Welcome to Gaia! ::

The scratching sound was the first thing she experienced. She was sure she had heard the sound before, somewhere. But she couldn't place it. She felt a sleight air current on the surface of her skin. She wasn't cold; rather it broke a stagnant warmth in the area. It was a very nice sensation.

Suddenly, there was a terrible ruckus. The girl's eyes flew open in time to see a girl about her age falling backward over a chair on the other side of a small classroom desk. Her long black hair flew upward and for a brief moment, the girl's eyes flashed into view, wide and terrified, before the hair slapped back down into her face in unison with the contact against the floor.

"Oh my gosh; are you ok?" She rushed over to the fallen girl and leaned over the offer the girl a hand. "Let me help you up."

The dark-haired girl backed farther away, scooting along the floor. She opened her mouth, but no sound came out.

She pursed her lips and crossed her arms. "I'm not THAT scary, you know." Or so she said. But come to think of it, how did she look right at that moment? She knew her basic appearance - brown hair, green eyes, petite body structure. But what was she wearing today? What had she been doing? For that matter, she didn't even know where she was at the very moment!

Th irritation left her face as she looked around the room in confusion. Some sort of classroom... But where was she? And why was she here? She couldn't remember! Now it was her turn to look around in fear. "Where am I? And what am I doing here...?" She wondered, trying desperately to remember something - anything...

Shane drew out his journal, frowning. He tapped his pen to his chin, trying to decide what sort of character to create. Someone shy, bright and bubbly, angry and moody, nerdy, jockey, crazy...The possibilities are endless and it was a bit overwhelming. Finally, he decided.

1. Decide what the character's general disposition and attitude is like. A basic personality. You can start with a character archetype if you want. He chose a bubbly. perky, energetic and enthusiastic base personality.
2. Create defining characteristics and things that effect them in a large way like a ultimate goal that guides them. This person-Jake, he decided- would be blunt and honest, loud, friendly. He'd be motivated by his desire to spread happiness and--

A loud commotion on the opposite side of the room dragged his attention from his notes. His eyes widened when he took in what was happening over at Rachel's desk. Gnawing on his pinky nail, he watched the newly created person and Rachel interact. He had mentally accepted that creating new people was a thing that could happen when the new prof had explained it, but somehow seeing it happen was a whole different beast. His eyebrows drew together when he finally pulled his attention back to his assignment. He'd have to be a bit more careful with this character creation business.

3. A brief history. Be concise. Jake lived with his dad for all of his life. He couldn't remember his mom, and living without her hadn't ever brought him down. He was 15 and in the middle of secondary school and had lots of friends.
4. Details like appearance, nationality, gender and family members are created last, unless they are a defining characteristic of the character. Again be concise. He was average height and weight, brown skinned with dark hair cut close to the scalp, transmale. Shane didn't quite know what to put for nationality, but he could feel his PM nudging him to put down "American," even though he had no clue what that meant. Likewise, she had him make the character a non-shifting, ordinary human.

Finished, Shane waited apprehensively for his new human to appear. As he peered around, shoulders hunched and arms tucked into his sides, he suddenly felt a light tap on his shoulder. Flinching, he whipped around in his chair and came eye to eye with who he assumed had to be Jake.

"Hi! My name's Jake! Who are you?" Shane gingerly grabbed the hand that was thrust in his face and gave it a shake.

"Uh, Shane..."

"Nice to meet you, Shane! Hey! What's this?" The boy turned Shane's hand over and glanced at his scaled pinky nail. "Nice! How'd you do it?"

Shane pulled his hand free, peeking up warily at Jake's beaming face. "It's just a power I have," he muttered. "Um, if you don't mind, I need to write something down real quick." He gestured back to his desk with the notebook.

"Oh, sure, man! Do whatever you gotta do." He sat in a desk behind Shane, his face genial and patient. Shane picked his pen back up and moved to finish his assignment.

For his summary, he quickly jotted down: "Jake is an enthusiastic guy who's goal in life is to mae people happy through honesty and friendship. He's a lyal guy who's not phased by anything." Feeling that that would have to do, Shane turned back to Jake, but the boy was gone. Peering around frantically, he finally caught sight of him over by Rachel and the girl she'd created.

"Hi, I'm Jake! Nice to meet you," Shane overheard. He sat back, still stunned, and watched his creation interact with the girls.

"Absolutely nothing..." Rachael murmured, looking down toward her desk. She specifically stated that this girl would have no connection with anything magic or evil and at this point, she was pretty sure this place was both. She sure wasn't going to be the one to ruin this girl's innocence and security by introducing her to the concept of magic. Even if the girl was, technically, made from magic herself.


Marissa looked at Rachael crossly. "Nothing, huh...?" She wasn't sure whether or not to believe her. The girl just seemed in general to be... very distant and closed off. But after a moment, Marissa just shrugged it off. After all, the only thing you can do for a person who's antisocial like that is to make sure they always have the chance to speak, even if they don't take it. She turned her attention back to Jake. "What about you? What do you know about this place?"

Omri watched the chaos unfold as the laws of the universe were wiggled around to create creatures from seemingly thin air. It might have been too much for the students to deal with, but he believed in the hands on variety of learning. The uncertainty was sure as the surprise when the characters came to being on this realm before their creators, and soon they began to play merrily in the classroom.

"Alright, alright, may I have your attention my dear students!" With a flick of a switch on this retro gadget the creations ceased to move, a flickering light like static on a television danced across their dulled figures. "I think you all did a really nice job, I mean look at these guys! They're real. Real as any existence in this world and you made that. Be proud." He clapped in the room full of silence for a moment before having the new characters march to the front of the class.

"So, to wrap up this little section on characters, I'm going to give you some tips on how to make your characters interesting." As he said that the line of three characters turned to face the students, standing like soldiers with a passive look on their face. "A good character is made basic yet real enough that they can maintain themselves in any world. That means that every character should have flaws along with their other qualities, not just because it makes them relatable but also because it reflects into the real world. By the way a disability is not a flaw, that is just unfortunate circumstance."

"For example, let's take Marissa here. She is an overall nice person, let's see what happens when we give her a broken arm." With some other fidgeting Marissa suddenly appeared with one arm in a cast and sling. "See? She isn't much different from before really, but what about if it was because she was being stalked, and refused to find help because she did not want to bother others. Is that called being extremely self effacing or extremely self sacrificing?" Marissa's face, dulled as it already was, began to slip into a frightful pallor, her smile was the same but in her eyes was fear. "Confrontation and hardship is what tests one's characteristics, but it doesn't have to be as extreme as this. Ordinary life has just as much potential to challenge. These are the sort of things that make a character compelling to read, not their special race or tragic background."

He pushed his glasses up higher onto the bridge of his nose. "Now for some common pitfalls. Don't mistake details on someone for depth. Like for instance." He looked at the remaining two characters as if decided who to torture. "Like Jake here, right, nice guy, good with kids I'm sure. But what? He has a mole on his butt? Well alright, but it doesn't really count for anything. You gotta make sure that the details are relevant, they have to be something that you can play with. Maybe, Jake is scared of insects. That's relevant if you write him dealing with a mosquito or mentioned when they are in a jungle setting. Details add depth but too many that you can't play on won't do any good."

It seemed though that he wasn't yet done with Jake. "Another thing that some people do is add many unnecessary 'special' qualities to a character. For instance, making them some kind of powerful race, giving them a unique appearance and the like. There is nothing wrong with being unique but those qualities won't make the character better if what is inside isn't as rich as what is on the outside. If we make Jake here a vampire," the frozen boy grew fangs and several shades paler, "you can see that he is still very much the same person as human Jake. Unique doesn't mean better, so don't mindlessly add things just for the fun of it or to be 'special'. Special can mean a lot of different things, in a world of werewolves, a vampire is special. In a story full of villains, a hero is the one that stands out. Figure out what the story needs, what kind of character you can contribute to that story."

Finally Omri turned to James and thought for a moment as he walked around him, drumming his fingers on his bottom lip. "I think the last point I want to make about good characters is that even though I keep telling you guys it is important to make a character with depth the assignment I gave you specifically said that you must only make the bare minimum of a character. It was on purpose I promise." He stood beside the small boy and placed a hand on his shoulder. "These people, they are just strangers right now. You have only just met, person to person, creation to creator. It takes time to develop good character, and even though it is you as the writer giving the character depth, I like to think of it as discovering what was already there. Slowly unwinding the potential of this stranger, coming to know them intimately."

After the long long lecture the man sighed once and rubbed the back of his neck. His throat was dry and he was tired of hearing himself. "Errr. That turned out a little bit more philosophical than I intended. Well, to wrap things up why don't you guys write down what you have learned and bring it up to the desk? Ah, don't use my exact words please, tell me what you really learned and I hope you enjoyed it if nothing else! Oh ya and I gotta get rid of these guys." A push of some discreet red button vanished the projections.

Crystal watched the little child explore the room and then try to talk to a fellow student they all froze like statues as the teacher spoke. She listened had she really made this boy what about his other life he had to be real in another world. Her cat like ears twitched lightly as she looked at the boy so simple and as the three moved to the front of the class room.

She continued to listen to the teacher as he talked about tips to make a character interesting. She tilted her head lightly as the teacher talked about character having flaws. She winced lightly as he gave an example of the Marissa happening to have a broken arm. She notice the sudden change in the character her arm in covered in a white hard material and in a fabric sling. She continued to listen as he moved the next character. She then watch the character changed as after the teacher talked. She looked at her character a little afraid for what changes this little boy would endure.

She watched the teacher and walk around James and she lightly bit her lip lightly. She held her breath as the teacher talked. Her eye's tight on her character that she created and when nothing changed she let out the air. Then all three characters vanished in a blink of an eye after Omri said he had to get rid of them. She opened her desk to find paper.

She began to write on the paper.

What I learned:
- Everyone has flaws
- No mater how the character looks it doesn't change who the character is
- The world around the character can affect the character.

She looked at it to see if she wanted to put more. She looked up as Rachael walked up to the desk. She stood up and walked up behind Rachael to hand in the her paper. She rocked on her feet.

Shane didn't pay much attention to what was happening with Jake as the character talked with the girls. He was much too focused on this amazing power of his to seemingly create new people out of nothing. He doodled a few character designs in his notebook: an older woman with long white hair who could shoot heat rays from her eyes, a mute boy of 12 that could touch any electronic device and make it work! His doodling was brought to an abrupt stop by the professor.

As Omri went into detail about what makes a character good, Shane looked shamefully down at his drawings. They were everything one shouldn't do with none of the things one should do to make an interesting character.He went to scratch them out, but paused. Maybe they could still be useful in the future somehow. He watched intently at what was happening to Jake and the others with his shoulders hunched, slouching down in his desk. He felt a slight twinge of sadness as Jake disappeared (he hardly knew the guy!) but it was gone when he got back to work.

The lecture was super informative and he quickly jotted down his thoughts before tearing out the sheet of paper from his journal and bringing it sheepishly to the front of the class.



A good character does not equal one with tons of powers or one that is perfect in everyday. It has to be realistic, which means having real human problems, fears, aspirations, personality quirks, and struggles to overcome. They have to have details but not so many that you can't do anything with them. The details you choose to add have to be meaningful and relevant to the story of the world you make them for.

When he was still halfway through writing the assignment, he heard the announcement about the Exam. He shivered a bit, uncertain as to how well he could do, but resolved to finish this assignment before worrying about the next one. After turning in his paper, he sat and thought on the instructions for the next.