Our garnish

You know, I have this cousin that is a cook and I sometimes watch Iron Chef and a few other cooking shows (basically when there is nothing else on). Something that they talk about is the parts of the meal that they are preparing. You have the meat of it, the garnish, the side dishes and a few others that I can't remember. Anyway, I was just thinking about how that can be our simile of the day.

If you were to think of a story as a dinner that you have to worry about what is on the plate. Let us say that we're cooking steak. You have the steak itself, what people are going to love to dig into. This is the part that really makes us drool, but let's be honest, a steak is nothing if it's too dry and too boring. If it's just meat we can last a few bites then sigh in disappointment. What does every steak need? Just ask Heinz, they'll tell you. It needs the sauce, the garnish, the topping. Pick whichever word you wish to use.

Well, if we were to apply the same thought process to our story I would call the characters that populate our story the marinade of the steak. The stuff you let the meat sit in for 24 hours just so that each bite gave you a yummy rush of flavor that just make you dive into the steak even more vigorously....just thinking about steak is making me hungry....yum.

Thinking of our characters like this hopefully gives an idea of just how important they are to a story. While yes you can have that slab of steak without any sauce on it, be honest, you want it to have the sauce. Well, the story has to have characters, no questions about it.

Now I've never had any problems with creating characters, anyone that has RPed with me will probably agree because I purposely go out of my way to make my characters engaging and delightful. They have quirks, pet peeves, inconsitencies, emotions (except for that Vulcan I did once, but she was a special case being a Vulcan), they have things that make them laugh, they have sense of humors. Some are pessimests, others are optimists, some are amibitious while others are philathrapists or just don't give a shit. They are people to me, I make them that way. Why? Well, because if to me they are people. They have faces, voices, hand movements...etc. I'd go on, but I'm pretty sure you get the point.

Now, please don't mistake me. I'm not saying that it doesn't take effort for me to create these characters. I don't think I've ever made an interesting character in just a few hours, at least I can't recall of any. It usually takes at least a few days, at most a few years. I'll trot out one of my favorites, she's always accomodating me in that regards so I may as well take advantage of it. Nyx started when I was a kid though I didn't recognize her as being a potential story character until my teens. Spending all the years that I have has made Nyx's stats long enough to be an actual book.

Now, I wouldn't actually suggest that anyone spend twenty plus years on a character. That's a bit too much time and I would hope that you would want to get published long before that. My point though is this: Know your character, inside and out. Know things about him or her that no one else would. Sometimes we all fall into the trap of developing only as much as you need to, but let me warn you all (and remind myself) don't do that. It may seem very time consuming to figure out the stuff that won't make it to print, but trust me, knowing it is a heck of a lot better because you never know when you'll have to go back to that third draft and add something you didn't think you needed. Better to have it and not use than need it and not have it.

You know, the question I have each and every time that I start working on a character is knowing what I do need to know. I've been trying to find a pattern to use for such a need, but each time I start a character that pattern changes. Now, I suppose I could just shrug it off, but it really bugs me.

Right now I'm starting a character whose first name is Genie. She's a CIA Agent...sort of. It's complicated, the sort of bit, but in working on her it has gotten me thinking, what pattern should I use because she is not the only character that will be in this. Currently I already have 9 characters that need to be fleshed out. I would like to develop all nine and any subsequent characters in the same format, have the same questions answered. To do that I'm starting with Genie, get her fleshed out (the beginning stages) then go from there.

I have opted to start with the physical, what we would see...assuming she was a real person that is.... then moving inwardly. So I know how tall she is, her weight, her age, her eyes. Basically I have a picture of her. I know how she sits, how she moves, how much she works out...yadda yadda. Yet the question I have to myself is, is this enough? Should I get categories and work on them from there for all future characters? I mean, the stuff I know for Nyx is very different than what I know for Alex or Mark or Jack or Genie. That makes sense, but there are basic qualities that I know of beyond the physical.

In other words I'm a big mess in making that decision and sometimes I feel like I'm floundering then I get a great idea, like who chose Genie's name and why.....

Essentially my marinade still needs some work, yet I find myself having a lot of fun poking and prodding Genie, trying to get her to tell me everything she knows. I have to figure out my questions for her, but in the meantime I'll still continue to talk to her and see what she has to say......

One last thing.....Merry Christmas to everyone!