B&A: Regarding your characters...?

1. What are your characters to you? How do you feel about them? What do you feel about the other opinions?

I feel like they are characters portrayed by actors in a show. There's a story to be told, and they are people that don't exist, that don't necessarily act PRECISELY like a real person... but close enough that a reader will be fooled into thinking they are realistic.

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2. When reading, do you see characters as interesting plot-devices or living breathing people? Or something else?

It depends on the story. Ender Wiggin feels like a real person while Harry Potter feels more like a very good caricature.

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3. Have you written about any characters with mental disabilities/personality disorders/mental issues...? How did you find it?

Nothing extreme. Just simple things like ADD, dyslexia, anxiety. Nothing like bipolar or schizophrenia or OCD.

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4. How similar are your characters to yourself or the people around you? Do you base any characters on friends?

I have one character who is sort of like me when I was younger. Most of them don't have a "real person" inspiration. I'm going to be pursuing publication, so I'm not interested in worrying about whether or not someone will see themselves in my villain.

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5. Do you ever feel like your characters are 'going out of character'?

All the time. I'm pretty horrible with characterization. They are either all me or totally flat. Or a caricature/stereotype of a person.

1. What are your characters to you? How do you feel about them? What do you feel about the other opinions?

Well, I see my characters both as people, and as tools. They are devices that I use to create the story, but they are living with real emotions and desires. In some ways, they're like minions, carrying out my bidding. My characters never do something I don't want them to do. Sure I might get an idea where they do something I hadn't expected them to, but if it was something I didn't want, I wouldn't put it there. The characters don't necessarily have any control over the story, I do.

Similarly - when reading...

2. Do you see characters as interesting plot-devices or living breathing people? Or something else?

When I read, it's different. While when I write, they're more of a mix, when I read, they are living breathing people, assuming the story is well written. I feel bad when they die, or something bad happens, I'm happy when good things happen. Feel nervous before they do something dangerous. If I'm interested in the character as a person, I'm more interested in the story.

3. Have you written about any characters with mental disabilities/personality disorders/mental issues...? How did you find it?

I haven't. I don't have any mental disabilities, nor do I know anyone with any disabilities. While I don't believe in the write what you know "rule," I still try to not stray to far in subjects I have absolutely no idea about. I absolutely hate research, so when it comes to characters, I don't normally give them traits in which I have no way to accurately portray.

4. How similar are your characters to yourself or the people around you? Do you base any characters on friends?

In some ways, my characters are all little pieces of me. Not in that horrible Mary Sue way, but they are my creations. I have characters that share a few of my traits, and others that share none, but all the same, they came from me. I don't base them off friends or family members. I might take traits from characters off tv and books, and give them to my characters, but I rarely use traits from people I know.

5. Do you ever feel like your characters are 'going out of character'?

Everyone now and then. Especially when the book I'm writing is really long. The character at the end, may do something they wouldn't have in the beginning. Granted I want them to change and grow, but they can still do that while staying true to character. I wrote something once where I had a strong, tough, yet kindhearted female, who started to become a little over angsty, which was so unintentional and I cringe at the thought, since there is almost nothing worse.

1. I planned out my story, allowing what happened to happen. Then, I retroactively gave my characters specific personalities based on their actions, and then rethought out the story with the final personalities. So basically, the first part was just ideas, and the second part was shaping those ideas into personalities. My characters evolved, and slowly began to attain the property of life in my mind. I don't love my characters, so much as I am interested in them. They are not intended to be liked, or hated, or overanalyzed-- they are who they are.

2. My characters are not plot devices, but not quite complete people. I'm convinced that the more I work with them, the more they will seem like living, breathing people in my eyes. It's all about evolution for me.

3. I have never done so, although some of my characters are nonhuman and emotionally different. I don't think I could adequately write what you are talking about.

4. My characters aren't much like me or my friends. One element of myself was given to a character (she practically makes fun of her own story, and loves to laugh and joke). However, she is a complex character who has many aspects that I don't (mild xenophobia, optimism, a specific religion, and all the emotions that come from her role, one so divorced from my life that I have no idea what I'd do in her shoes). Aside from that, they contain few or no elements of me and friends. One character started as a Sue that I projected myself onto, but by the end of the story he had a personality, which is now is his personality straight from the beginning (although he's overall a dynamic character).

5. My characters constantly went OOC in my first concept of the story. Like I said, their personalities were decided in the end, and those are now their personalities for the whole story, which is now consistent. When I notice an inconsistency now, I either fix it or find a way to explain it (which can add more facets to a character).

Sorry for no moar paragraphs. kthxbai :)

1.) My characters are people or creatures that i just make up in my head. Sometimes, when Im bored, I will imagine them doing things, as if they were actors and actresses acting out my story.

2.) I see them exactly as my characters really ... But more a tool/plot device. :)

3.) No, never. I don't usually write about people in the modern day, more in the past or in a new world.

4.) I don't base any of my characters on friends or family members, i don't know ... It makes it harder if I can't make their personality and who they are up !

5.) Only when the story is. :/ And if the they are, I know the story is too so I either give up on that story and start another, or delete every thing that was boring and rewrite it. :)

I never really think of characters as real people. I mean, I imagine them as living people when I'm reading a book or rereading my stories but otherwise I don't any other time. :)

1. What are your characters to you? How do you feel about them? What do you feel about the other opinions?

My characters are people who pop in my head and let me watch them or make me listen to them while they live their lives. I feel like I'm just a scribe most of the time

Similarly - when reading...

2. Do you see characters as interesting plot-devices or living breathing people? Or something else?

If they're not living breathing people to me, then, imo, the author has missed its marks. A great story is always cool, but if I don't care about the characters who live it, I just get bored.

And a few other questions (No need to answer if you haven't the time)~

3. Have you written about any characters with mental disabilities/personality disorders/mental issues...? How did you find it?

No, not really. Though most of my characters are less than mentally sound. Many of them have serious anger issues and one of them at least is a compulsive, obsessive person who can't control her emotions.

4. How similar are your characters to yourself or the people around you? Do you base any characters on friends?

They never look like anyone I know that I can tell. They all carry bits of me in them. Kess is probably the closest to me and that's because she lives in my city, so she tends to go to the same places, takes interest in the same things, and do many of the stuff I do.

5. Do you ever feel like your characters are 'going out of character'?

They can act out of character if the situation pushes them to that extreme. Just like normal people really. Someone who is normally wary for example may have a sudden desire to trust entirely and unreasonably one person, either because they feel they have no other choice or because that one person has he kind of personality that brings that trust in others.

1. What are your characters to you? How do you feel about them? What do you feel about the other opinions?

My characters are my buddies, I talk to them and they are alive . . . they're real. I hear their voices and see their faces. I've never thought of my characters as plot devices, but I guess if that works for someone else, it's cool.

Similarly - when reading...

2. Do you see characters as interesting plot-devices or living breathing people? Or something else?

Living breathing people. Well not people exactly, I don't have the bond between them like I do with my characters, but they're not just plot-devices.

And a few other questions (No need to answer if you haven't the time)~

3. Have you written about any characters with mental disabilities/personality disorders/mental issues...? How did you find it?

Well there is Avira. She's been alone virtually all her life, because her parents don't care about her, so she's kind of began to talk to herself and her mindset was altered. She's gone mad, especially when she sees the character she believes ruined her life.

4. How similar are your characters to yourself or the people around you? Do you base any characters on friends?

Nope. Never based any on real humans before. The closest thing I've got to myself is that one of my main characters has the same skin tone as me, but so does a whole race of people in our world and the one I created. They will obviously attain either physical or internal traits that have similarities to people I know, but then humans all have at least one other person who looks similar to them in some way.

5. Do you ever feel like your characters are 'going out of character'?

I haven't before, but I'm worried about that in the future, especially when I begin to write the other books in my series. I'll just talk to them and let them tell me if I'm not writing right.

'Sup!

1. What are your characters to you? How do you feel about them? What do you feel about the other opinions?

I hate thinking of my characters as plot-devices, because that's not fair. I'd hate being seen as a plot-device for some almighty power, so why should I treat my characters as the same? To me, they're people. True, they came from my imagination, but they have emotions, families, eye-colours, hair-colours, hands, feet, etc (the list goes on!) just like I do. They're human-beings that just happen to be in a book. The feelings I have for some of my characters is strong, possibly because I drew their character from real-life experiences - it makes me have a closer connection to them than the characters that I've just carved out of stone on the spot.

Similarly - when reading...

2. Do you see characters as interesting plot-devices or living breathing people? Or something else?

Same thing. I don't see them as plot-devices. No writer should go about characters and write the characters' story WHILE seeing them as devices for their own tale. It's like making a baby: once it's out there and in word (or breathing), then they're real and can be hurt and pleased just like other humans. In this case, they *are* real living, breathing people to me. If they had no emotions, like robots, then they'd be plot-devices - because you're just using them -, and they'd just be breathing.

And a few other questions (No need to answer if you haven't the time)~

3. Have you written about any characters with mental disabilities/personality disorders/mental issues...? How did you find it?

In part two, I have two characters: Elizabeth and Arielle.

Elizabeth has been scarred in her early life, though not through war. When she was found by another character, who became her role-model, the other character made her forget her early life - just to help her get through her future. Then, when Arielle was being treated by a therapist in order to reclaim her memory, Elizabeth's past accidentally flew back to her, and she quickly got - because she remember the scarring images so vividly then - post-traumatic stress disorder. She always had it, I guess, but it was cleverly suppressed. Her terrible past and her disorder manipulated her actions from that point on. Up until that point she had always been cheerful and charming.

Arielle has practically the mind of a five-year-old. She doesn't know much about anything, has a weak memory (however, it strengthens when she's dreaming, as it floats up from her unconcious mind [I'm going with Freud's theory in psychology]), and doesn't understand a lot, either. She understands somethings - or at least enough to get by for a day or two on her own-, but not a lot.

[Sorry, couldn't do questions four and five - I've got to go to drama! Ciao~!]

1. What are your characters to you? How do you feel about them? What do you feel about the other opinions?

My characters are my friends, they're mine, they're... people. I have to look at them as people, and not something I created and own, in order to portray them right. Aside from when I actually write my book, I...

No, I don't even know what I was going to write.

It's like they have split personalities. When I'm writing my book I see them as people, I become them as I write in their POV, and when I'm not writing my book they're my friends but so much more than that. I like them more than some people, lol.

Similarly - when reading...

2. Do you see characters as interesting plot-devices or living breathing people? Or something else?

If the writer portrays them that way (James Dashner, The Maze Runner). If the writer's crap then, no, of course I don't see them as real people (Scott Westerfield, The Uglies).

3. Have you written about any characters with mental disabilities/personality disorders/mental issues...? How did you find it?

One of my MC's has bulimia, which the mental and physical struggle is fun to write about. I don't feel like I'm portraying it well, though. Not yet.

4. How similar are your characters to yourself or the people around you? Do you base any characters on friends?

No, no, no, no, no. BIG no. Because they into your friends and you haven't created your own character at all. (Btw, I mean "you" as in me. Lol, just in case I offended everybody who does this, haha).

5. Do you ever feel like your characters are 'going out of character'?

All the frickin' time! Well - not always, but sometimes, and the thing is I *know* it's happening, though the times when it does is when I'm in the flow. I'm only on the first draft so I try not to worry about that stuff now. All that characterisation is for editing.

:D

1. What are your characters to you? How do you feel about them? What do you feel about the other opinions? My characters are...characters. There can't be a story without characters. Even if I write a story about a speck of dust colliding into a speck of dust, then...those specks of dust are still characters. Things have to happen to them, something has to happen to a living thing, or at least an object that is given human qualities, like emotions. I can't write a fiction story about a leaf falling from a tree. This has never really come up before. They're just...there. Yeah, like tools. They help form and manipulate the plot.

Similarly - when reading...

2. Do you see characters as interesting plot-devices or living breathing people? Or something else?

Just as I answered above. In fiction, they are not real. They are not based off any real person unless specifically said so somewhere in the book. Events in the story are not based off of anything, either, unless stated so. It's not that the characters really affect the plot, it's the story that revolves around the characters. From everyone's view except the author's, there is no plot--things just go along based on the characters' actions. Plots do not exist until the end of the book, when you can analyze it. There is nothing but characters. There are exceptions, like when the setting, or nature, affects the conflict (person vs. nature), but for the most part--it's only characters. There is no fate, no "bad luck" or "good luck"--if something happens by accident, there is a reason for it. Someone did something. The same goes for real-life situations, also.

And a few other questions (No need to answer if you haven't the time)~

3. Have you written about any characters with mental disabilities/personality disorders/mental issues...? How did you find it? Yes, yes I did, and I still am. What do you mean by "how did I find it"

--how was I able to write about someone with a disability, how did I discover the disability, how do I know what goes on in the character's mind...? How to understand the character? It's my story--I make it up. I try to make it as realistic as possible, like, I don't make the character sound (excuse me, absolutely no offense intended) "normal" when he/she is mentally retarded. But I choose what the character says.

4. How similar are your characters to yourself or the people around you? Do you base any characters on friends? No; however, it's almost impossible to write ONE HUNDRED PERCENT differently then what comes from your brain. For instance, say I am a sweet, incredibly happy and carefree person, writing from a bully's perspective. I'm a writer, and it's plenty easy for me to think from another person's point of view, so I write from a bully's perspective, and it turns out fine. But if an actual bully re-writes the story, it will STILL be different. Get what I mean? Your characters are almost always at least SOMEWHAT similar to you. They think like you--well, not always, but you can make them think like you if you want them to. As for people around me...well, it depends. I can only manipulate a character based off actions I've seen or heard other people say. If some person in Uzbekistan can do some weird thing with their foot, and EVERYONE knew about it except for me, then I couldn't write about it. I know, I know, it's annoying how literal I take everything, but that's just me.

5. Do you ever feel like your characters are 'going out of character'? No. That really does happen mostly in TV, or really long book series. I write one book at a time, different books, all having completely different characters. I rarely ever write a sequel. A novel is too short for a character to "go out of character" after a period of time--in TV land, however, creators often run out of ideas and the character just kind of...falls apart. When I'm writing, I control the character. That stuff about "Sometimes I can't control my characters--they just do whatever they want to do, sometimes they just form themselves on their own--" that's bull. I'm the writer, and the characters are fictitious. I control them, and I make sure they stay the same throughout the story (unless the purpose is to make them change).

1. My characters are kind of like friends, but not exactly. I don't know how to explain it completely, but I guess I know them as well as I'd know myself, and I've come to care for some of them as I would a friend. Making characters is something I'm good at when writing, I feel like my characters could be real people. (If this sounds like I'm bragging I'm so sorry I really don't mean to! I hope it doesn't sound like that!)

2. When reading other stories, I see characters as real people. I need to be able to connect to characters as real people when I read, because I think that's one of my favorite things about reading books...being able to relate and connect. If I don't see the character as a real person, then in my opinion, the character isn't well developed.

3. I have not, I'm sorry.

4. I usually give my characters maybe one aspect of my personality, or maybe a common interest. Sometimes I base characters off friends and family, sometimes they're completely made up. Oftentimes aspects of my characters' personalities are based off (sometimes unintentionally!) of people around me.

5. I try to make them not go out of character! The more comfortable and used to a character I am, the less this happens, but when I first begin to write them, it happens often and I have to constantly correct myself.

Best of luck with your writing! Hope this helped! :)