BoM/TWS Message Forum

>> I'm pretty much paralysed as I am writing for very well developed characters. And I swear that 75% of the times I have done that, people
>> have emailed me to say I'm doing them wrong, or I've got details that are missing. Honestly it scares the crap out of me. Trying to write
>> the Garners or Cindy is a nightmare for me, because there is *so much canon* and it's hours of work just to search. I don't even know
>> what those characters look like.

Research can be daunting. Even writing about lesser-developed characters can be daunting, as I did when I wrote Lucy and Taylor/Scott into my own branch. Even someone that's mostly a one-dimensional character like professor Blackwell can be a surprise. I did take a few notes here and there, though, which I resumed in a notepad, and that helped immensely because it gave me things to work with. (For example: how to pester Will's brother, Robert. And also, a bit about his description.)

If doing research into well-developed characters is difficult, doing research for real-life places or real-life people is even more difficult. This is doubly worse when you're nowhere near as close to that area. Case in point: I don't live in the continental US, so writing about the Midwest US is already difficult. I think I've learned a LOT about St. Louis, which makes things a bit easy when I have to set up fictional stores and chapels and even houses within neighborhoods that somehow resemble what you'd see on Google Maps and other places, but then... One of the character's not from St. Louis, but from Owensville in Gasconade, and everything changes entirely. And another's from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, meaning I have to familiarize as much as I can with specific areas, such as the Bas-Uele Province, the capital of Kinshasa, and locations such as Angou - and Google Maps can only take you so far! And even if it's fictional, the work on doing something like a high school (like you did for St. Xavier's), or a restaurant, and make it feel realistic can take its toll.

(That said: it can be fun to do. I worked up a restaurant in my own stories, because the characters work - or worked - there. Going as far as to make the frickin' menu for the restaurant was difficult but rewarding at the end, not to mention working up characters that felt believable, creating the conflicts between characters, the look of the place... I must admit I cheated as I work on a restaurant, so I know how many things work in one, but it can still be complicated to work with.)

However, I still say that keeping track of what you wrote - specifically what you wrote - can be just as daunting. Saratoga Falls is pretty large for a town, with many places that are yet unexplored, or barely so. I've seen, practically speaking, the Acheson Community Center used so many times, but I still can't really picture it - and yet, as with many other branches, it's an integral part of my story. Same goes for Blackwell's villa, or the Prescott household. The same can be said of barely developed characters.

I'd say that, given that this is a collaborative effort, with many people aware of how most characters work, it's alright to mess up a bit on how people behave while you write. It'll be easier if you develop them yourself, of course, since you know exactly how they work, but that doesn't mean working with developed characters will always be hard. Sometimes, the circumstances these characters experience will change them, giving them a new way of seeing them. If someone claims you're doing a character wrong, it's mostly a way to help you keep in line with canon, but that doesn't mean you can't tweak things a bit - trying to remain close to canon doesn't mean those characters will remain static. (Else, Seuzz would need to make psychological profiles for every single character, or at least the most popular ones, and I can speak for a fact that such endeavor can be outright painful.)

So...I wouldn't worry about messing things up? Most characters might not be as dynamic as others, and may have a ton of canon established on them (*coughcoughFrankandJoecoughcough*), but that doesn't mean a thing or two may change about them.