What character or characters are your favorite(s) to write?

Who is hard to write?

No surpise here. Qui-Gon.


Who is easy to write?

Obi-Wan and Xanatos.


Who your favorite character(s) is/are?

Obi-Wan, Xanatos, Anakin/Vader, Quinlan Vos, Whie Malreaux and Jacen Solo.

 

Who is hard to write?
Yoda, Palpatine, Padme



Who is easy to write?
Anakin/Vader, Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon (though my readers may disagree )




Who your favorite character(s) is/are?

Anakin/Vader and then Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon, though I must say Xanatos is fascinating. Luke Skywalker is wonderful, oh well, just say Jedi...

 

Master, why does your reply to this not surprise me one, little bit? (except that she forgot to add that she write's an awesome OC when she wants to) As for me:

Who is hard to write?
Anything evil is nie on impossible for me and is my current personally-imposed challenge.

Who is easy to write?
Obi-Wan is a piece of cake. It sounds cliched, but I just seem to see so much of myself in his reserved, dry-witted, loyal character. (okay, except for the whole Jedi, male, sexy thing )
Qui-Gon and Anakin seem to be fairly doable as well.

Who your favorite character(s) is/are?
Obi-Wan, of course, but the OT trio are dear to my heart. R2 just rocks my socks.

 

Obi_ew: It seems that a lot of people are divided on Qui-Gon. He's either hard or easy.

VaderLVR64: I figured you would love writing Anakin. The name says all.

Jennifer_Lyn: I can see Obi-Wan being fun to write, as well as R2.


Thanks for more responses everyone.


By the way, does anyone think I should change the title?

 

Title's pretty good, in my opinion. Tells you exactly what the thread is about.

 

Yeah, but I sort of wanted to expand and add more questions about writing different characters.

 

How about the Writers' Character Exploration Thread or something like that?

 

I think the title's name is cool. Says enough without slamming you over the head with exposition on what's inside, thereby whetting the appetite and leaving the poster wanting to click, read and probably post.

 

Who is hard to write?

Obi-Wan, Dooku, and Padme are the hardest for me to write.

Who is easy to write?

Qui-Gon Jinn and Anakin

Who your favorite character(s) is/are?


Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan, Anakin, Xanatos, Han, Leia, Luke, Mara, Grand Admiral Thrawn and Prince Xizor -- the best developed villains in the EU .

 

*pokes head in again* If I may make a suggestion, with all due and humble respect? You said you wanted to get a discussion going, so what if you start with the first question you posted (who is difficult for you to write), have the person explain why and then have people make suggestions for how they might make that task easier? Like, I have difficulty writing Qui-Gon because I have issues getting inside his head, and then people respond to me with the mindset they think he has.

*shrugs* Feel free to take this and do with it what you will.

Stormqueen

 

Good idea stormqueen!

Okay, I'd like to focus a bit more on the first question.

Who is hard to write?

I know I said this before, but get into more detail about the question. Answer "why?" Then, other people can make suggestions that can help the person write that character better and they can list the character(s) that they have trouble with. Get the idea?

 

I'm glad I could be of help!

I'm pretty sure I already said this, but I have issues writing Qui-Gon simply because I don't feel there's enough in the movies for me to get into his head. Everyone writes him as this wonderfully developed, angsty character, and I would love to know how this is accomplished. Should I just break down and start hunting down copies of the JA series?

 

Wish I could help you there, stormqueen. I only know the QGJ from TPM. I can write that guy but I know nothing outside of that. Maybe I'll be able to help you after I've actually tried to integrate him into a story!

As for me...

Palpatine. The character is dark and very deep. The problem is that we don't know too much about his inner workings. We get hints of him but when he's written, you only see what he does, but there is no great "This is what it feels like to be Palpatine, right now:" moments. So...he's a huge challenge. (Re-posted from earlier because it sums up my problem). I think I did OK with him in a recent Viggie I wrote, but to give you an idea of how hard he is to write, I killed him off in the very first chapter of my first fic! (Ok....killing him was necessary but that wouldn't have been as much fun to say).

 

I spend a lot of time writing about characters who have less screen time than the LucasFilm logo. Look at body language and start with that in terms of getting into a character's head. Also you can get a lot from watching scenes with the sound muted.

Get the JA books? You can also read the film novelization for more insight, Terry Brooks did TPM. I have a love/hate relationship with Jude Watson's books, I've read them but spent a lot of time wanting to attack her with a spoon.

 

Sounder, if you need help with Palpatine, I suggest you visit the Palpatine thread started by LLL. I think it'll help.

 

I just KNOW this is going to tick off Palpatine fans, but I treat him like a standard bad guy. I've never attempted a Palpatine-centric fic (and I may just have to now, just so I can test my ideas...) He's creepy and cunning, and very good and turning people against each other. When I write him, I put myself in this superior frame of mind while trying to appear humble, like I know a big secret that no one else around me does and it amuses the heck out of me. He's very dark, but for some reason I have no problem working with that. Does that mean I'm evil at heart? I certainly hope not...

I spend a lot of time writing about characters who have less screen time than the LucasFilm logo. Look at body language and start with that in terms of getting into a character's head. Also you can get a lot from watching scenes with the sound muted.

Thanks for the info, oqidaun! That actually helps quite a bit.

 

I agree, stormqueen. I think that by the time of the movies Palpatine is the definitive prototype of pure, unadulturated, and unrepentant evil. In my opinion it would be very hard to really dig into his psychology without uncovering his past, which still remains a mystery.

I find it easier when writing Palps manipulating other people and politicians, as we've seen him do it so well in the movie. It's those moments where he is alone and brooding in his own evilness that is probably the hardest to capture.

 

That's how I write Palpatine, too, almost word for word.

About Yoda and Mace. I can't really write them without making them seem Gary Stu-ish. That's why I put them in minor roles in serious stories. If I ever make them major characters, I usually do it in humor so I can exaggerate some things.

 

Gary Stu? That's the male version of a Mary Su, right? Writing Yoda and Mace is fun for me, simply because to me Mace has this impatience to him and that it's really, really hard to gain his good favor. Yoda is neat because he gets to hit people with sticks.

 

Yoda was hard for me. But I've reshaped him and made him into a real character. So now he's pretty easy.

 

Don't forget Yoda is also cool because he talks "backwords." It makes it really fun to write him.

 

That drives me nuts! I have to say his lines aloud when I write him and then my roommate pokes her head in my room, asking "Why are you talking like Yoda?" (I suppose I should be thankful she knows who Yoda is, I have one friend who, midway ROTS turned to me and asked who he was. I couldn't respond, I was so stunned.) It's kind of embarrassing, but I can't help it. I have to make sure the line sounds Yoda-y!

 

I love talking aloud like that. My friends and I have so much fun doing it.

 

I have two friends who love Star Wars, but neither of them are obsessed enough to join a message board about it. The rest know of Star Wars, think it's cool, but that's it. My brother (who is at the same obsessed level as me) will sometimes joke with me back and forth in a Yoda type voice, which is great when we want to annoy our dad, who can't stand Star Wars. (And yet he bought Episode 1... go fig, eh?)

 

I have to agree that Yoda is fun. Hmm... as far as which are hardest/easiest... thinking.

It really depends on the story. I'll be honest; I have trouble writing female characters for some reason. It's less of an issue in movieverse stories because there aren't as many of them that are extremely detailed, so one can get away with more improvisation; however, it does make it more tempting to use OCs which can be good or bad depending on how it's done. But I could probably write any character passably, and none of them extremely well, with the possible exception of a few Sith.