posted: February 5, 2011

Sam and Tiffany are Christine's two best friends. They literally know everything about her and she them. Everything, that is, except the fact that Christine constantly hears the voices of everyone in the room.

Tiffany and Chris have been friends since middle school. They do just about everything together. Tiffany thinks she isn't anything special, but Christine thinks if she wanted, she could land the hottest guy in school. Tiffany thinks pretty much the same thing about Christine and is always encouraging her to get the courage and go up to Ethan and confess her love.

But at the beginning of the year, Christine changed and became distant from Tiffany. The girl takes it personally and begins to resent Christine. Now, it isn't a permanent blemish on their relationship and it's really not Christine's fault. But, it's hard for her to talk to Tiffany because it is a really big secret and as Christine says "They'd think I'm insane."

Sam on the other hand is overly understanding, even though he has no clue what's bothering Christine. The reason behind it is... well, he has a bit of a crush on the girl.They've been friends since middle school too, and his feelings for Chris are only just developing.

On a side note, Sam was only supposed to be a very minor character, and though he never made it to MAJOR status in the story, he is a character that just wouldn't go away. I know I said the same thing about the twins, but I'll tell you, Sam was constantly needing to be written into the story. And, as it turns out, it's because of Sam, that Christine almost turns to the dark side later in the story. Won't say how, I'll let you mull over it a while.

That's it for now. But on one last note, next week begins Weekly Rumble: Final Round. I'm going to need your "Likes" on all my pages I put up for the next 2 weeks. Help a guy out!

posted: January 21, 2011

Christine is the very first character I created when I wrote the short story entitled "Fear" which eventually became the entire basis for High School Heroes.

Essentially, this was a few years ago, and at the time I was trying desperately to create a superhero story that wasn't a comic book. Then came a contest to write a story about something frightening. So, the two ideas merged into one.

The first thing I thought of was, what would be one of the more frightening super powers a person could have. I struggled with it, because it had to also be an ability that people typically said they wanted to have. I debated for a while, but finally decided that the super ability to give me character would be to read minds. After all, lots of people wish they could hear what others are thinking, but they don't consider what might happen if they couldn't turn that ability off. The powers would be torturous, and quite scary for people. But that wasn't enough. I needed to add something to make the powers unique and, frankly, cooler. So, along with being able to read minds, the character was also gifted with the ability to pull people's worst fears out of their heads and then project those fears into their victim's head - hence the "Fear" part of the story.

Of course, that wasn't enough. The setting of the story needed to be frightening as well. Now, I will add, for those who don't know, but I am a high school teacher, so my mind wandered to the most frightening place I could think of - a high school cafeteria.

So, now I had my abilities and my setting, so all I needed was my "hero" and "villain". We are going to get to the villain in a later blog - one of the bullies mentioned in an earlier blog. So, our hero. I automatically decided it had to be female, because I couldn't see a boy not having fun with these kinds of powers. Now, I needed to come up with a name. Like all old comic characters... I wanted my heroes to all have alliterative titles, such as Bruce Banner, Clark Kent, Wally West - you get the idea. So, I came up with Christine Carpenter. Personality-wise, I figured she can show people their greatest fears, which is sort of a dark power. So, what social groups are usually associated with darkness? The Goths!

I wrote the first story, and loved the character so much, I kept writing her until eventually I had to turn it into a novel, and then a webcomic. Go figure.

posted: January 7, 2011

Lance and Kyle are a set of characters I had a good deal of fun writing. They are generally carefree and never ones at a loss to make a joke. The very first scene I wrote for them actually involved catching and then placing a crateload of squirrels in the principal’s office. It is a funny scene and only one of a few scenes these two were supposed to be in.

 

But let me tell you, as a writer, there are sometimes characters that demand to be written more, and Lance and Kyle were two such characters. They kept nagging at the back of my mind to be put into a scene, so one scene became two and two became four and so on, until of course there was no way to cut them from the book. I may say I never wanted them in the story, and while that’s true, I have to also say the story wouldn’t be the same without their inclusion.

So, obviously they’re identical twins, and even their friends aren’t able to tell them apart. They dress alike, drive identical cars, and act exactly the same. So, while they are two different people I only count them as a single character. As a matter of fact, there isn’t a scene (yet) in any of the High School Heroes stories, in which the two of these fine young gentlemen do not appear together.

So, they’re sixteen, recently received their licenses and like to cause havoc. They dress like they're rockstars and they're friends with Christine. These are about the only character traits I have given the twins. While most of my characters, like Christine and Savanah, have dark sides, these two do not. They are just fun loving and will do anything in their power to make others laugh. When creating characters for a story, it’s okay to have some flat characters meant to stay in the background like these two. Consider that if you’re ever creating a story of your own.