For a story I’m working on, I came up with the following concept about magic: There are two kinds of spells – generic and fingerprinted. Only the one who cast the spell can remove a fingerprinted spell. There are only two reasons to cast a fingerprinted spell – you are the first person to do…
Once, while we were driving around in Tampa, Fla., a saw a license plate that I immediately jotted down. It was “WUD4OG” … Wood for Og. The idea struck me: Who is Og? This is what I came up with: Og is a 7-foot troll. He is kind hearted–the kind of person who rescues butterflies….
I’m not sure when I wrote this, but it was probably in the early 1990s. I’m also not sure why I called her the “easy girl.” I see a lot of me in this description … almost like I took aspects of my self and intensified them for this character. She is average looking with…
The idea of a more than two sex species fascinates me. How would that work? On Feb. 14, 1989, I made this attempt: The three sexes: Fé analogous to the female Ma: analogous to the male Fema: a cross between the two The Fema bears the child. It has the “machinery” for life-support and childbirth….
Sometimes a person I meet will conjure images in my mind. Sometimes it is their name that inspires the image, as it did with Ralis Kahn, who I met at Haunt X (he’s a special effects make-up artist, not much like my character sketch). The following sketch came to mind when I first saw a…
I wrote a snippet once that had this character in it. The snippet was powerful enough that the character has been bouncing around my head trying to get a story out. I still don’t know her story yet, but I do have an idea what she is like. When I find it, I’ll post the…
Torg is a character from my first novel (working title “Patricia Arian Richfield”). His name has an interesting story: In my copy of The Sword of Shannarra, there was a pull out painting of the characters by the Hildebrandt’s in the center. Their rendering of Hendel looked more like a Torg to me, for some…
Sesno Galler is a character from my first novel (working title “Patricia Arian Richfield”). I got his name from my Chemistry teacher in High School — I took the teacher’s name and twisted it around. He was a teacher in training and I didn’t really like him much. The novel isn’t polished yet and may…
Reluctant hero of the future. Wears a long black trench coat. Uses a sonic weapon in the shape of a crossbow. He doesn’t want to be a hero … he just ends up in the right place at the right time and can’t help himself. He’s introverted and doesn’t like a fuss being made about…
Sometimes people I see around really strike me and interesting and potentially inspirational for characters. Back in July 1999, I saw this boy at Paramount’s Great America who really struck me as an interesting character. This is what I wrote about him in my Random Thoughts journal. He was standing in the line for the…