Star Trek: Edison-Episode 1:Reunions
- Thread starter Bynar0110
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Write a note to yourself defining their personalities. Don't just define one as funny and another as nervous. Give yourself an example of how they might react in some hypothetical situation or some phrase they might use. Give yourself something that can put you into their mindset when you write a them.
Dr. Gödel stutters and has anthrophobia, but she's absolutely brilliant when in her element. Sister S'Talla is a monk who reminds her crew, "Logic and control." Sam is adventurous, friendly and playful, but indomitable. Charley is young and uses less sophisticated language. He says things like, "I mean..." to rephrase a statement.
Defining these little things helps you feel like the character as you write them. It will come out in your story without you needing to engineer every sentence they speak. It's like acting. You have to understand the character and step in and out of their minds as you write.
Don't worry about it too much, it will grow organically from there. You might even find yourself going back and redefining your characters after you've learned more about them by how they react in later scenes. It's all good.
-Will
Dr. Gödel stutters and has anthrophobia, but she's absolutely brilliant when in her element. Sister S'Talla is a monk who reminds her crew, "Logic and control." Sam is adventurous, friendly and playful, but indomitable. Charley is young and uses less sophisticated language. He says things like, "I mean..." to rephrase a statement.
Defining these little things helps you feel like the character as you write them. It will come out in your story without you needing to engineer every sentence they speak. It's like acting. You have to understand the character and step in and out of their minds as you write.
Don't worry about it too much, it will grow organically from there. You might even find yourself going back and redefining your characters after you've learned more about them by how they react in later scenes. It's all good.
-Will
You don't need to tell us their backstories.
But you need to know their backstories. Each character comes from somewhere, went to school somewhere - or worked, or survived in some sort of wilderness, or survived in some sort of slum or escaped prison. They had a loving family - or an absent family - or an overly strict mother - or an uncle who exploited them for labor... a domineering and competitive older sister... Maybe they came to Star Fleet after first serving in a local military on their home planet.
We'll get tantalizing bits of those backstories eventually - someone will mention, "you learned that from your older brother?" - "I don't want to talk about it." or "I'm going to show you a little trick I picked up in a Cardassian prison..."
Those backstories will tell you how each character thinks, how they behave, how they react, how they talk. Don't worry about not having presented much of their personalities yet. Their personalities will emerge as you write them.
Build the environment. Set the scene. Present a problem. Call your characters to the stage. Then just follow them around, watch what they do and how they react... and describe that in detail to your readers.
Thanks!! rbs
But you need to know their backstories. Each character comes from somewhere, went to school somewhere - or worked, or survived in some sort of wilderness, or survived in some sort of slum or escaped prison. They had a loving family - or an absent family - or an overly strict mother - or an uncle who exploited them for labor... a domineering and competitive older sister... Maybe they came to Star Fleet after first serving in a local military on their home planet.
We'll get tantalizing bits of those backstories eventually - someone will mention, "you learned that from your older brother?" - "I don't want to talk about it." or "I'm going to show you a little trick I picked up in a Cardassian prison..."
Those backstories will tell you how each character thinks, how they behave, how they react, how they talk. Don't worry about not having presented much of their personalities yet. Their personalities will emerge as you write them.
Build the environment. Set the scene. Present a problem. Call your characters to the stage. Then just follow them around, watch what they do and how they react... and describe that in detail to your readers.
Thanks!! rbs
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