10 Characters

[IsabellaRose]

I randomly generated this list of characters from name generators, character generators, lists of motivations and quirks, and probably a few elements from deep within my own twisted mind. The list was made to provide random options for my latest writing challenge over in my Tell Me a Story group, but when I read down the list after making it I thought... hey, those 10 people should all be in a story together. This probably happened because I'm an idiot and can't stop my dumb brain from connecting everything it sees into stories and fictions and insanity. But my brain is already off and running... I tried to leave the wording as vague as possible but of course, my brain started filling in details as soon as the words were on the screen, before I even clicked Submit. I'm writing all of this down because at some point, these characters are going to appear in something I write and all start to blend together into an epic story that I hope I can craft to all make sense.

My ambition clearly outdoes my ability. But if anyone wants to check my status on this, I'll be posting what I come up with here.

• Aiden Poole - a prominent newscaster with abnormal urges and a reputation to protect
• Zachary Price - an exotic dancer who will do anything for a buck
• Keiran Poole -a student filmmaker with big dreams hoping to get his big break
• Enzo Colon - a bus driver, was a prominent member of a profession before emigrating and starting a new life, misses his family who were all executed because of the secret he must protect
• Spencer Anderson - a successful lawyer who engages strangers in conversation and then throws money at them to see if they'll do whatever weird thing crosses his mind based on what he learns about them
• Courtney Wilson - sells pottery but is secretly studying necromancy and having much success
• Paitya Ochoa - a mercenary who has killed more people than she has slept with
• Emily Grant - an astronaut and scientist, secretly brought something alive and inhuman back with her from her last trip into space by hiding it within her own body
• Madeleine Ramsey - a socialite and influencer who lives in the spotlight but just wants a real connection with someone
• Seraphina Dreamweaver - a fortune teller and psychic, she already knows how this all turns out

[IsabellaRose]

So I started with a post-it note for each character stuck in a big circle. Then I connected each character to another character with a comment that defines the relationship from the point of view of one character. The important part is that it's only one side of the relationship. It could be "I love her with all my heart" but that doesn't make the two lovers. The target of the first character's affection could have a relationship to him that says "He's too young for me," "I don't even know he exists," or "I dream of ending up with a guy like him, once I deserve to." Obviously relationship are more interesting to write about when each person approaches the other with a different perspective.

It looks like this:

So the one-sided relationships I defined so far are:

• Aiden Poole: Courtney Wilson can help me with my abnormal urges
• Zachary Price: Keiran Poole is my roommate
• Keiran Poole: I can make a documentary about Emily Grant
• Enzo Colon: If I can tell Aiden Poole my story, my family will not have died in vain
• Spencer Anderson: Zachary Price is a non-stop source of entertainment
• Courtney Wilson: if I need another dead body for my necromantic spells, this douchenozzle is a prime candidate
• Paitya Ochoa: I've been offered a lot of money to kill Enzo Colon
• Emily Grant: the voice in my head says Courtney Wilson can help
• Madeleine Ramsey: I've loved Emily Grant since college
• Seraphina Dreamweaver: Zachary Price is my brother

Things are already overlapping and looking interesting.

[IsabellaRose]

I can't stop on this one.

Now I'll try to set get the scenes set and figure out who else might be involved. For each character I'll add a new secondary character that is important to them. I may not use them all, but sometimes they can trigger more interesting ideas.

• Aiden Poole: Monica Bennett is my co-anchor who is trying to take my job
• Zachary Price: Kara Summers is another exotic dancer who sometimes works with me
• Keiran Poole: I can't complete my film project without Natalie King, another film student
• Enzo Colon: I see the ghost of my dead sister, Sofia Colon, everywhere
• Spencer Anderson: Brad Hamilton is a finance bro who's always up for a bet
• Courtney Wilson: Mabuz teaches me, he is the leader of a group of necromancers who
• Paitya Ochoa: Rosebud is a fixer and handler who sets me up with jobs
• Emily Grant: my husband Ken Grant suspects my secret
• Madeleine Ramsey: I need my father Randall Ramsey's money from the thousands of hotels he owns worldwide
• Seraphina Dreamweaver: Leah Hayes owns a bookstore, is also a psychic, and helps me stay grounded

Next, I'll create a location or resource group (mercenary company, gamblers anonymous group meeting, the news channel six studio, etc.) that's important to each character, then go around and add connections between secondary characters and other secondary characters or locations/resource groups. The map starts to get really complex at this point, but it gets everything interconnected. I may later ignore some of these connections, but thinking about how everything is connected in the story brings things together in a gloriously messy way.

[IsabellaRose]

It's getting messy, and I love it. I added locations/resources/groups for each character and then linked them to another characters location/resource/group/secondary character. The cast is huge and unwieldy and half of them probably won't get more than a few minutes of time on the page, if they even show up. So now I have a map that looks like this:

[IsabellaRose]

After all that, my cast of characters and list of potential locations/items of interest looks like this:

1. Aiden Poole - a prominent newscaster with abnormal urges and a reputation to protect. He believes that Courtney Wilson can help him with my abnormal urges and worries that his co-anchor Monica Bennett is trying to take his job. He has the News Six Action Response Team on speed dial and can send them anywhere to get the scoop FAST. He does not know that Monica Bennett is dating Leah Hayes, a psychic and bookstore owner.
2. Zachary Price - an exotic dancer who will do anything for a buck. He is roommates with Keiran Poole and works at club Matrix where men dance downstairs and women dance upstairs which is secretly owned by Mabuz, the mysterious leader of a group of necromancers. One of his coworkers is Kara Summers, another dancer.
3. Keiran Poole - a student filmmaker with big dreams hoping to get his big break. He wants to make a film bout astronaut Emily Grant and thinks he can't do it without the help of fellow film student Natalie King, who is dying to film in the Catacombs under the Crypts. They both edit their work in the film studios at Smith School of the Arts.
4. Enzo Colon - a bus driver who was a prominent member of a profession before emigrating and starting a new life. He misses his family who were all executed because of the secret he must protect. He sees the ghost of Sofia Colon, his dead sister, everywhere. He believes that if he can share the information stored on a thumb drive full of documents, photos, and videos with Aiden Poole, his family will not have died in vain. The thumb drive contains video from the Hades Club.
5. Spencer Anderson - a successful lawyer who engages strangers in conversation and then throws money at them to see if they'll do whatever weird thing crosses his mind based on what he learns about them. He loves paying Zachary Price to do dumb stuff, and often bets on the outcomes with finance bro Brad Hamilton, who wants to marry Monica Bennett. He is also a member of the Hades Club, an exclusive private club.
6. Courtney Wilson - sells pottery but is secretly studying necromancy and having much success. She hates Spencer Anderson and thinks he'd make a fine dead body to help her practice necromancy. She practices necromancy in the Catacombs under the Crypts under the tutelage of Mabuz, the mysterious leader of a group of necromancers. Mabuz is a member of the Hades Club.
7. Paitya Ochoa - a mercenary who has killed more people than she has slept with and recently answered an add to be roommates with Sepahina Dreamweaver, who she thinks is too nosy. She has been paid to kill Enzo Colon. She has the key to a locked Shipping Container filled with weapons and gear and takes jobs from Rosebud, a fixer and handler who arranges illegal jobs. Unbeknownst to Paitya, Rosebud works for Randall Ramsey.
8. Emily Grant - an astronaut and scientist, secretly brought something alive and inhuman back with her from her last trip into space by hiding it within her own body. The voices tell her than Courtney Wilson can help her. She worries that her husband Ken Grant knows about her secret and is unaware that he's having an affair with Monica Bennett. She left something important in the hangar where the space shuttle is housed.
9. Madeleine Ramsey - a socialite and influencer who lives in the spotlight but just wants a real connection with someone. She has loved Emily Grant since college. Everything she needs in life is in her Penthouse Apartment, and she needs the allowance she gets from her father, Randall Ramsey, owner of a chain of thousands of hotels worldwide. Randall is also a member of the Hades Club.
10. Seraphina Dreamweaver - a fortune teller and psychic, she already knows how this all turns out. Zachary Price is her brother. She reads fortunes at The Reading Room with other psychics. One of these is Leah Hayes, who helps Seraphina stay grounded. Leah has been visited by the ghost of Sofia Colon.

It's like a soap opera. I love it. There are so many stories in there already.

[IsabellaRose]

I'll usually do one more round and link each of the main characters to something/someone that came from a different main character, just to see if I can make it more interesting and complex, but that's when I'm only working with 3-6 characters. With 10 it's already so complicated, I'm not sure I need to do that for EVERYONE, so maybe I'll just connect a few here and there if something jumps out at me. I think I have most of what I need to start working out the details of how things started and what's happening.

 

[IsabellaRose]

I tried to make some things make sense, combined some stuff, connected things that seemed to belong together, and added some complications for everyone. Now I'm going to try to figure out who all these people are, what drives them, and what their immediate and long-term goals are so we can get them all interacting together. I outline each of them using a sort of character sheet but end up with brief bios like this:

 

Aiden Alan Poole is the 56 year old head anchor of the local evening news and a prominent member of society with a reputation to protect. He is 6' 2" (1.88m) and handsome with an athletic build, striking blue eyes, and a full head of mostly grey hair. He smiles easily if not always authentically, and when he flashes his perfect teeth and sparkling blue eyes it's both charming and disarming.

He lives in a large, luxury house on the lake in a prestigious, gated community with his wife of 28 years, Virginia "Ginny" Poole, and their two dogs, Jennings and Brokaw. He owns half a dozen cars, a yacht, and employs a housekeeper, gardener, and personal chef.

When he was first starting out he was inquisitive, passionate, and driven, but the years and job have jaded him. He drinks most nights and many afternoons and is focused solely on maintaining his position as head anchor and cementing his legacy. He used to think he could reach people and change the world through reporting meaningful stories. Now he just reports the biggest stories regardless of the impact on the individuals involved. People don't even seem human anymore, they're just stories, just ratings. His sign-off catch phrase when he ends his newscast is, "I'm Aiden Poole, and that's the kind of day it's been."

MOTIVATION: Protect my reputation and cement my legacy as a prominent news man.

GOALS

1. Find a big story to make himself a household name on the national news scene.
2. Find a safe and discreet way to indulge his abnormal urges. 

NOTES

• He has abnormal urges that for some reason he thinks Courtney Wilson, a necromancer, can help with (what are his abnormal urges? is he a necrophiliac or is it something less salacious)
• He suspects that his young co-anchor, Monica Bennett, is trying to take his job and will go to exceptional lengths to keep her down, even if it means sabotaging her career.
• He has the News Six Action Response Team on speed dial and can send them anywhere to get the scoop FAST, and they likewise inform him when there's a story he may want to cover personally.
• His son is Keiran Poole, a film student.
• He had a brief affair with Emily Grant, a scientist and astronaut, while she was still in college.
• He has no idea that a story is about to drop in his lap thanks to Enzo Colon.

 

Monica Bennett is 28, ambitious, blonde, beautiful, and the new co-anchor of the local evening news with her sights set on the national spotlight. She is dating Leah Hayes, a psychic and bookstore owner (although Monica only ever introduces her as a book store owner.) She is secretly having an affair with Ken Grant, the husband of astronaut Emily Grant, a philanderer who has promised to use his connections to further her career. In college she dated Kara Summers who is now a stripper, but if she sees Kara she pretends she doesn't know her. She is obsessed with socialite and influencer Madeleine Ramsey and thinks anything Ramsey does is newsworthy. MOTIVATION: Make a name for myself no matter what I have to do or who I have to trample.
GOALS: Get the scoop before Aiden, find more contacts to boost my career, get in with Madeleine Ramsey.