Meet Michael and Melissa

So I did spend last write-night creating two of my characters. Michael and Melissa are 21 year old twins (only children) born in a New York to a well to do parents. Father is Jewish and a lawyer and mother is a Christian born in Maine (parents from Canada). She is a Nurse practitioner. Both parents worked a lot and the kids were mostly raised by a nurse maid and other household help. They still live in their parents house. Raised in New York city, but moved to Maine (mother's home state) to get away from the city when the kids were in High school. Money was never an issue but they were given very little parental guidance. Michael was kicked out of Princeton for drug use. They refused him his trust fund and in part to earn back his parent's trust he started taking classes at Maine State College of Science (MSCS). Melissa studied abroad right of high school and returned to the states a year ago (right about the time Michael was kicked out Princeton – and she too not wanting to work and no clue what she wants to do with her life decided to take a few classes at MSCS where she met Keith, thus Collins, etc. She at times can be snobbish like she's better than the rest of the group (making allowances for only Keith) but because she can't lure him away from Collins, she puts up with the rest.

I gave them a little bit of background and personification - Melissa is materialistic and Michael is a bit reckless. They are not the main characters but now I know more how they will interact with the main characters. I may decide to change details about them as I go along - any of them really, but I need these starting points for my secondary characters.

I plan to work on the rest of the secondary characters tomorrow at write-night. With the great weather and so much going on I've been rather distracted from writing. Not making excuses, it's just the way it is and family first :)

Character Profiling

During write-night I came to a realization that I can not just create/enhance the characters as I go along. This is frustrating for me because despite the many books on writing that stresses the importance of character profiling - I always thought the story itself would lead the way and create the characters.

For clarification I am not referring to "Reality Fades" - in that story I have the characters down because I have been creating them since I was a child. So no, I haven't "stuck to one story" either like I said I would - maybe a little A.D.D. but anyway, I'm referring to "Future End" (temp title of a sci-fi). The first scene is interesting enough with just two characters, but the second scene jumps to a group of seven who are all big players in the story -and from there I am stuck.

I have an outline for the story so I know where it is going but I can't seem to get past that first chapter. I have a page with their names and connections but after that I don't really know them. This I realize is why I cannot complete the scene. More so, they are all using the same "voice" so now I know, I really know before I go further with this particular story, I need to create the stories of my characters.

This I will do by not jumping straight to the scene of where they have gathered. Instead I will pull them in a few at the time on the way to the gathering. This way I am only throwing out a couple new names at a time. But first I will do what I have been putting off - character profiling.