After reading several good posts on characters and how they appear, I’ve been thinking about how my characters come to be. Never do they spring from my mind, fully formed and grown up as Athena from Zeus’s brow. I kind of envy those whose characters do this.

I’ve realized there are two ways that I come up with characters, but for brevity’s sake I’ll split into two posts.

My characters tend to be more fluid. They evolve from squiggles on paper, mere germs of an idea. I work through the slog, trying to find discernable traits and flaws. Sometimes it takes me years to find a character.

Let’s meet Geoffrey, though not a character in my current piece, he best exemplifies my evolving character flow. He’s also my longest-running character.

Geoff began life seven or eight years ago back when I RPed. He was a banished elven princeling named Lairedion (god awful, ain’t it?) who was a skilled musician, had a pet dragon, and was physically attractive. He also was one of the only male characters in the RP (I just realized this is another reason why I write primarily male characters…the RP world was overpopulated with ass-kicking females). He also was a bit of a wimp, and that was about it.

Geoff soon abandoned his cumbersome name, again got saddled with a new name (Orlando, for the Shakespearean character), and received some terrible injuries. At the time, I would build his character from what had happened in the previous day’s RP. He met new people, got into fights, etc.

Finally, he graduated from the computer screen and became the mentor character in my first serious attempt at a novel. Geoff (now Balor) found religion and saw it as a mission from God to return to the sidhe that had banished him in order to help this kid out. He evolved into a slightly nutty, know-it-all monktype dude, and I am sure as hell glad he isn’t that anymore.

So let’s recount. Lairedion-Orlando-Balor, now FINALLY Geoffrey, is a banished, beautiful elfling. Well, he isn’t an elf anymore  (and he is rather normal looking). He’s a, well, human from a different dimension. He also doesn’t have a pet dragon (the only fantasy in this world is the fact that Geoff ages veeery slowly), and his musical skills have failed. He dropped that obnoxious questing kid and set out into life as an innkeeper/amateur historian. Though still very religious, he’s more likely to engage someone in a conversation on a secular subject rather than preach at them. He has opinions, likes, dislikes, desires, flaws, a history…

Geoff finally feels like a real person to me.

10 points to Gryffindor if you can guess where his current name came from!

Looking through my notebooks and old stories, I’ve come to a realization.

I’m female both by sex and gender, and quite like being a girl. I just don’t write many female characters.

It’s not even that the percentages are close but slightly off. I’d wager a good 80% of my characters are male.

Why?

1). Setting/topic.

I enjoy writing historical fiction; the Royal Navy of Nelson’s era was my first main interest. And even though there were women aboard (wives, passengers and the like), the Brave Woman (or Girl) Who Dresses Up as a Man and Saves the Day bore me. The social hierarchies and ways of life are what really interest me, not throwing a female main character into the mix because it is the Modern Females Rule way.

2). What I Read.

The books I read are male dominated, at least in the main character category. O’Brian, Bruce Alexander, Tolkien…and, of course, the vast number of biographies and other assorted histories I enjoy. Not to mention male authors.

3). My Strong Dislike of Writing Love Stories.

By throwing a female MC into the loop, I’m afraid of turning it into a love story.

Of course, I don’t even know how well I write male characters. Oh well.