Literature Quotes:
"I dream of you, to wake: would that I might Dream of you and not wake but slumber on; Nor find with dreams the dear companion gone, As, Summer ended, Summer birds take flight."	Monna Innominata by Christina Rossetti
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Characters become. We get a story in our head and we have to tell it. We have to tell it because the characters are jumping around dancing and yelling at us to tell their story. But in order to fulfill their request you first must make them real to others. You must birth them into our world. Of course some writers just write and the characters are as lively as you and I but for the rest of us there are several tricks to help you know your characters intimately. First, initiate each one of your creations with a working name (you might change the name later to suit the character's personality once you've gotten to know them more). Then begin bringing each character to life by working and following eight steps that I will be discussing in further posts: timelines, back-stories, dreams, closets and clothes, where they live, what ifs, character profiles and semantic mapping.

Timelines are a great way of meeting your characters for the first time by asking questions about the events of their lives. In a story, I suggest writing out the timelines of all major characters as well as a few secondary characters that might play a somewhat important role in the story or at least your mind. Once this done, you will begin to see the connections between all your characters as their timelines overlap or have similar experiences written in them.

Timelines can be a frustrating experiences at times but the important thing to remember is that the character has to be born, age, go through certain life events (school, maternity - events that are normal in your world and time), go through one or more disturbing events as well as climatic events in his or her life. The timeline ends when the story ends or when the character's role has been accomplished.

Here's an example:

1760 Fiore was born, a perfect faery child but as she slowly aged a white blemish appeared on her dark purple skin, which displeased her mother greatly.

1761 Fiore's mother who is an aesthetic being is repelled by Fiore and replaces her by a healthy and unbatised baby from the human town near the edge of the forest.

1765 By the time Fiore is five; her human caretakers grow scared of her different physical beauty and countenance. She has grown wings. They lead her deep into the forest convincing them that they are returning her to her birthplace. Alone, Fiore can hardly provide for herself.

1766 A year passes and Fiore meets up with a band of faeries, other changelings like herself that have been cast off as ugly beings. Fiore soon learns that they are in fact ugly outside as well as inside; they murder, kidnap and defile everything around them. For the next ten years, they laugh and tease Fiore (an almost perfect being other than a blemish on her skin) but never harm her bound to the rules of the outcasts. Fiore spends her time as far as she is allowed from the main camp as an outcast within outcasts. She explores the forests and scavenges for anything that sparkles as well as dicusses with flowers and nature.

1776 Two travelers, unaware of the dangers, wander into the path of the forest. Fiore with her tricky fae magic tries to lead them out of the forest by confusing them in order to save their lives. Unfortunately, her fellow changelings sniff the travelers out and begin their faery raid to catch them and torture them. Fiore, her heart pure and jovial, will go through a series of events in order to save the travelers from her ugly family and in the process will be cast out and forced to join the travelers as they hurry out of the forest.

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