A month-long novel-planning challenge with prizes galore. |
When I write S&S fantasy - which means characters can have some abilities beyond the norm - I use AD&D player character sheets. While I don't roll the dice for stats, I do make them up and enter them, with 9-11 being average, so that the people are compared against one another and the averages. I then use the AD&D rules to ensure that someone I've given a STR of 12 to (slightly above average) can't lift a portcullis on their own, but could batter a door down after a few shoulder tackles. However, everything else, as a pantser, I let the characters talk to me and rely on the second draft to ensure that they are consistent. For planners, though, I have encouraged some to use the old styled AD&D sheets for all genres. This gives comparisons between characters, and also places limits on them. For those writers at the start of their writing journey, I encourage them to use aspects of people they know. I try to encourage them not to use just one person - there is a chance they will know they have become a character in someone else's book - but to combine at least two; however, this does mean the writer knows how the character will react because they know how the real person/people would react. Anyway, here's something I prepared earlier: "20240214 Notes On Character" |