Sitting Like a King or Queen... - Sitting Like a King Forum

Topic: Sitting Like a King or Queen...

I have to say that I can't stand one of the characters that I have created. Why, because I feel that she is a cold heartless witch. I didn't mean to write her that way, but that is how she is turning out. Sometimes I think that character write themselves.

#1 Oct 17th 2006, 12:21pm

Yet, back to the question I think that she sits like a queen since she is going to be one.

#2 Oct 17th 2006, 12:28pm

Marinus

I have one character who is a cold-hearted and vicious man. I'm now having trouble breaking that to progress the story, but I think he sits like certain older members of high society I could name - ramrod-straight and radiating disapproval. Sometimes, I think all he lacks is the opera glasses (shiver.) He also sits like an icy tyrant - a good description of what he might become.

#3 Oct 17th 2006, 12:51pm

I've got a charactor who is a king (or at least an elfin equivilent of one), but he slouches, and plays with his hair. He's a really nice character, but I fear he will not be so well a leader . . . I'm going to have to work on that . . .

#4 Oct 17th 2006, 1:17pm

Or you could always just have him killed off. That's just how I handle business...

#5 Oct 17th 2006, 3:16pm

But I couldn't! He's the romantic lead . . .

Though it would make a romantic tragidy! XD

Anyway, I might kill off the female lead, and the rest of the story would be kind of boring with both of them dead.

Unless I somehow involved zombies . . .

Perhaps I could just give him a regent or something, to take care of buisness for him. Maybe. He could just be a figurehead.

#6 Oct 17th 2006, 3:20pm

Weak males need to be killed off. The regent would just probably do that anyhow.

#7 Oct 17th 2006, 3:31pm

Killing off characters is fine, but you have to have plausible excuse to do so. You can't just have a bullet magically appear to pierce his heart. You need motive: Why does someone want to kill him? Why was it necessary for him to die? If it was not necessary, who does his death affect? I'm all for killing off characters or at least getting rid of some of them, but you have to have a reason that the reader understands and appreciates.

#8 Oct 17th 2006, 7:08pm

Anyway, I started this forum so I should probably add something about one of my own characters. A guy named Soth Maore. He's manipulative, controlling, persuasive, thinks of the bigger picture. At the same time, he is a racist egomaniac who several readers seem to like. My main character is a calm despot who is hell bent on killing his brother because the brother supposedly wronged him. I'm trying to get the readers to see the main character as the protagonist of the story while also seeing his transformation from a hero to a monster.

#9 Oct 17th 2006, 7:11pm

A calm killer you say...interesting.

#10 Oct 17th 2006, 7:18pm

The idea of the story is that there has been a war for several years and that death and the act of making someone dead has become a common act. My protagonist, Hunter, has grown up on the battlefield, making killing a way of life and necessity for living.

#11 Oct 17th 2006, 7:20pm

I always enjoyed war stories, and I am kind of writing one myself. I'll have to look into yours sometime, when I have the time. If my life is not ever busy...darn homework...

#12 Oct 17th 2006, 7:28pm

Dusky

I find that my characters tend to develop on their own without my intervention. They live their lives, I just chronical it.

#13 Oct 18th 2006, 2:26am

I agree that the author should chronicle the character's activities to a degree, but as the lord of whatever world you've created, you are able to produce circumstances that bring out the best/worst in them. Really, how many characters would go out of there way to fight hordes of monsters if they could simply sit back and have someone else do it? Yes, the character has a sense of responsibility, but at some point they get tired and want to quit. As an author, you can't 'just' chronicle what occurs, but help the reader make connections and force the character to act. Any character we create is a part of ourselves. A portion of our imagination. So, in a way, we are ourselves having these conversations we concoct and telling the tales of the deeds we do in our own minds.

#14 Oct 18th 2006, 9:16am

Dusky

Then I live my life and I just chronicle it? Does that make more sense?

#15 Oct 18th 2006, 10:25am

maybe it's more chronicalling your emotions and thoughts through a fictional medium. That writing is how we express our inner beliefs, and your characters are a way to express that to one another. I think it's impossible to create a character with no ties to yourself, or at least not a good one.

#16 Oct 18th 2006, 3:34pm

Complications

I'm big on planning (vague planning like what's gonna happen and who my characters are), but I still just let things happen. As far as I'm aware it's very possible to not chronicle one's own emotions and thoughts into ones characters and still have a good character... it's just a bit harder to write. As a writer you have to be able to make each of your characters individuals. Like Shadowhound's Soth Maore probably has a very different outlook to Shadowhound so Shadowhound had to go outside the box to write him... Well okay, I have no way of knowing that I'm not talking garbage, but its good rubbish right?

#17 Oct 19th 2006, 5:04am

Dusky

Fair enough.

#18 Oct 19th 2006, 9:05am

I'm not saying that every character you write has to believe in the exact same things as you do, but they generally do reflect them. Per say, one could write a horribly racist character, when one does not believe that to be right, but the character would show their racism in a bad way, so even if one liked the character they would percive their flaws. Writing something that isn't true to your beliefs is like lying tot the world on who you are as a writer. Or at least those are my thoughts.

#19 Oct 19th 2006, 4:06pm

ONETRACKMlND

I am writing about a character (not on fictionpress) that sits like a psychotic knight. He is always fighting for somebody else, rarely for himself, and he has a severe case of scytzophrenia.

#20 Oct 25th 2006, 1:47pm

Schizophrenia. Anyway, I wouldn't say psychotic knight because that automatically gives the reader an impression about him. When you write it, instead of you labeling him insane or only doing things for other people, show the reader that he is and does those things. Show the reader instead of telling them.

#21 Oct 25th 2006, 7:04pm

My one question is how a psychotic knight would sit . . . balanced on the tips of his toes perhaps, or very alertly?

#22 Oct 26th 2006, 5:37pm

ONETRACKMlND

I have another character, Ryan, who sits like a surgar junkie warhorse- he's always ready to fight, but normally hyperactive and clueless. And he commands the Netauri Alliance, one of the most powerful armadas in the galaxy.

#23 Nov 25th 2006, 3:43pm . Edited Nov 26th 2006, 5:56pm

That's not a good combination.

My character probably sits on the edge of her seat. She's broken a mirror and has horrible luck, so she's a little jumpy.

Hey, look! There hasn't been a post on this thread in three years! Cool!

#24 Mar 07th 2007, 7:56pm

The forums have been up for less than a year - it looks like it, tho. In fall it'll be the first aniversary! Yay!

Ah . . . superstisious characters are muy devertito!

#25 Mar 11th 2007, 5:29am

Oh, right... I was looking at how long people have been members. My mistake. :)

Yes, they are. (Is it divertido? Whatever) All my main characters in that story are horribly superstious. And they're all really weird... but it's fun to write.

#26 Mar 11th 2007, 9:47am

There's this story I just started, and I'm really loving one of my major characters. He talks in a monotone, stares blankly at the wall, never meeting anyone's eyes. He says things as shortly as possible. He never shows any personality, not that he doesn't have one, he just doesn't show it. The other main characters think he's such a freak. :)

And I bet that he sits up straight and stares right ahead with no expression on his face.

#27 Apr 07th 2007, 11:22am

A problem with writing a character like that is the reader can't sympathize with him easily. From what you said, it seems like you are trying to make a stone cold killer. The guy who doesn't flinch when confronted with the bad stuff, and pulls out a knife with a serrated edge just because it is easier to saw through the bones. Am I coming close? If not, ignore the next part.

Think about why you want a character like that. If the other main characters think he is a freak, how do they act around him? Just think heavily about that character. More often than not, that desciption you gave is lost in what you have the character do. Make sure that if this character changes, the core values you put in him don't.

#28 Apr 07th 2007, 4:42pm