((Please don't feel obligated to read everything I put here, just read enough to post a reply and I'll be happy))

Basic Information

Name: Mark Kole

Species: Mostly Human

Age: 26

Occupation: Trusted adviser/Cook/Bodyguard/House-keeper/Slave or anything else his boss, who is a powerful crime lord, tells him to be.

Legal Status: British citizen. No crime record, only because he’s never been caught

Marital Status: Single

General Appearance

Mark usually has a friendly appearance. He’s got a firm jaw, Roman nose and a charming smile, as well as a pocket full of other smiles, including some annoyingly roguish, arrogant and “I know something you don’t” smiles. His green eyes are bright and expressive, but not as noticeable as his smile. He’s about average height and build and often walks with and arrogant sort of swagger. His voice has a British accent and is often amused, or sarcastic.

While he sometimes has to wear a suit, Mark usually dresses casually in baggy jeans and plain black or blue tea-shirts, with a leather, or jean jacket. When he cooks, he’ll wear a white apron. Often he wears sunglasses, especially in bright sunlight and he likes baseball caps too. When he’s not at home he carries a small black backpack, swung jauntily over one shoulder.

Height: 5’7”

Weight: 175

Hair: Plain Brown and curly. It’s just long enough to pull into a ponytail, which is how he usually wears it.

Eyes: green

Other Distinguishing Features: He has very nice, white teeth.

Mentality

Personality: Because of his selfishness, arrogance and mean-spirited teasing, Mark has often been accused as a jerk, or an **. He isn’t bothered by this, never having been a man to care what others think, or to have sensitive feelings. He’s much more likely to laugh at the accusation, rather than try denying it.

Mark has very little strength of character. Even at the age of 26, his morals, beliefs, even his identity in a way, are yet to be found and placed. So far he’s been fine with being, believing and doing whatever is he told, or what is easiest at the time. He likes to get what he wants, but isn’t really sure what that is in the big picture of life. He tends to use people, or put them down in order to get what he wants and tends to be mean for the fun of it.

Despite all this, Mark’s not a very bad person. He’s not very good either. At the time he has potential to go either way, depending on what company he falls into.

If you can get past his arrogance and teasing, he’s actually very friendly and can be quite charming, if he wants to be. All in all, he' and as easy to like as he is to hate.

Although Mark first appears to be confident, and happy his outwards appearance is almost all an act, covering the weak yet to be discovered self inside. As a result, his usual optimism sometimes swings to a rather depressed moodiness. He adds nothing good to the world and he doesn’t expect anything good from the world in return. Sometimes, though he would never admit it, he can see that some people have something he’s completely missing out on and this causes him to question his life, but, as of yet, he’s not had the guts or motivation to make something better of himself.

Habits/Tendencies:

He tends to smile a lot ~ He leans on things ~ Puts his hands in his pockets ~ Sometimes he hums, if he’s in a good mood and especially if it annoys the people around him.

Fears: Mark’s a coward so lots of things. In particular he’s fears:

Being helpless and unable to understand the things and people around him. ~ He gets faint at the sight of blood ~ Gunfire ~ Creepy-crawlies ~ Dying.

(Note: He has no extreme phobias.)

Likes:

Cooking ~ Cleaning ~ Making Jokes ~ Annoying People ~ Girls ~ Music (any genre) ~ Putting people down so he’ll look cool ~ Puzzles ~ Riddles ~ Gambling (as long as he can cheat), ~ Good food and wine.

Dislikes:

Loud noises ~ Bright lights ~ Bad smells ~ Crowded places ~ Traveling ~ Getting sick ~ Losing ~ Smokers ~ Blood ~ Bad food ~ Animals ~ Being bored ~ Messy places and people ~ Public Bathrooms ~ Violence ~ Roughing the great outdoors.

Hobbies: His job keeps him pretty busy, but, when he has time, he likes:

Cooking a lot and he’s very good at it ~ Doing puzzles ~ Playing videogames, but doesn’t waist a whole days doing it. ~ Some times he’ll surf the web. Usually doesn’t go to the best kind of sites.

Weaknesses:

Because of his sharp senses, he is very sensitive to bright lights, loud high-pitched sounds and other extremes. He is also rather vulnerable to people with mind controlling powers. Besides this, he’s not that strong and doesn’t have high endurance. He also gets faint at the sight of blood.

Strengths:

Super sharp senses, Mark can see farther on a dark misty night than most men can on a clear day. He can hear a man’s heart beating from three feet away, smell and taste each different ingredient that makes up a meal, and feel the slightest change in temperature. Whether or not he registers everything he senses is a different mater. Often things just wash over him, the way an uninteresting conversation across the room does, for most people.

Mark can also read thoughts. He can tell what someone’s thinking and see what they may be remembering, or imagining at the time. He has fast reflexes and is very hard to sneak up on. Mark is very good with guns. Thanks to his eagle eyesight and fast reflexes he hardly ever misses and can hit targets from great distances. However, he is not very good with hand to hand combat and avoids violence for the most part.

Personal skills:

He prides himself in his cooking and shooting. He can speak fluent English, Spanish and, while he can speak French as well, his accent is so bad that the French usually tell him to shut up and stop insulting their culture. He also knows some Japanese, but can understand it much better than speak it. He’s a very good actor/liar. In fact, he’s better at being someone else than being himself. He’s also very good at cheating, reading minds gives him some advantages there. He can pilot a helicopter, but hasn’t done it in a long time.

Weapons

The only weapon he carries regularly is a handgun. He doesn't know how to use a sword or a bow, he learning magic, but has only had like two lessens so far.

Biography

Known Relatives:

Mark doesn’t know who his father is and his mother died when he was very young. He was “adopted” by his mother’s lover, (not his father), Richard Winston, who saw Mark’s unusual skills and thought he’d be useful. Although Richard raised Mark, they never had anything like a father/son relationship. Richard always acted more like a boss and treated Mark like an employee, which he did become, as soon as he was old enough. Diego Muerte, 8 years older than Mark, is another orphan with unusual skills that Richard “adopted.” So he’s something like a brother, however there’s nothing but hard rivalry between the two and certainly no brotherly love.

Past or current notable Relationships:

Mark still works for Richard Winston and with Diego Muerte. He’s had a number of girlfriends through the years, but has never gotten into a serious relationship. He has trouble making and keeping and close friends.

History:

There was probably some alien in Mark’s heredity, explaining the thought reading and sharp senses. However, Mark knows nothing of his heredity and so neither he, nor anyone else can say for sure. Mark was a mistake and unwanted, by his mother. She nearly had an abortion, decided to keep him last minute. As a single mother, she had a lot of trouble raising and feeding her son and often regretted that last minute change of heart. For the most part she stuck him in cheap daycare and continued on with her less-than-respectable life. She was involved in the underground drug market and fell in love with a rich and powerful “businessman, ” who dealt mostly in illegal trading. Shortly afterward, she died by getting hit by a car and her boyfriend, Richard, adopted Mark, who was only 7 at the time.

It soon became obvious that Richard hadn’t adopted Mark out of love, or kindheartedness, but Mark was used to being unloved and was actually quite pleased with the change in his life. At least here he was wanted, and wasn’t ignored. Richard immediately put Mark in the best private schools, as well as getting private tutors for him, so as to train him to be a loyal and capable servant.

Although Mark tended to be somewhat lazy and apathetic about his studies, he soon learned it was best, or at least easier, to just do what he was told and he ended up being a fast and capable student. Being smart and a mind reader gave him some advantages.

Although he was able to keep from being an outcast, Mark was never able to maintain a healthy social life in school. He was too busy for one thing and besides that, he was always too mean to have friends and too small and adverse to violence to be a bully, or part of a gang.

As soon as he was out of school, Richard hired Mark to do whatever he told him to do. Mark found he was good at just doing what he was told unquestioningly, it was easy anyway. Since then Mark has been involved in quite a bit of illegal and dirty dealings and has become one of Richard’s most trusted men.

Sample:

“We’ve been driving all night and we still haven’t even passed Tulillo. I told you we should have turned west back at Vasillano,” said Mark, without looking up from his game-boy, “We are so lost.”

“We are not lost!” exclaimed Diego, in angry frustration, gripping the steering wheel of his truck harder. “I know exactly where we are!” he lied.

Mark tossed aside his game-boy and stretched, putting his hands behind his head. “Come now, Diego,” said Mark condescendingly, “After all these years, you should know better than to lie to me. You have no more idea where you’re going than does a chicken with its head wrung off.”

“I know where I’m going!” yelled Diego.

“Can you really be, as dumb as…” Mark read the thought in Diego’s head, just in time to brace himself; his foster brother slammed the breaks. He barely saved himself from cashing through the windshield. Next time Diego drove, thought Mark, he’d be sure to wear his seatbelt.

“You want to finish that sentence, Kole?” demanded Diego, turning from he wheel and grabbing Mark by his tea-shirt.

“N - no,” answered Mark cringing slightly under the Mexican’s bad breath and harsh words, “I’m sorry! I’m sure you know where we’re going.”

“Bien!” barked Diego, releasing the younger man roughly and starting the truck again.

Silently Mark retreated back to his seat and gingerly straightened the wrinkles from his shirt, as he glared venomously at the driver.

After another half hour of traveling silently into the middle of nowhere, they finally came across a small village. Dawn began showing faintly through the dust and heat waves. All that seemed to make up the small town was a large farmer’s market and a dirty gas station.

“Let’s stop here and ask for directions,” said Mark.

“I don’t need any f***ing directions!” growled Diego.

Mark rolled his eyes. “Fine, but you do need gas and I need to buy some food, if we’re going to have any dinner when we get there.”

Diego didn’t answer, but he slowed and pulled off the dusty highway into the shabby gas station.

“So get the food and get something for breakfast too!” ordered Diego bad temperedly, turning the truck off.

Mark didn’t need to be told twice. He’d been trapped in with that son of a ** too long. Grabbing his backpack. He got out and hurried toward the farmer’s market, leaving Diego to get the gas.

Fifteen minuets later, he was happily still shopping among the exotic Mexican fruits, carefully picking the best pieces from the stands, by using his keen sense of smell as he exchanged jokes, or insults with the venders in Spanish.

He was picking through some papayas, when Diego marched up, a map in his grimy hand.

“Damn you Kole!” he shouted accusingly, “Should have kept your blabbing mouth shut! Thanks to your f***ing directions we’re HOURS off track!,” he slapped the map with his hand, nearly ripping it in half.

Mark looked casually over at him, an amused grin twitching smugly on his face, as he fingered the firmness of a papaya in one hand. “So we should have turned west at Vasillano, no?” he asked.

“We’re going to be late, and you can f***ing bet Richard won’t like that. Damn you, it’s all your fault!”

“Of course it was,” said Mark, rubbing in sarcasm in every way possible.

“You better watch it Kole,” threatened Diego, grabbing Mark’s shoulder, “Come on, we’re leaving.

Mark shook himself out of Diego’s grip annoyance clear on his face. If Diego could waste hours of their time driving the wrong Mexican highway, he could at least have half an hour to shop the market. The food and prices here were the best he’d come across. “I’m not done getting food, still looking for the perfect papaya,” he said turning back to the fruit stand.

Diego’s face turned red with rage. “F**k papayas!” he shouted and then lifted the whole fruit stand and threw it down a hill into a cactus patch, as if it’d been no bigger then a crate.

The vender stood horrified then yelled angrily at Diego “What you do! My stand! You f…”

“Diablo! Shut up, you wanna be next?” threatened Diego in Spanish, giving the vendor the finger.

“That was hardly necessary,” commented Mark calmly, putting the last safe papaya into his bag.

“Get in the damn truck, vamamos!” shouted Diego and marched off.

“But who will pay me? I am ruined!” mourned the fruit vendor.

“Sorry, friend. Guess I’m not the only one whose life sucks,” said Mark, with an apologetic shrug, before he followed after Diego. He’d had plenty money he could have compensated the man with, but he wasn’t about to waist money on a nobody Mexican.

I have to say that your character description is one of—if not THE—most detailed I have seen on this forum. Extremely well done.

I’m really rather surprised in the way you described Mark. A lot of writers have the tendency to think their characters are all-powerful, and it is admittedly difficult to come up with a well-rounded character. You started off describing him as an alright guy, but didn’t allow your readers the allusion for long. I can conclude that this means either you as the writer have a profound sense of him or his internal weakness and mean-spiritedness are obvious to one who might know him.

He has the traits of a care-free but conscious man…almost like an Average Joe.

I hadn’t intended to read the excerpt, but was too intrigued not to. I’m surprised, but not really, that Mark backed down when Diego got angry. It’s revealing.

Do you have any explanation for why he’s so much of a wanderer?

Wow....VERY detailed...

I like the character from what I've read about him. He seems very well rounded, and you haven't made the mistake of making him half a character. Many authors like to create characters that they admire and do not really explain their behaviors or why they the person that they are. I do have a couple questions...

How do his super-human senses play into his role as a manservant to his mother's former lover?

Is there any reason why he does not have much strength of will? It seems to me that a person with super-human senses might be more independent. Perhaps some childhood incident or his upbringing?

You said that Mark has trouble making friends. How loyal is he to those that he befriends? It seems to me that if he finally managed to earn someone's friendship, he would give his first born son just to keep them.

Besides these questions, very well done. This is a whole character, not just five paragraphs of whatever you think is interesting haphazardly glued into some ungodly semblance of a person. (I don't like unjustified characters very much, as you may be able to tell.)

((To Dream Weaver))

Thank you so much for your response! I'm sure you've experienced the excitement and gratitude of having someone take time to consider and give feed back on your work and really it's like no other feeling!

I have to say that your character description is one of—if not THE—most detailed I have seen on this forum. Extremely well done.

I'm glad you liked me having such a detailed and long description. I was worried that it might be too much and put some people off, or bore them.

I’m really rather surprised in the way you described Mark. A lot of writers have the tendency to think their characters are all-powerful, and it is admittedly difficult to come up with a well-rounded character. You started off describing him as an alright guy, but didn’t allow your readers the allusion for long. I can conclude that this means either you as the writer have a profound sense of him or his internal weakness and mean-spiritedness are obvious to one who might know him.

It both really. I am very well aquatinted with the ins and outs of this character, and his faults are fairly obvious to those who are around him. He's not a hero, and not even really a protagonist. If I had to say if he was a good guy, or a bad guy, I'd have to pronounce him a villain. Although I generally think of him as lost in the gray, between the two sides.

He has the traits of a care-free but conscious man…almost like an Average Joe.

I have no problems with Average Joes, that's actually what I usually try to go for, when I come up with characters. "Average Joes" tend to be more well rounded and easier to relate to, than Supermans or St. Teresas.

((To Myrror the Mad))

First off, I want to thank you very much for taking the time to read and review this. Like I said to Dream Weaver, there's really no feeling like it and having people show interest in my writing is certainly my favorite type of complement.

Wow....VERY detailed...

Yes, I know. Don' feel obligated to read all of it, or all of this. Just skimming is perfectly acceptable.

How do his super-human senses play into his role as a manservant to his mother's former lover?

Because of his supper-human senses and thought reading, Mark has a variety of unique uses. He makes an excellent bodyguard, because can sense most attacks before they happen, he's a good advisor, because he can tell what Richard is thinking and so understands intentions and worries very well. He's a good interrogation officer because he can read thoughts and lastly, thanks to his excellent senses of taste and smell, he's a really good cook. Is there any reason why he does not have much strength of will? It seems to me that a person with super-human senses might be more independent. Perhaps some childhood incident or his upbringing?Both his personality, upbringing and even the "powers' themselves have a lot to do with this.

Mark's a coward and will always choses the path a least resistance. "Give me liberty, or give me death." is the last thing that would ever come out of his mouth. This doesn't mean he has no ego, or pride he is actually quite full of himself and quite arrogant, but all that is very shallow. Because he's always avoided conflict, and just let people and situations push him around, he's never developed real character strength. I believe it takes an amount of courage and certainly a facing up to yourself and the world around you to really root yourself and develop who you are. Mark's never done that. He'd rather be a seed floating where the wind takes it than plant roots and grow in to a tree.

The answer to you're question lies, more in is upbringing than his personality, since it was his upbringing that really shaped his personality. Both Richard, (the man who "adopted" him) and Diego, (his foster brother) also have supper human abilities. He was raised under in a strict and unloving home. No one ever liked him he's never expected people to like him. He was conditioned to do what he's told unquestionably. From the day Richard took him home he's been brainwashing Mark to be an ideal underling. That last think Richard wanted was an independent thinker.

Lastly there's his power it's self. Can you imagine being able to hear whatever people think of you? Even in a loving home it's be a little discouragin and he was raised in a place where he only thought of as a tool, only valued by how useful he was and where inner strength was not only un-valued, but dicouaged. Because of this he's much more focused on outward appearance rather than inner strength and beauty. Also because he can read thoughts he's had insight to other people around him and no one he grew up with, or works with now, had good and strong inner character, so he's hardly aware of what it means to have strong and moral inner self.

You said that Mark has trouble making friends. How loyal is he to those that he befriends? It seems to me that if he finally managed to earn someone's friendship, he would give his first born son just to keep them.

Actually he not very loyal at all. Again it's his cowardice, week character and upbringing that come into play here. He's never had friends and doesn't know how to be a friend. He's only been valued by how he can be used and that's how he tends to treat other people. As a result he doesn't tend to make real friends and therefore can't care for them more than he cares for himself. He's never experienced that degree of love and loyalty and until he does, he won't be capable of it himself. He'd have to change before he could have a health friendship, or relationship.

So yeah. I hope I didn't bore you with my overly long explanations. Just to let you know this is all based on Mark, as he is at the beginning of the story. He's a very dynamic character. I created him to be dynamic. As the story progresses and he experiences people, who do have very strong and very beautiful inner selves, who are selfless and loyal, he does change and develop into a better person, because of them.

QUOTE: Thank you so much for your response! I'm sure you've experienced the excitement and gratitude of having someone take time to consider and give feed back on your work and really it's like no other feeling! END QUOTE

I certainly do, and appreciate it feedback as much as any writer! You’re welcome; I hope my comments have been/will be helpful, and if nothing else, satisfying.

I find it fascinating that you freely admit you yourself wouldn’t be friends with Mark. If you wouldn’t be his friend, what compels you to write his story? Is it a principle of opposites attract?

Wanderer…his history as well as his character say wanderer to me…spiritually, mentally. Not necessarily physically. I’m not sure really what I’m asking with this question…his drifting character just seemed like a really well developed aspect, I suppose. I was curious as to where it might have come from.

I find it fascinating that you freely admit you yourself wouldn’t be friends with Mark. If you wouldn’t be his friend, what compels you to write his story? Is it a principle of opposites attract?While I wouldn't want to be friends with Mark, if he were a real person, I do really like him a a character to write. I think it's because he a very dynamic character. He subject to a lot of change and it's fascinating to write him and figure out how he'll be effected by those around him. He is a very lost character, who has yet to really mature, and leading him down the path is really interesting. So while I don't like him, as a person, as a character under my pen, he's great.

As for the whole 'wandering' thing, I wrote a lot about that in my response to Myrror's questions.

All I can say is that Mark is a very well-developed character. Is he your masterpiece character?

I don't know if I'd call him my "masterpiece" character. I don't even have a story about him, yet. He is my best developed character so far, though. I'm working on others and may eventually post some more here.

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