This week's Weekend Writing Discussion question:
Who is your favorite character you have ever written?
As of right now, my answer is simple: It is Maxwell Montana - a prominent member of the supporting cast in The Great Lenore. I say "as of right now" because, as I swim deeper into the depths of Blue The Person, I realize that Blue (who, incidentally, is the oppostie of Maxwell in nearly every way) might very well usurp Maxwell's throne. For now, however, Maxwell is the king of the proverbial mountain.
Why do I love Maxwell? Well, you caught a glimpse of him in the six page sample of The Great Lenore, but here is another chance to watch Maxwell in action. This is a small excerpt from the 2nd chapter of The Great Lenore:
*
About an hour later Maxwell puttered around the corner, wearing skivvies and an undershirt, and he passed through the drawing room and flipped me off and smiled and slipped into the kitchen.
He sprinted from the kitchen a few seconds later, laughing under a deluge of shrieked reproaches from Mamma Montana—“Make yourself decent before you come down here again!”
Maxwell returned after another half hour and put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed and told me to join him outside. I excused myself from the men and followed him to the back porch.
“What a colossal bore, huh? Good Gaaawd!”
He slumped down into a white wicker chair. His shirt and pants were slightly wrinkled. The sun bounced off his face to highlight his two-or-three-day stubble.
Maxwell’s hair (greasy blond, just barely too short to make a decent ponytail) was pushed back off his face. He wore flip-flops. It was thirty-five degrees outside.
He stretched his legs out in front of him and stretched his arms toward the ocean. He looked up at me. “I bet you’re wondering where Lenore is, huh?”
“Lenore?”
“Lenore,” he said, and he said it as if I was stupid for not knowing what he was talking about. He slipped a cigarette from his pocket. “My brother’s wife.”
“Oh. Right.”
“Right.” He lit the cigarette and started smoking.
“What was your question?”
“Why don’t you sit down, brother.”
“Okay,” I said. I sat down beside him.
“Lenore. Haven’t you wondered where she is?”
“Oh. Not really, I—”
“She’s back in London.”
*
I guess part of what makes me like Maxwell so much is the fact that he is unlikable in nearly every way. Which makes him entertaining. And fascinating. And pitiable. And even enviable. All at once.
How about you? Have you ever pondered this question before? And if you haven't pondered it, ponder it now.
Who is your favorite character you have ever written? And why? And if you're feeling especially generous...let us know where we can go to get to know this character a bit better!
(P.S. Today, Paul Joseph had a great post about gaining insight into a character; don't be afraid to click on the link - it won't take you away from here. Well...it will, but I mean to say that it will take you away from here in a new window, so you won't forget that you wanted to tell us about your favorite character down below!)
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I'm working on a story now where I'm falling in love with the main character, Ivanhardt Demonsbane.
ReplyDeleteI'm still in the pre-writing stage of the story. I'll tell you a little bit about Ivan though. He is the emperor of the dead land Qoromoro, and is feared around the world. In his culture you earn your surname in battle, and because he is so brutal to his enemies, his men named him Demonsbane.
When Ivanhardt is set out to claim the land that his god promised him he and his men are slaughtered. In the afterlife Ivan's god Er Aeon comes to him, and offers the opportunity for revenge. Ivanhardt accepts and is resurrected to a half decayed body. The problem for Ivanhardt is that his body never stops decaying, and he must kill the avatars of his enemy god before his body rots completely.
I can't wait to start writing prose for Ivanhardt. Just imagining this character has been a load of fun.
My most favoritest character I ever created has to go to my antagonist turned hero in my King book. He was the one character who majorly (love those "ly" words..hee hee) rebelled against me. He absolutely refused to be the antagonist by asking me just who I thought he was. When I got to know him, whoa! Me thinks me in love...he had to be the hero who saves the king.
ReplyDeleteMy YA novel that I am querying now has a really cool guy in it too...not a hero though. He is sorta like a danelion. Nothing keeps him down for long.
nice topic :-)
I love my tragic anti-hero, Ehecatl. In my contemporary fantasy book, he's the conflicted product of the union between a spoiled, malicious Urtunni noblewoman and an Irish freedom fighter. He's been wedged between a rock and a hard place his entire life and left with no good choices. Finally, he gets the chance to leave it all behind him, but not without a price, of course.
ReplyDeleteThough I love Ehecatl, the favorite amongst my beta readers is Stinkerbell the mustang mare. It's fun and challenging to anthropomorphize a horse, and she's very popular.
As much as I hoped I could choose someone other than the protagonist, I can't. Michael Kearns is, to date, my favorite character ever written. Perhaps if my story was not told from his POV, or if he and I did not share the same brain, it would be easier to like someone more.
ReplyDeleteMichael is a fifteen year old freshman growing up in Louisville, KY. He is the second of four brothers who has spent his life competing for one moment in his parent's spotlight. Michael loves Lady Gaga, watches American Idol religiously, and reads anything he can get his hands on. He enjoys college basketball and swims competitively. And his IQ is 162.
Michael entertains me. His comments are witty and often comical. He calls it like he sees it, and is often dead-on. He's sensitive - overly sensitive at times. But he's also generous and compassionate and misunderstood. Like all teens, he has issues. He's a teenager on a journey - a journey that, even as an adult, teaches me a great deal about the world we live in. It takes a special teenager to be able to do that.
Unlikeable characters can be mighty fascinating.
ReplyDeleteMy own favorite is a character that I've toyed with for the past 40 or so years. He appears in snippets of a novel that I have yet to finish. His name is Larry Tibbs. He is a husband and a father who is unremarkable and who leads a boring life. The main events of my story are when he goes on vacation with this family, he mows his lawn, and he buys life insurance. He is a hero of the mundane and trivial. I don't know why he fascinates me so, but those who have read portions of the story I have written so far seem to like him as well.
Lee
Tossing It Out
I feel as though I have cheated, as many of the characters I have written in my life to date have evolved from people I know or have observed. I won't lie to you all, the best character in my current work is so closely based on a friend of mine that I haven't yet even altered his name in the manuscript.
ReplyDeleteI can't quite say that his character is biographical: it's more that when I project the characters actions and thoughts onto the page I always have my friend in mind, and when I weigh up the directions I could take the story at any point it is invariably he that takes charge and dictates. He is not the main character (the 'narrator' is just another name for a thinly veiled characterisation of myself; another short cut perhaps) but I think he is the most fun to read and he was damn sure the most fun to write.
His entire world view is flawed, yet he is the purest of them all. In my mind he is the most human. He steals the show.
I finished my draft and I felt that I had a greater appreciation for my friend's overwhelming strengths, even as I created a character from his essence that was fundamentally flawed.
(To this day I am not sure if I will even tell him how he was used. The irony of the whole situation is that I worry about what some people will think when they read it [ie. that I betrayed his friendship] but I know that he himself would be nothing but honoured. That's just the type of guy he is!)
I have a couple up my sleeve. At least one from each book I've written. *bites lip* Although I'm not completely comfortable sharing much. I can give you the gist of a few subplots.
ReplyDeleteAll time favorite character belongs in my first book (name of which I'm keeping to myself - I'm greedy that way). David Athala is a halfbreed bar owning Apache. He's in love with someone he can't have. When she finally realizes the depth of his feelings for her - he dies, leaving her on the run for her life. Surprise, surprise this isn't a romance - more like a Paranormal Suspense.
David steals my heart, he's got that doomed lover written all over him. Yet you can't help but want to cheer the poor guy on.
In my third book, Elijah Grey is a close second. He's the opposite of David in every way possible. He has the overconfident ego thing down pat. If I wrote the story right he's also got a huge heart that few know of. He's the defender, the compassionate soul in the background. He doesn't need anyone to know how generous he is and he's comfortable enough with himself to let a kindness be just that.
Elijah is unpredictable and fun as all get out to write. He's a hunter, a fiddler, a brother, and all around Irish troublemaker.
And those two are just secondary characters. They're rather a nice compliment role-playing beside my main characters, to say the least. They're the lighthearted balance to the gritty horror that plays itself out. I think we need to explore and have some fun with our characters. Definitely makes the writing more challenging.
If we didn't have something to like about our characters (even the evil denizens) we wouldn't have the heart to write them into a book. (Hugs)Indigo
I once created a minor character, just to use for one scene, he's an old bootlegger. Well, as soon as I gave him a name, Rufus, he started saying these things that I had no idea where this stuff was coming from. Then I change the scene so he was just "the man" because he wasn't that important, but he was such a great character that I gave him a bigger part in the story and he actually because one of the main characters in the next book.
ReplyDeleteWow I found the long winded post people just like me - Whew, I was thinking I was an only child out here!
ReplyDeleteI love the name Demonsbane. I also have characters who end up just showing up. I don't have a bootlegger - but I have a fondness for that out of patience sort of person.
I am going to read **The Great Lenore** - just to see more Maxwell - love him already. He's that sort of guy you think might just be a little insane only to discover he's toying with you - he's so far ahead- the only reason your even in his sight is that he slowed way down for you! (the cover is just so many layers of YUM - but now I have that need it thing going on!)
My favorite that I have written so far is my Broken Djinn- suicidal, tortured, evil, hard and still filled with hope. He yearns to end, but can't have it until he finishes his fate. He meets the main character and his love for her is so bitter-sweet. He's not wanting death because he's selfish - but he's old and his spirit is so tired. The loss of a friend, child, or love, 3000 years ago, weighs on his heart with as much power as if it were two. He has made mistakes - there was that little issue with the whole flood thing and his mother hasn't spoken to him since - she has waited 6000 years for him to fix it and he's still not found a way. He has had many names in time and this time he picked Seth (after his twin brother Set) and he finds a little of his old self lurking in the trusting eyes of 15 year old Natalie. He laughs about being an old fool - at 38,000 it's hard to date women his own age.
He is bad tempered, beyond powerful and yet rather than taking a moment for granted - he savors it - because he knows how few of them there are in even a life as long as his. There are bits of time in him from his very long life - he has a very old horse named Morvarc'h - a water horse- his friend once rode out of the sea when the city of Y's was falling - he drinks scotch by the bucket and can pipe a bit if the mood strikes him. In egypt, he taught man to write. During the crusade against the Kathars - he was Mirepoix - who stood with his friends in the fire screaming because he could not die with them. He unleashed the black plague after they killed his Templars.
He is both great and terrible and I have to say I adore him.
Not published - so kinda out of luck with the share - there are a couple pages on my blog under the 99th page blog fest. (first kiss)
I also have a character named Lucifer - check out 'how do you love Lucifer' and drop me a comment! Can you could buy him as a good guy?
Great question!
Everyone has such interesting names for their favorite characters and it all sounds so amazing. Well done guys!
ReplyDeleteI just adore my main character in my (soon to be pounced on by an agent with vision - hehe) novel, Black Rain. William Carlyle is extremely intense, sexy and street wise but has foolishly and consciously capped his own emotional depth at about the level of an empty Coke tin. He is in his seventh life and is pretty fed up with (repeatedly) dying at the age of twenty-two and (repeatedly) being sent back because of lessons he stubbornly refuses to learn. So fed up, in fact, that he is now grasping at straws and making dodgy deals with people who have seriously twisted agendas. Unemotional, immovable and controlled William's life starts unravelling, initially for the better, when he meets eighteen year old Alexandra Black who is just as emotionally vacant as he is. When he realises that he is being played, in very much the same way as he has conducted all of his lives, he gets a taste of his own medicine and takes a turn at the brink of insanity.
I love the fact that William is forced to change through a complex set of circumstances and is ultimately pushed into choosing between who he is, who he has become and who he can be given the opportunity (and a little nudge in the right direction).