One of the first things I did after coming up with the general outline of the story was to sketch a couple of the characters out.
I searched the web for some suggestions on how to get started. I liked this suggestion, from the University of Illinois Writing Across the Curriculum program. This short essay suggests that the key is to describe a moment in time in the characters life.
Here's what I came up with for one of the protagonists, Philomena Berdine (Mina, for short). I started off with a short, objective description and then launched into an imagined scene from her life:
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A gothy, witchy, punky sort - Mina wears a lot of simple black dresses. Lots of eyeliner. Sometimes a plain black choker. Always giant combat boots or funky, clunky Doc Martens. When adventuring with her friends Alec and Grimoire (her surly talking toad-familiar) she ties her hair back tightly and pulls on a pair of leather pants. Her hair is shoulder length black with a red streak at the bangs (she dyes it - it's normally brown).
Mina loves her Mom and her adorable baby brother, Oliver. She thinks the rest of the world is the most boring thing ever. She is particularly frustrated with her school and the students who attend it.
She has a quick temper that often lands her in more trouble than she can handle.
Mina is obsessed with Bad Badtz Maru, goth rock and Yaoi manga. She loves to go to the library where she studies the history of Magic in secret.
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Mina lived on Ashbury Avenue, just outside of downtown Evanston and six blocks from ETHS. The house was white and the yard was well-kept. In other words, a boring house in a boring neighborhood.
She brushed the long black hair out of her eyes and kicked the door open with her boot.
"Mom! I'm home," she called.
"Hi sweetie. How was school?" her mother responded from somewhere in the house.
Mina dropped her Badtz-Maru backpack on the floor at the foot of the stairs and clomped into the kitchen. Her mother had strapped her baby brother Oliver into his high-chair and was attempting to feed him. Globs of applesauce and smashed peas covered his Barney-the-dinosaur bib and dribbled down his chin.
Oliver gurgled brightly when he spotted his big sister. He grinned and flung a spoonful of peas in her direction, missing by a foot and splattering on the wall behind her.
Mina laughed. She bent over to tickle Oliver's chin and rubbed her forehead against his.
"Who's my baby?" she asked in a goo-goo-ga-ga-baby-talk voice. Oliver squirmed and squealed with pleasure.
"How was your day, honey?" her mom asked from the sink. She was wiping pea and applesauce goo off her shirt.
"Fine. Boring. Another day at humdrum high school."
"Really. That bad, huh?"
Mina grimaced. She patted Oliver on the head and stood up.
"Mom, you have NO idea. It's seriously the most boring place in the universe. Filled with boring people doing boring things. Boring boring boring. No one at my school has ever even heard of manga. I'd give my left leg for one single interesting person to talk to. But oh no, instead I get partnered with the king kong of boring - Bade Kingson - for Biology lab. And I get eight billion hours of homework."
"Bade Kingson, huh? Is he cute?"
"Ugh. Not a chance, Mom. Lacrosse guy. Big attitude. Big jerk."
"It's tough being you, I guess." Her mother chuckled and slung a dishtowel over her shoulder. "Better go and get started on your homework then."
Her mother was the only person in the world she let call her by her given name, "Philomena." It didn't sound like an joke or an insult coming from her, but she'd punch anyone else who said it aloud.
"Yah, ok. Just grabbing a snack first." Mina rummaged through a cupboard until she found a box of strawberry Pocky. She shook out a couple of sticks and waved the pink chocolate-covered biscuits around mischeviously.
"Pinky yumminess, Mom! Want one?"
Her mother grimaced theatrically and pretended to stick a finger down her own throat.
"I have no idea how you can eat that wierd stuff. Why not just eat a snickers bar or something. Like a normal teenager?"
Mina rolled her eyes and headed out of the kitchen. She patted Oliver's head on the way out.
"Bye bye Oli-wollly-wolliver! Be a good baby!"
Her brother cooed happily in response and went back to dribbling apple mush onto the floor.
"I'll be in my room, Mom."
"Dinner's in an hour, honey."
"K," she said as she scooped up her bag.
Mina's bedroom was just at the top of the stairs. She paused before entering to look at the Bauhuas poster taped to the outside of her bedroom door. It featured Bela Lugosi obscured by the shadow of a bat and was signed by Peter Murphy. She'd ordered it from a UK Internet site and paid more than she should have.
"Well," she thought. "It may be a boring house in the world's most boring neighborhood, but there's nothing boring about my room." She pushed the door open and went in.
Inside, the shades were pulled. Mina turned on a small bedside light. She tossed her Badtz-bag on the floor and lit a candle. It flared and immediately began to drip red wax over the plastic Hello Kitty figure that served as it's base.
Mina sat down on the bed and pulled off her boots. She looked around and flopped backwards onto the bed. It wasn't much, but it was her oasis of abnormality in the middle of the most normal city in America.
The CD player on the end-table near the bed was covered with paint marker - band names and abstract designs. Lots of silver and black and red. Discs were piled beside it and scattered on the floor nearby. The Cure, Interpol, Red Lorry Yellow Lorry, Garbage and a hundred others. Some were in their cases and some were not. Mina sat up and hit play. Joy Division never got old.
Goth rock posters obscured the plain white walls of the room - lots of scowling guys in makeup and leather pants. Her favorite was the new Deftones poster for "Saturday Night Wrist." The girl with the upturned face and the bare shoulders. It was pretty and sad and scary all at once. She worried about her and wanted to be her at the same time.
Her laptop lay on the purple comforter at the foot of the bed. She reached over and flicked on the powerbook. The Mac OS screen lit up the room in white and blue for a second.
Mina picked up an imported manga edition of "The Bell Jar" from where it lay on the comforter next to the computer. She thumbed through a few pages and got up to put it away.
Her bookcase was draped with a black lace scarf and was nearly full. Books literally spilled off the shelves - dog eared fantasy novels and gothic romances. Neal Gaiman, Clive Barker and Stephen King. Horace Walpole, Charlotte Bronte and Mary Shelly. Alice in Wonderland. Dracula. Tons of manga. A lot of it Yaoi, romantic boy-boy stuff, including the entire run of "Fake". On the top shelf, battered copies of Amphigorey and The Gashleycrumb Tinies leaned against an Edward Gorey snow-globe (filled of course, with ash). The bottom shelf contained all thirteen of Lemony Snicket's "A Series of Unfortunate Events". A pile of over-sized Sanrio collectors guides were stacked on the floor nearby.
Mina squeezed "The Bell Jar" into a space on the shelf and plopped back on the bed. She slumped and stared at her backpack, full of homework.
"This is going to take forever," she grumbled to herself.