Bored? Create Characters

There have been a number of times when I have actually gotten a little bored when I'm writing. I know that it is hard to stomach but its true. I am sure there have been a few times that each of you have felt it too. Come on admit it. You love to write, but there are times, when you are bored with say the subject you are having to write about or you are having problems with a current story line.

I know that there have been articles written on WOW! about characters and that we all have our own way of doing things to create our characters, but, it is nice to know that we can think of them in a new light.

Take time out from what you are writing and let your creative juices flow in a new way. Create some characters.

When you are creating your character remember its not always human aspects, you can create a talking purple people eater, or how about a mouse that likes to talk on the phone, or how about that pink elephant that shows himself once in a while when you had one to many martinis or that lovely cold medicine that has hit you so hard.

Set yourself up with a notebook that you can keep your characters in. If you get one of the divided ones it works great. You can then organize your characters a little bit by well let's see, people female or male or how about a section on animals, monsters, a new creature that you created, what about an object that you have created into a character for example a button.

An easy way to begin, look around the room you are in. Do you see something that you could imagine coming to life? How about the pen you are holding or the computer you are typing on.

There do you see it, right in front of you, your first character to begin with. Your computer. Boom! All of the sudden he jumps into your life. What color eyes does he have on his screened face? Did hair suddenly grow out of the top of the monitor? What color is it? Does he have a mouth? What about a nose?

We have so many things that we can do to create our characters it is scary, yet amazing.

I have talked to a few people who actually like to sit and draw a character before they put them into writing. They like to see the character come to life. Or then there is another person that will build a character out of polymer clay adding all the colors of what they may be wearing, the hair, eyes, nose, mouth. Then create a name and so forth.

We all have our own special techniques however it is nice to get ideas from other writers and artists about how they create characters as well. This gives us a way to incorporate additional information that we may be missing for our characters.

I have found some very helpful charts on the web that have helped me build my characters. Below, you will find some of the links I hope that they will help you as well.

http://www.charlottedillon.com/CharacterChart.html
http://www.essortment.com/all/characterswriti_rxgl.htm

Clare Dunkle breaks it down a bit and gives you information. She makes some valid points on her site.

http://www.claredunkle.com/Design/writecharacters.htm

There is even software available to help you create your characters if you wish to go this route. However, this software isn't cheap. It will cost you $90.00 and that's before they slap you with the shipping costs. You can check it out at: http://www.characterpro.com/characterpro/index.html .

You will find a lot of information out there on creating characters or ways to create them. You will be amazed and maybe even get a good giggle out of some of the ingenious ways that characters come to life from.

Do you have any sites that you use? How do you organize your characters? Do you have a special book or binder that you keep them in? Have you ever drawn out a character?

I am really curious to see how everyone might perceive this.