xwhy t1_j8564mo wrote on February 11, 2023 at 6:34 PM

Christopher from Brooklyn, NY, aka owner of r/xwhy.

This is an interesting question because I just put together a Character Database (actually just a spreadsheet) of about 55 flash and short stories I've written in the past 5 or 6 years.

One thing that I found odd was that a lot of characters, particularly in first-person flash, didn't have names or nicknames. I didn't have a way to work it in. In a couple of them, that loss of identity was an advantage, but in others, I started to feel like something was missing.

Looking at my Submissions Database, the last story I created had a main character named Stephen (no last name) who lost time, coming aware as he was walking down his stairs toward the kitchen, only to discover a strange woman named Lorelle waiting for him. And there were a couple more people (or beings) in there.

I have a collection of 30 stories (included in the 55 mentioned above) sitting with an editor, there are a quite a lot of good characters in that one. Two favorites would be a devil and an angel (the devil has better lines, sadly). And there's a smooth-talking car salesman whose a hoot. I run the gamut of genres, but I'm not sure how many of those characters I'd have a beer with.

Pick a genre, ask me about a character I created for it. I'll say what I can without giving too much away.

MajorParadox OP t1_j856bnj wrote on February 11, 2023 at 6:35 PM

A character spreadsheet is a great idea!

xwhy t1_j85itzv wrote on February 11, 2023 at 8:02 PM

I wanted to know if I was repeating or favoring any names. Possibly I am in the throwaway characters. There were too many to catalogue. Oddly, my most used name was Martinez, which I used twice, both scifi, but at least a century apart.

I need to add more info about the main characters, and the races (particularly aliens). I have two totally different races from the same place, but it's okay because I only listed the star, so they could be from different planets there.