Bard, the Seer, the Archivist, etc.) All of these have chosen to be immortal so as to pursue excellence in their chosen field. This means that they are, in some proportion or other, obsessive; jealous; curious; blasé; weary; superior. I can then, for each one, create a history that tells me what proportion of each characteristic is necessary to serve their position in the plot.

As for looks, that really isn't something I focus on. Description is a layer I add after writing the plot. So that, when I come to describe a character, I know what their motivations are, and can construct a visual that matches.

Hope that makes sense.

[Fist Gamet]

Sounds fine to me, and why not? We are each of us at least partly products of our environment. You do what you must and create what you need in order to tell the story you want to tell - that's how I see it.
In the case you have described, the only potential problem I can see would be in creating characters beyond that initial creation so that they do not remain as one dimensional creatures. That might not be the case but it seems to me as a potential pitfall - after all, we are not just defined by our jobs / vocations etc... unless of course in your world, for this race, that is indeed the case!

[Use Of Weapons]

Those particular immortals are defined (by the rest of the world) by their jobs -- but they are still people, with the motivations, petty jealousies and rivalries, loves, and losses, of all people. But magnified (or in some cases, leavened) by their age and experience.

There are plenty of other non-immortal characters (some very long-lived) to span the gamut of human experience. But a stratified society of immortals I imagine would achieve a certain...stasis. Until it was shaken up by an external force. (Dun-dun DUNNN!)

[Fist Gamet]

I always imagined that immortals would be the most frustrating people you would ever meet. I mean, if you actually could live forever, how would you be motivated to ever do anything? How unbelievably bored would you become? I would think they would become distracted and spend months, years or decades considering single questions or such like. Don't you think you would end up doing a hundred different jobs throughout your life? Immortals in a world with mortals need only put their money in mortal's banks and investments and wait a couple of centuries to become wildly wealthy, then they could buy power in any form. Also, if tey trained with weapons and magics for centuries then no mortal could surely defeat them?

Musings...

[LadyMTL]

I've never used a template for character creation (like jitsukerr, I tend to write up characters as needed) but I usually have a basic idea of how many I'll "require" before I even start writing. For example, a few years ago I wrote part one of a fantasy trilogy---a very average part one, hahahaha---and I knew that I would need 4 female characters (a mother, two daughters, an evil wretch) and two males (a father, another evil wretch) right off the bat.

I didn't have much of an idea of their looks / personalities / etc in the beginning, that all came later. Once I had gotten into writing the story, though, I did create a cast of characters template just so I could keep them all straight. I didn't want to end up saying that so-and-so had striking green eyes if I had described him as having dark eyes two chapters earlier...

[Fist Gamet]

Yeah, gets a bit complicated if you have a large cast. I have had a few characters undergo sex changes mid-way through a story...without my knowledge Sometimes it pays to attach one or two specific nuances to each character (big hands, tattoos, red hair, bow-legged, purple eyed) and leave the rest to the imagination. If the writing is tight enough you shouldn't need to describe every detail all the time.

[Use Of Weapons]

Yeah, my immortals are pretty much the bad-asses of the story.  But there are other immortals around who derive from a different origin (one of my death gods is called 'The Postponer', which might give you a clue), and the evil big bad guys (who are not really evil, but that's how they come across to the non-immortals) are also immortal, though they rejected the agreement that gave the first guys immortality, and got theirs through a different path.

The 'good' immortals have all the coolest weapons and magical tech, and they share it with everyone who asks (except for stuff that has been proved to just start wars).  They are, at the beginning of the story, primarily teachers, researchers, and were the genesis of their nearest neighbours' politcal structure (an empire based on Plato's Republic, led by elected Philosopher Emperors).  Gives me a lot of material from which to draw characters.