[trekfan]

My thoughts below are strictly my opinions and aren't law. Feel free to disregard them if you'd like.

PART I: The Characters

A. Choose Your Characters

Much like in Mortal Kombat, choosing your characters are essentially in any story. A character is, believe or not, more than just words/traits/attributes on a piece of paper. They are a living, breathing thing ... at least in your mind and (hopefully) in the minds of your readers.

Every character has a story to tell. And you, as the author, also have a story to tell. But this is a partnership and though it sounds insane, you need to work together with your characters to establish the storyline.

Before we get to that, though, we need to choose our characters. Who has the story to tell? Who's the voice? This is vitally importantly in any story and, for the purposes here, any story-heavy dynasty. Anyone can follow a team throughout a season, post their stats, throw in some interesting quotes and call it a story. Technically, it is.

But if it were in a book, would you read it? The answer to that is likely "no."

As writers, particularly of the sports dynasty variety, we have a unique challenge. Sports are rife with "storylines" that are manufactured by the media (*cough*ESPN*cough*) that most of the time end up being just nothing. Now, if the Indiana Pacers are facing the Heat, you can be sure there's angst there and storylines. But if the Heat are facing the Bobcats? YAWN.

So, for our dynasties, in choosing our characters, we need to be careful not to choose characters that could easily fall into the ESPN zone -- essentially characters who are good for a few quotes, but have no depth to them. We don't want characters to give us quotes.

We want them to let us into their lives. The characters that want to talk about things other than sports, now those are the ones you should pay attention to (and aim to create). Sports culture is 24/7 now and we monitor our athletes everywhere, in every form of media. Having a character be three-dimensional is essential to any good story.

In choosing a character, these are the traits I like to look for:

Engaging: My character can interact with other characters (not main protagonist) in relateable and true-to-life ways. For example, if my main character is shooting hoops with his brother, he's gonna be talking trash (and so is his brother). Personal gripes from years past will be aired out, things will get a bit tense, and there will be fun wordplay.

Feeling: I want my character to feel. Not just after a crushing defeat, but when he experiences a trauma (say his wife is in a car accident) or he's just stressed and lashing out at those around him after a long day. I want to know how he feels about things. Not everything, mind you (we don't need to know how he feels after taking a crap in the bathroom -- probably relieved I hope) but as it comes to storyline/life stuff, we want to know his feelings.

Personality: I suppose this could also be under any of the other two, but I want my character to have a distinct personality. When he gets stressed, he should have a tick (like pacing or shuffling cards or something) because we all do when we get stressed. He should have a backstory that sheds light on some of these things, but not all (some mystery is always nice) and he should be able to express himself as he wants in a unique way.

We can have this cookie cutter stuff:

John stood from his chair and yelled, "I won't make the trade! You hear me!"

Or this:

John stood from his chair, his brow furrowed. There wasn't any way in hell he would give in to these demands. One hand under his desk, gripping at the underside for all his worth, he cracked his mouth open and said, "I won't make the trade. You hear me?"

In example A John was just a guy who was angry. In example B John was an angry guy, yeah, but he had a few quirks. In the small taste we got there we saw that his brow furrowed when he was mad. He felt strongly about it, so much so that he had to grip the underside of his desk just to keep somewhat stable. These little touches are what make character people and that's what you're aiming for.

I recommend to everyone to try out the various characters you have floating around in your head for your story to see which one actually is the main. You'd be surprised at how often you go into constructing a story thinking one character was the most important, only to find another telling you things that make them the most important.

Try things out. Write things down, always. Even if it's some stupid fleeting thought, write it down. Having it in a note file is always good for references in the future and possible uses.

Tomorrow, we'll hit up the next step in this part: Making History.

Thank you for your time.