Ugandan Virgin Guy

Mother's Day Vigil

Main Character Biography Development Guide

A ran into a friend of mine from a tutoring class on the bus to school. It turned out, he also writes creatively. I created this guide for those who need help creating characters.

On Character Development

Character development can make or break the success of a story. People like characters that are both intriguing and relatable. This condensed guide is meant to give you a jumping off point for creating unique and interesting characters.

Appearance: One of the most important aspects of character development lies in their physical appearance. The way a character looks will say a great deal about their personality. What kind of clothing does the character wear? What color and length is their hair? Are they heavy set or rail thin? Describe their physical appearance in as many words as you can.

Tip: Some writers find it helpful to create a rough sketch of their characters for visual affirmation.

Goal: Every character should have a primary goal that fits within the plot or narrative of your story. For example, in a science fiction novel, your main character may desire to get back to their home planet because they got stuck on Earth through a shuttle crash. Come up with at least three goals for each character and determine which one takes priority. Remember, situational roadblocks can alter your character’s main goal. Showing character growth through the change of a main goal can be one way to create more dynamic characters.

Hobbies & Recreation: We can often gauge someone’s personality by the hobbies that they participate in. What does your character do for fun? What kind of music does your character enjoy? Where does he/she spend his/her free time? Does he/she have a gambling problem? Create a list of at least three things that your character would do for recreation.

Aversions: Everyone has pet peeves. What turns off your character? Does he/she hate loud belching? Does cold weather bother him/her? Create a list of at least five aversions for your character.

Interpersonal relationships:  The personality and feelings of your character will determine how they interact with other characters. When developing your character, consider how the character thinks about the other characters in your story.

•          What character(s) does this character conflict with? Why?
•     What character(s) does this character get along with, like, or even love? Why?
•     What character(s) does this character hold neutral feelings for?

Tips:

•     You can ask your character questions and write down the answers you think they would give.
•     Try acting out your character and record it. Play it back to determine believability. 
•     Create a brief monologue for your character and read it aloud. Does it seem real?

My Ideal Government

I try to stay away from political posts these days because I know that many people find my views "radical". However, some interesting conversation last night led me to investigate my own beliefs about anarchy and expand on what I think. I was asked, "What is your ideal government?" After a while, I realized that the question proved impossible to answer. I have always and will always view government as a necessary evil; an entity that works to ensure it's own survival above all else. Yet, I know that without it, society cannot function or advance. A well-oiled machine does not equal fairness or justice. A government can, as ours does, profit off of extreme inequality; the slavery that is poverty.

When you're poor in the United States, it is almost guaranteed that you will always be poor. The only way to escape poverty is to lie, cheat, and steal. For that, you are later punished through a for-profit prison system which works frantically to maintain the status-quo. You see, if rich people lie, cheat, or steal it is socially acceptable according to the system. The banker isn't going to jail for his theft, but the bank robber will spend half his life or more in prison if caught. Therefore, you must passively witness the enormous amounts of wealth surrounding you without a word of protest against those who oppress you. If you dare to reach out to it, you are chastised. The ghettos here do not differ much from the ghettos in other lands. The people who live there almost always spend the entirety of their lives in abject poverty - a fate handed down to them by the powers that be.

Race is a factor but not as much as it used to be. True, nobody cares about the little black boy who was shot or the black teenager who was violently raped. But, nobody cares about the poor white folks in the trailer parks, either. Children from poor families seldom end up on Amber alerts. No one cares about the racial/gender/class profiling of the TSA, the NYPD, and most law enforcement agencies where the soldier class is taught to view difference with suspicion at best and utter disdain at worst.

It is no surprise then, that the military industrial complex feeds on the lack of job opportunities for poor kids in rural areas in the same way that the prison industrial complex satisfies itself with the fresh blood of black youth. "Army Strong" advertisements target rural, white teenagers and young adults who know for a fact that the military is their only job option. They will be taught how to be good little foot soldiers who kill brown people in foreign lands for the sake of stealing resources as they plunge a once-thriving nation into the brutal depths of colonial subservience. God bless American imperialism.

The middle class is the most ingenious invention of the twentieth century. What better way for the government to divide the working class than by creating and implementing the educational industrial complex which spreads the false idea that some workers are more "special" than others because they dutifully acquired an expensive piece of paper. What they don't tell you, however, is that if you decide to self-educate through public libraries and other free paths to knowledge, you will never be taken seriously by the elitists who partied their way through Ivy league colleges for lineal bragging rights. Nor, will you be allowed through the fiercely-guarded gates of corporate enterprise into what is deemed by our society as "respectable work". Many geniuses are paupers.

What is my ideal government? One where the clutching chains of economic slavery are broken and all are truly free to take part in society in a way that is meaningful, absent of class, gender, and racial considerations. Maybe this is too utopian for you. But I will strive for it until the day I die. That is what it means to be an anarchist.