Character Ideas: Part III

I know I promised to post this last week, but as I mentioned Monday, I was having hand trouble. Still am, so this may be short.

Anyway, I'm sure you are all dying to know where I get the ideas for my male leads and non-MCs.

Most of my main male leads come to me as part of the idea process. Well, their personality does. They start out as a list of things that I feel like that character needs to be. In Mathan's case (that's the lead for Alana) he needed to be dark, mysterious, a bit older than her, and skilled in using the magic that Alana has to learn to use.

In Raelin's case, Keller needed to be a bit more hostile. He is kind of Raelin's opposite. That's pretty much all I knew other than he and Raelin didn't get along at first.

Other than that, I didn't have too much of a clear picture of who my male leads were. That didn't develop until I actually go into writing the stories. It was only then that I really got to know who they were as characters, more of what their personalities felt like.

As for my secondary characters, those ideas basically just come from what ever pops into my head when I need the character. Usually I think about what the character needs to do in relation to my main characters then go on from there. Either that or I think about what the character needs to accomplish. That's pretty much it. Everything else gets fleshed out as I write.

Next week, I'll conclude the series about character ideas by talking about where the ideas for my antagonists come from.