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Details - Character Assessment
R. Ross Whalen • Jan 14, 2021
In a recent post I talked about details. In trying to keep them correct. One of those ways I do so as an editor and/or collaborator is create a character sheet. I know, everyone has heard of creating a character sheet before you start to write the story. However, I don’t do that at first, this develops as the story develops. I ask the writer, or myself, to simply write. To let the ideas flow. Not to hem themselves in by any constraints.
If, during the writing, you decide your character cusses like a sailor, then add it in. If your character starts out as a 6-foot tall male but changes to a 5’ 4” female, then so be it. A character in a story should be left alone until the editing phase as far as I am concerned.
Write your first draft. Most of them are sloppy, unorganized, with no attention to detail or anything else but the story line. No book was ever published off the first draft. At least none that I am aware of.
And why should you worry when writing the first draft. Let it go. Write for the sheer joy of the writing. Let the story flow from inside your heart and your soul. Then, once you finish, the draft can be reviewed, and the story can take its final shape. Sometimes this takes many edits, more reviews, some hard choices; then the final story emerges, and the polishing can begin.
One of those things like I said I like to do, especially with a series, is draft a character sheet. Make sure the details about the character move from book to book smoothly. Make sure any character changes work with the character and not against them.
Readers notice details. Live for them. Never underestimate the reader’s ability to notice a scar has moved from the right side of the face to the left or that the character hair was short in one chapter but now is long.
As a writer we often forget the details as we write. As an editor, I too have to live for the details. Details you just keep track of. As an example, here is my character sheet for Cheyenne of the Cheyenne Dances in Moonbeams Series:
Cheyenne Character Study
Physical Attributes:
1. 5’ 8 ½” tall
2. Unusually Dark brick red skin
3. Nez Perce Tribal woman
4. Butt length coarse black hair worn in traditional braids
5. Brown eyes – “Mud colored” per Cheyenne
6. Round broad face with high full cheekbones
7. Non-existent eyebrows
8. No body hair anywhere.
9. Wider than normal body
10. Hourglass figure – smaller waist
11. Large full breasts with large nipples. – Udders she calls them
12. Wide thick back
13. Sloped shoulders with humps from shoulders to neck
14. Fluffy tummy. Roundish with soft fluffiness
15. Wide hips and fat ass – her words
16. Standard normal nose flattened and twisted a little from breakage
17. Standard lips
18. Heavy thunder type thighs – no Indian legs or calves.
19. Poochiness around vagina
20. Thick heavy hands and short fingernails. Hard nails. Able to cut an apple open with them
21. Big feet. Wide.
22. Wears men’s boots
Covered in scars:
a. Momma:
1) Eight cigarette burns on her right cheek from not swallowing semen
2) Rope scar from hanging meant to kill her.
b. Trouble in Nunya scars
c. Rescue of Rhonda scars
d. Dog scars
Physical qualities:
1. Able to withstand pain to the point of ignoring it.
2. Exceptionally strong. Far stronger than most men
3. Fast. Unbelievable fast
4. Precise in what she does physically. Her idea of a missed shot and someone else’s are very different.
5. Exceptional stamina due to her time with Billings.
6. Unusually sharp senses from living in the wilderness
7. Predator sharp situational awareness
Likes:
1. Pizza. Ooey gooey pizza with everything on it
2. Whiskey and beer
3. Unlimited hot water.
4. Toilet paper
5. Modern feminine hygiene products
6. Weapons
7. Grocery stores and big box stores.
8. Hardware stores and gun stores
9. Well-made leather and leather work
10. Tools
11. Trucks. Powerful trucks
12. Donuts and ice cream and junk food
13. Microwaves
14. Living in doors and sleeping on beds
15. Horses
16. B-movies. Horror movies and westerns her favorites
17. TV shows
18. Food from restaurants. Any food she doesn’t have to hunt, kill, cook, or clean up after
19. Money
20. Security
21. Friends – good friends
22. Being warm in the winter and cool in the summer
23. Good clothes as in work clothes. Jeans, tee shirt, denim shirts, canvas pants
24. Bowling
25. Video and board games
26. Music of all types. Likes to record to off the radio.
27. Luxury hotel rooms
28. Room service
29. Civilization and all its luxuries
30. The wilderness and all its beauty
Hates:
1. Doing dishes
2. Laundry
3. House cleaning
4. Being touched
5. Being judged
6. Sex – makes her violently sick. Vomit and diarrhea at the same time
7. Bras.
8. Panties
9. Wearing clothes when home
10. Make up, jewelry or anything girly
11. Romance books and movies.
12. People touching her things
13. Lending out her tools or weapons
14. Lending out money
15. Minimalistic living like when in the wilderness.
16. Monique Brown
17. Not knowing the full picture when on an op
18. Rude people
19. Despises slavers, predators, bullies, and people who play themselves as victims
20. Bills from normal living in civilization
Mental Aspects:
1. Can kill without thought or remorse.
2. Shows little emotion over horrors like skinning a man alive
3. Is easily afraid but hides it to the point she is diagnosed as without fear, not fearlessness.
4. Hides all her true emotions
5. Develops friendships slowly but life long
6. Is in love with Billings
7. Mind moves in the darkest sides of humanity. Rarely sees anything good in a person or situation.
8. Suffers PTSD from her childhood and her encounters with evil men and women. Hides it well
9. Will do anything for her friends.
10. Will do anything to her enemies.
11. Likes company. Most thinks she prefers to be alone, but in reality, she has never spent much time alone.
12. Speaks English, French, Spanish, and Nez Perce
13. Extremely well read and self-educated
14. Suffers extreme reactions to sex due to rapes and forced sex as a child. Vomit and diarrhea.
15. Great deductive abilities which become clouded by personal interactions with others. Doesn’t see the big picture until it is too late.
16. Constant clash between what Billings raised her as and the need to be a girl.
17. Has sexual leanings even though she hates sex. Prefers older, unavailable men and redheaded women.
18. Driven to finish all work given to her. Overdeveloped sense of need for completion
19. Overdeveloped sense of right and wrong
20. Is given the gift of listening. Able to listen through all things living and dead.
Personality issues:
1. Snarky at times
2. Follows authority but hates it.
3. Has secret name – She Who Listens.
4. No understanding about relationships or the social games of women.
5. Stunted social skills
History:
1. Born April 22nd, 1968 in Spokane Washington.
2. Moved about as a child between Spokane and the Colville Indian reservation.
3. Name at birth: Mathilda Annabelle Hawkins
4. Mother: Erin Hawkins - Nez Perce Tribe
5. Brother: Benjamin James Hawkins
6. Mom begins to prostitute her at the age of nine. Her brother at age ten.
7. Chooses first name of Cheyenne in honor of one of her mom’s boyfriends who refuses to have sex with her. He was a Cheyenne Indian.
8. Mother tries to kill her, but she is rescued by her brother Benji. Cheyenne kills her mother and watches as Benji scalps her. Benji takes the fall for the murder
9. Escapes from foster home and is rescued by Billings.
10. Lives with Billings from the age of twelve until her seventeenth birthday. He drops her off in civilization as her 17th birthday present. She is conflicted about this.
11. See case list for rest of history
Residences
1. Island of Pleasures
Work:
1. Officially a National Park Services Ranger assigned to the Special Investigations Branch out of Yellowstone for the Intermountain Region.
2. Officially sanctioned to operate inside all federal lands including national parks and forests, Indian land, federally owned land in any state, military bases as well as offshore. She has authorization to proceed onto any federally used or owned property including buildings in cities.
3. Unofficially a covert operative of Monique Brown of the FBI. Part of the Seven. A group put together by Brown to perform illegal activities for the greater good.
4. Patrols parks and forest to locate and use the Hidden for her covert work
5. Tasked by Brown to develop the Rocky Mountain corridor as an operational series of bases for Brown’s use. Use never told to Cheyenne. A task Cheyenne abandons but is taken back up in the latter part of her career
6. Deal with Brown. Brown takes all the glory and political clout from the completion of all ops while Cheyenne is allowed to confiscate any loot she wants before Brown takes over officially.
As you can see, this is not a comprehensive list but a work in progress. As the series unfolds, I take this list and apply it to the writings of Allison and Willy. Compare the details from each book and make sure they line up. I keep a list of all the details I find that resurface or interplay in each book or the upcoming books mentioned and hinted at inside each of the published manuscripts.
I am not saying keeping such lists are for everyone. However, if you intend to write a series or large epics, then keeping track of your details in some manner is required. Unless you can remember them all, which I can’t.
I’m Ross, the Editor-in-Chief for The Pyrateheart Press and I’m out.
Most people who tell others they are authors work independently from the requirements of corporations or even normal jobs. Their job is to create. To craft stories we want to read.
It’s a good question. One I have heard many times in my life. Usually after somebody does something no one approves of. Yet, regardless of the situation, the question remains the same. Do people change?
I have discovered many things recently. The very first is I love the bed and breakfast we stayed in for our anniversary. It is an inventive idea for a bed and breakfast type place. The rooms are actual cabooses. That’s right, railroad cabooses.
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