# First Characters



## Shouden (Sep 6, 2008)

Well, for me, today September 6th is the day I celebrate the birthday of my first character and thus my entrance into writing.

My first character is a human by the name of Samantha B. Helena. (don't ask what the B stands for. It has gone through many changes over the years.) She was born on September 6th, 1920 which means she turns 88 this year. She has taught Elementary for a little bit, but then studied medicine and quickly became a doctor at the Spokane Medical Center. She helped condemn the SMC and later bought the land, tore down the old hospital and built a brand new hospital called Spokane Mercy Hospital.

She has 3 children and is divorced. He ex-husband was very abusive and it was his actions  that eventually landed him in jail and got the courts to give Lu Wong, a friend of the family, custody of the children.

Samantha is 5'10 with long grey hair with traces of her once jet black hair.



Anyways, who is your first character? What do you do to celebrate them and your entrance into the writing community?


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## Xipoid (Sep 6, 2008)

Unfortunately, I have this amazingly wonderful failing memory, so I'm just going to describe the oldest one I can remember.


Jomki I believe it is (I have older characters I'm sure)... I never gave him a last name, and now I refuse to do so as I feel it will detract from his existence. In summation, he's an anthropomorphic wolf about 17-19 years old, a complete loner and very asocial having taken on the occupation of Hired Help. Personality wise, he's humorless, rather blunt, and holds little regard for life beyond his own... kind of a jerk now that I think about it.


I don't do anything to celebrate. I just write a bunch of stories with him in them.


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## TakeWalker (Sep 6, 2008)

I find this an odd question. Up until very recently, my characters have always been singularities, meant for a story or series of stories but having no life outside thereof. I really don't understand the usage of continuant characters, for lack of a better word, that I see in writing today.


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## Shouden (Sep 6, 2008)

That is your opinion, Walker.

Xipoid cool. Interesting character I think.


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## Nargle (Sep 7, 2008)

My first character was Ulilliaka Swifteye, a silver and cream anthropomorphic squirrel archer, based off of my favorite Redwall character, Russa Nodrey (the Long Patrol). I also kind of pasted her into the Swifteye family, a preexisting family of squirrels in Marlfox. I created her back in 2001, and surprisingly, she's stuck with me. I've never written any stories about her, but I've roleplayed her quite a bit.


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## M. LeRenard (Sep 7, 2008)

I used to come up with little characters all the time, but most of them were more in drawings than writing.  I think the first character I tried to write about would be the Plutopian King, who was the king of the city of Plutopia, on Pluto (which made him an alien, of course).  He had a friend who I just called Seahorse Guy (because he sort of looked like a seahorse) and another called Inviz (who wore a mask and only had one eye).  I had big plans for them all to go around the universe adventuring and discovering mysteries and stuff (and of course meeting dozens of other characters along the way), but I don't think I must have written more than 20 pages of that subject.  That was probably 12-14 years ago, so I was really young.  I sure don't remember the exact DAY I came up with him... and I don't do anything to celebrate it, either.



> I find this an odd question. Up until very recently, my characters have always been singularities, meant for a story or series of stories but having no life outside thereof. I really don't understand the usage of continuant characters, for lack of a better word, that I see in writing today.


What exactly do you mean?  Is there some other way to use a character in writing that doesn't put them in a single story or series of stories?  All that was asked was 'who is your first character?'


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## TakeWalker (Sep 7, 2008)

M. Le Renard said:


> What exactly do you mean?  Is there some other way to use a character in writing that doesn't put them in a single story or series of stories?  All that was asked was 'who is your first character?'



I honestly do not understand the question. It sounds to me more like asking who was your first LARPing character or something, rather than anything that would end up in fiction, and I feel that many writers on this site treat characters this way now.

I think I worded my original question poorly, as well. The difference, I am saying, is that, the way I see it, a character shows up in a story, or, say, a series of novels that have a beginning and an end. After those novels are completed, the character's story is over.

What I see others doing is writing endless series, wherein the characters continue to undergo new experiences that might not otherwise have happened if they were in a closed piece. These works continue without any planned end, and thus become more like life chronicles than works of fiction.

So I guess my answer would be "Whoever was the protagonist of my first story." But whoever that person is, he is lost to the annals of time, never to be heard from again.


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## Tanzenlicht (Sep 7, 2008)

Professional writers get attached to characters too.  Mystery writers usually have a pet detective who wanders through all their plots endlessly.  Sherlock Holmes anyone?  Stephen King has a pet character or two who occasionally show up in slightly inappropriate places.  Not every writer does this, but some of the best aren't making up stories, they're writing down the chronicles of the people who live in their heads.

If the question doesn't apply to you, perhaps you should consider staying out of the thread.

I can't remember the first character I ever told stories about, but the first I ever wrote down solidly was a dragon named Khalad.  I find the story very silly now, but I've never quite given up on him.


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## Shouden (Sep 7, 2008)

I agree with Tanzen: if you don't like it, don't respond.

I am really like hearing about all the first characters you guys have had. It is interesting how a lot  of us have held on to our first characters. I wouldn't be surprised if that was true of a lot of authors.

Anyways. I look forward to reading about some more first characters.


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## Poetigress (Sep 8, 2008)

What I believe TakeWalker is talking about is the phenomenon of having a character (usually one that matches one's fursona) who winds up in a lot of different stories (different genres, even), other than the world they were first created for.  For example, somebody comes up with a wolf mage character, creates their whole backstory and so on, and then starts putting that character in everything they write, regardless of whether they really "belong" in that story world.  It's like using the character as an actor who takes on different roles, instead of having them just be a part of their own world with a single life and setting -- more the way an artist uses a recurring character.  This is the kind of phenomenon I never really encountered in fiction until I started reading within the fandom, and I admit it still confuses me, because to me a character is so bound up with a story's setting and plot that I can't just pluck them out and put them in something else completely different.  While it is true that there are series using the same characters over and over in mainstream fiction, the characters usually stay in their original setting and time period unless someone's going for humor or experimental fiction.

But if the question is simply "who is the first character you ever created?," for myself, I really don't remember.  When I was little I wrote tons of stories with cartoon rabbits and dogs and so on, but names and personalities are pretty much lost.

And if "I don't remember" isn't a good enough answer and I should have stayed out of the thread... tough.


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## TakeWalker (Sep 8, 2008)

Poey once again hit it right on the head. I'm sorry if my tone came off poorly; it's not a question of not liking, but not understanding. I wanted a little discussion of the phenomenon. The only characters I've ever had like that have been for private RPs, stretching back to high school, who I didn't use for 'actual writing'.


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## Shouden (Sep 8, 2008)

Poetigress, that is fine that you don't remember.

By the way, Walker and Poet, I don't use my first character outside the universe she was created in. I don't use any of my characters outside the universes  I created them in. I agree with the whole "why would you do that" question. But then again, I don't really write furry fiction, but mainly Sci-fi. The only reason why I would move them around is to do fanfiction.


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## ScottyDM (Sep 10, 2008)

Poetigress said:


> What I believe TakeWalker is talking about is the phenomenon of having a character (usually one that matches one's fursona) who winds up in a lot of different stories (different genres, even), other than the world they were first created for. ... I admit it still confuses me, because to me a character is so bound up with a story's setting and plot that I can't just pluck them out and put them in something else completely different.


I agree, that's inappropriate. Characters should be crafted for their role, not simply dropped into any old story. Sometimes when a professionally published author will reuse a character, even in the same storyworld, the second book kinda falls flat.

There's a potential "fall flat" with the Harry Potter storyverse. If J. K. Rowling reuses Harry and company in a future series, there's the strong possibility it won't work. Wasn't the old series supposed to be the end? How do you top, "happily ever after"? And you can't really reuse the same batch of bad guys again because they either died, or many of those that survived at least treat Harry and company with some respect. "Oh yea! Got whupped last time and my arse handed to me on a platter. Think I'll go for round two."

Of course this doesn't address the issue of using the same character in wildly divergent storyworlds just because the author likes them.


Something that's somewhat related is reusing a species because you've done so dang much work researching that species. But we don't know anyone who does that, do we?  


Wow, first character... well, I anthropomorphized our pet ferrets. But for a created character that'd be Milliscent. She's a small cluster of computers in reality, but in virtuality she's a 5' 4" tall slightly-pudgy small-breasted skunk girl (sweet 16) who refuses to wear clothing because she insists her fur is adequate coverage.

Sometimes characters have a mind of their own. In my second major story my 6' 2" tall rat girl (bad genetics, she has an endocrine problem) decided she was raised in an Islamic household. That was cool for the first story, but now she's in a novella and she's lying awake at night, scared half-to-death, and she clings to some comforting thoughts. I can't use the 23rd Psalm. Arrgh! What sort of scripture comforts Muslims? I tried Google, but didn't come up with anything that seemed to fit. So I skipped that bit for now. Fortunately we have a Mosque in town so I can toddle down there and ask them when the time comes.

I've had a character hijack a story. Wrote a couple of chapters and this girl (who didn't have a name or even any spoken lines) decided she wanted the MMC (male main character). In a dream this nameless girl, the heroine, and my muse showed up to debate the issue. The heroine didn't much care as long as she got the MMC in the final chapter. My muse came up with this plan (some of it whispered so the two ladies didn't hear). The poor MMC was there too, curled up in fetal position whimpering, "Don't I get a say in any of this?" Sorry, dude, but no. So now nameless girl has a name, a brother, brother's fiancee, mom and dad, grandparents on dad's side, a family incident that happened seven generations earlier, an ex-BF, a childhood incident when she was nine, a duplex near the college she attends, a college major (she's a senior), a roommate, and the roommate has a BF. Whew! Now I worry what the heroine will say when she discovers there will be two chapters _after_ the "final" chapter, and she goes from being the heroine to being the other woman.

Dang blasted characters!

Scotty


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## Shouden (Sep 10, 2008)

Yeah. I can't count the times I started writing a story from a character's POV and have the story wonder off in a direction I had not intended. (Shouden likes to do that a lot. And i still have another short story and the better part of a novel with him in it. Oh, well, should be interesting.) But I think a character's ability to take the story in a places you don't intend just makes them all the more real.

"I want you to do this."
"WHAT!? I wouldn't do that, nor am I ever going to! Listen buddy, you may have created me, but it's time for me to lead."

These kinds of conversations should be normal and frequent between a good writer and his characters. This will let you know that you have officially become a writer.


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