Here you'll find the rantings of a blogging fool and sometimes writer. My more personal posts, including progress reports on my various writing projects, are Friends Only. General posts on writing are Public. Please see my user profile for my other LJs and my friending policy, and browse through the sidebar for nifty goodies and useful info.

---oOo---
Writing only leads to more writing. (Colette)

---oOo---

Visitors from 1/30/05:

---

Doing this again.

Time to get your Evil on - Questions for your WIP's villain -

1 - What is your villain's main pet peeve?
Spy stories: Bad guys from evil organization, no particular villain or pet peeve.
SF novel: Antagonist, not villain, peeved by people who are sticklers for the rules.

2 - What is the most depraved thing your villain has ever done? (even if it's not all that depraved)
Spy stories: rape, murder, blow things and people up.
SF novel: lie, cheat, uses and manipulates people.

3 - What is a redeeming quality your villain has? (if any)
Spy stories: Most haven't had any I've noticed.
SF novel: He's a decent guy underneath, just thinks the ends justify the means.

4 - Does your villain think he's evil?
Spy stories: They think they know best how to rule the world, so no.
SF novel: No.

5 - What is your villain's justification?
Spy stories: See #4.
SF novel: Ends justify the means, he knows best.

Another round of questions from writers_five

I'm answering for my main spy guy, Paul, from the stories I write with friends and self-publish, and Grisha, from my sf WIR.

1. Does your protagonist have a hobby?
Paul: Motorcycles, playing videogames with his son.
Grisha: Who has time for hobbies?

2. Does your protagonist have a best friend or a confidant of sorts, someone he/she can turn to for advice or just to talk through a touch time?
Paul: Many people. There's C, his mentor; Jordan, a friend who is more like an older brother; T, his wife; and N, a friend who is almost his conscience.
Grisha: Kos, a friend of his parents.

3. Does your character have a quirk not dictated by the plot?
Paul and Grisha: None that come to mind. I'm not always sure what people consider quirks.

4. Does your protagonist like their job?
Paul: Yes.
Grisha: He's new to his current job and isn't sure yet.

5. Where does your protagonist go when they're down and out? (i.e. a favorite dive bar, a friend's house, a cave in the mountains)
Paul: Home, though sometimes he goes to a bar that's a hangout for spies or for a ride on his motorcycle.
Grisha: He's newly arrived on Mars and doesn't know many places yet.

I wrote the following as a comment on seawasp's lj and liked it enough to want to keep it. So here it is, edited, as a post.

My WIR involves antagonists more than villains in the traditional black hat baddie mode. My antagonists are uh, like the people in government now who are convinced they have the answers and try to impose their solutions on others, even break some laws and kill if it furthers their cause which of course is for their perceived greater good. That interests me.

In the spy stories, we get to write pure sadists, sociopaths, and psychopaths who are a great deal of fun to play with.

And yes, it is amazing what people will do to avoid admitting they're wrong. I'm thinkin a particular current administration, for one.

In both cases, though, I like writing them and when I get good ones, I find ways to keep them around for a while. Heroes are harder for me to write. I write screwed up good guys who end up doing the right, aka heroic thing. Which is why Grisha in the WIR has been so hard for me. He's screwed up, but he's been trying to do the right, heroic thing all along. I'm not used to working with that mindset. Maybe it's just me, but I find villains, antagonists, and screwed up protags easier to write. They have nice, messy agendas. ;)

I posted this in a comment on another blog and thought I'd repost it here because I wanted to keep it where I could access it again readily and figured I'd share it with others, mainly my fl. And I think I've posted some of this previously, but what the hell. Here goes.

The topic of cuteness and making characters suffer has been getting some play this week on writing blogs. This is my comment to Karen's post.

Of course, cute is in the eye of the beholder. When I was 11, "Illya" was cute and therefore, the character on Man From UNCLE I focused on. When I was hit my 30s, Robert Vaughn's handsomeness started to give David McCallum's cuteness a run for its money, and I started appreciating Napoleon Solo in a way I never had previously.

It has long been known in fan fic circles that the angst factor, the hurt/comfort factor, drives a lot of fanac, aka fan activity re: viewing and writing.

We want to comfort the ones we love and before we can comfort them, they need to be hurt or otherwise in need of comforting. As viewers, someone else has to do that for us and we can comfort only vicariously through another character on scene, preferably the buddy (boo hiss to girlfriend / boyfriend characters because that's the role we want). As writers, we get to do it ourselves, which explains a lot of the Mary Sue phenomenon: She's Us and aside from being perfect, she gets the lust/angst character. She's our wish fulfillment.

Lee Child has been "accused" and I certainly agree, of having his Jack Reacher character, a man who is so anti-social and in many ways, unappealing (to me, having read one of the books in that series) attracting sexually appealing female characters who seem to find him just the greatest thing since sliced bread. Wish fulfillment in the pro book market.

That science is catching up (and that research re: babies and cuteness is not new, the need to evolve the urge to nurture young and helpless of the species will help ensure survival) is no surprise.

.

I have to wonder, though, about changing and varying tastes. We humans aren't as simple creatures as we used to be back when we were first evolving. And a lot of research into what attracts males and females to each other re: what qualities would make a good mate (at least long enough to create and nurture strong offspring) has been going on, from how easily looks can turn the head of the opposite sex (think peacock) to strength to fight off predators, from features that we've come to associate rightly or wrongly to intelligence to the more modern economical factors that mean someone will be able to provide for the care of a child, either by being able to bring home a wooly mammoth to live off for a year or a good stock portfolio and pension plan.

But back to writing. I think that I cast my main characters to up the angst factor for myself, which makes it easier to write, not just for the descriptions which I suck at, but for the emotional attachment the faces help foster. Even for the villains. I know it makes the stories more like TV shows and I'm visually oriented. I don't visualize well, so I need that element provided for me. I gravitate toward visual media. I am a great lover of books, but my first reading love was comics in comic book and comic strip form.

But not any old face will do. Even the antagonist has to be an actor I like, whose face appeals to me on some level. Which is why, in my WIR, one of the antagonists looks like yummy Jimmy Smits. For the on-hold Mars book that Deb and I first started writing, my main character is the guy in the icon. He appealed to me on a gut level the first time I saw him, in the movie "Simon," back in 1980 or so. Of course, I didn't really learn who he was until The Equalizer, but that's another story. He's been the "star" of much of my writing for a long time. The protag in the WIR looks like Michael Shanks. And so it goes.

And when it comes to adult characters, these aren't just faces I would want to comfort and nurture. They're folks I'd want to have sex with (I'm trying to not be too blunt here). Anyone who doesn't see the lust factor in what a lot if not most people put into their writing, especially fan fic, is either oblivious or in denial. IMO, of course.

Maud Newton had an interesting excerpt from a recent article by John Lanchester in the New York Review of Books about J.M. Coetzee's feelings re: using authorial characters in his works. Coetzee's latest novel features a writer.

"It is more, perhaps, a question of ethics, touching on the morality of making people up, and then devising trials and torments for them, designed to expose and test their deficiencies. Is there anything of ethical content to be said about the fortunes of these imaginary people? Does making things up have an effect on the maker, and on the reader?"

and this:

"A cartoon version of this would be to say that Coetzee has moved from a concern about human beings to a concern about animal beings to a concern about fictional beings. A reader who has followed Coetzee’s books since Disgrace, and followed the thread of ethical inquiry that runs through them, might pose Slow Man’s central question differently: Why should we care about fictional characters when the world is so full of real suffering?"

I've certainly written my fair share of angst for my characters, especially in my fan fiction, both mental and physical suffering. And I certainly feel as if my characters, the ones who are the protagonists and main characters, and especially those who appear in more than one story, to be real in a sense, even if they dwell only in my head and on paper or in pixels. And I hope they feel real to the people who read about them. But perhaps Coetzee is being too hard on himself. Writers do have power. They can entertain. They can make people feel something. They can make them think. And they can make them perhaps consider something they never have before. Maybe even feel something about the real people who are suffering what the fictional ones suffer.

A writer's skill influences how well they can do this. As a reader, I don't want to feel my emotions have been manipulated (the same is true for when I view movies). I want to believe those characters are real. And while I prefer happy endings for the catharsis after the suffering, I have no problems with reading something sad or tragic. I'm a crier. And that can be cathartic, too. But the characters aren't real in that they don't exist beyond the page except in memory. They don't physically feel the pain we inflict on them or are witness to. They don't really suffer.

But there are some readers who do suffer when they read things, which is why I can see the usefulness of warning labels yet don't want my enjoyment of such books to be spoiled by knowing heavy angst is coming, or worse, that the book ends sadly. For people who need to know so they can avoid such books, perhaps they need to read only recommendations or books reviewed to their liking. I don't know.

And when I write, I don't suffer with the characters the way I do when I read. Possibly because in my backbrain, I know the outcome. And perhaps because there's comfort in knowing the characters exist only due to my having created them and the suffering isn't real on a physical level. But I am wondering now about the emotional connection between character and reader. The ability to move someone can be a double-edged sword. Something to keep in mind.

William Gibson looks at names over on his blog.

jersey_lion at my prompting posted a discourse on being true to characters. Worth reading, I think, especially for people who write with others, either as straight collaborators or as part of an interactive group.

New look on Cyber Chocolate. Take a look; it's more chocolicious than ever.

If you aren't reading Making Light, why aren't you? Seriously, there is more good writing advice, not to mention entertainment, in Teresa Nielsen Hayden's blog's comments than in most blogs out there. This brief entry on cover letters and character names is well worth reading, especially, the comments.

Meanwhile, here are some more spammer names:
Hilda Danlopa (I love the sound of this one.)
Marcelino Barlow (Also nicely rhythmic.)
Ora Spangler (Male? Female? You decide!)

Yeah, it's been a while since my last full post, but I didn't have anything to report, so it didn't make much sense to me to keep posting that I wasn't writing. I got back to the WIP tonight and will work on it this week -- I have a few days off.

First, though, I want to briefly touch on an exercise the What Iffers did. I'm not one for writing exercises, so I didn't participate. But it brought up an interesting issue: How do we learn our characters?

Do we write detailed bios that cover every possible detail or as much as we can think of ahead of time, then fill in as we write? (Okay, I do this, but the bio isn't all that detailed.)

Do we just start writing and let the characters develop in the writing? (I do this to some extent, but I start with the mini-bios. However, often the mini-bios mutate as I write the characters and learn new things about them and/or things that contradict the bios. It's the bios that get revised, not the scenes.)

Do we (and this was the exercise, folks) put the characters in a situation they wouldn't find themselves in in the WIP and write their reactions?

The What Iffers who did this found it useful. I can't fathom it. I can't write a character in an alien situation because I don't know them well enough (the opposite of the intent of the exercise as a learning device) to write them there. I have to write them in their own lives so I can learn how they react, think, etc. Then, I can stick them pretty much anywhere and I'll know what they'll do.

If you met me in a situation alien to me, you'll learn how I react in such cases, but that won't tell you what I'm like otherwise. It won't tell you what I'm like on my job or at home. It won't tell you how I conduct myself as I go about living my life. I freeze up in alien situations. I'm relaxed otherwise. My thoughts in alien situations revolve around "Oh, shit," and "I gotta get out of here," unless I can somehow manage to find a way to enjoy myself, usually with some help. My thoughts in situations that are part of my life are entirely different, though "I gotta get out of here" does occur at times. heh.

It's an interesting dynamic to play with. Has anyone, other than the What Iffers reading this, tried it? I'd love to hear how it worked or didn't work for you.

And now my writing report.

I've been waiting til I had a chunk of time before I got back to the WIP because I was at an impasse. I know most of the remaining scenes, but the climax has been fuzzy. I don't see how the action develops. I couldn't jump to the next chaper because I didn't know how the previous one ends, where Grisha is emotionally, and so on. So I decided tonight to just jump to the confrontation and skip for now how it develops and I really got into it, delving into a past incident that colors his reactions and it came out very nicely and I can move forward now. Later, when I get some details/research done on weapons use on Mars, etc, I'll fill in the part I skipped.

So I'm up to chapter 15 and I think there will be only 15 chapters or maybe a chapter 16 if chapter 15 looks to be too long, so I'm nearing the end. Yeeha!

Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind: Create your own Serial Killer Novel

This was fun enough and writing oriented, so figured it was worth mentioning here.

An excerpt:

"Here is a sample of the contents:

THE PRE-WRITING CHECKLIST

KILLER'S PATHETIC BACKGROUND (choose all that apply):

__ skinny and unloved
__ fat and unloved
__ handsome and unloved
__ ugly and unloved
__ other children made fun of his Little Lord Fauntleroy suit, deforming
him for life
__ a woman with big boobs stepped on his foot, deforming him for life
__ cat pissed on his head while in the crib, deforming him for life"

Just remember, it's what you do with these basics that counts. heh

A follow-up to the character discussion, conducted on an AOL message board. Karen was the person I mentioned previously here.
From Karen: Shelly mentioned before that her character creation method was more extensive for major characters than for walk-ons, which of course makes sense. Most of my major characters came into existence so long ago that I'm not sure I can report my process on them accurately. Still, I think I do pretty much the same thing for them as the spear carriers.

1. I need a character who does THIS or wants THAT or has THIS background or THIS loyalty or friendship or romantic entanglement. I may or may not make a note to that effect, defining the aforementioned traits and assigning a name, which may change later.

2. I put the character in the scene and watch him or her come to life.

3. If there's a question about motivation or family tree or whatever, I make a note about that until the note resolves the question--until and unless I change it again.

4. Sometime in the next decade, I record the hair and eye color in a chart.

That's all.

And my answer

It's early and my brain isn't fully awake yet, but it seems to me that you have a story or plot or something besides character in mind first and then need to come up with a character or characters to explore that whatever. Is that right?

Whereas, I come up with someone I want to write about in the setting I've been fiddling with and then I need other characters I want to write about interacting with him. The remaining characters--the supporting ones--then come from whatever the story needs.
*****
And I'll add that once I need a supporting character and have created him or her on the spot, if that character seems to have some importance, I'll stop and fill in some detail, pick a face, and on occasion, go back and add an earlier appearance so they don't seem to appear out of nowhere when needed, if that suits the story.
Character is such a complex issue that I'm sure I'll be revisiting it here.

A recent discussion on one of the AOL SF/Fantasy Writers Boards creating characters echoed many such discussions we’ve had there over the years and seemed a good way to introduce the next section on character development here. Mostly, I can speak about my process only, but as much as possible, I’ll mention what I know other people do.

My stories come primarily from character and settings, no doubt a holdover from the 15 years I spent writing fan fiction. And to that end, I “cast” my main characters with actors I like and think are suitable.

I do brief bio sketches, some basic facts covering general description (and the “face” I’ve chosen), relevant background info (that usually needs to fit the story’s timeline and with the other characters), and personality, any and all of which is ripe for revision as I write the characters.

The following is from my answer to the statement by one of the board regulars that her characters become real to her as soon as they think or say something. Whereas, I know of other people – my SF collaborator, to name one – who create long, detailed bios of their characters, building up backstories, working out the details of their lives: their interests, their goals, their likes and dislikes, their childhood illnesses, their education, and so on.

Well, yes, the characters become real to me, too, when I write them doing something or speaking or thinking, but I need a foundation. They don't just start saying or thinking in my head til I have a "voice" for them, and that comes from casting and naming them. That comes from giving them some basic bits of personality and background, both of which can evolve in the writing. But they don't just spring into life with the first words. They have to slowly form in my mind like zygotes growing into fetuses. I have to create that zygote first. And it helps me keep them differentiated in my mind by giving them "surface" details – faces and voices.

In a way, they, like me, are what they see in the mirror, their faces give them a sense of identity, never mind that my image of myself is still my 30-year-old self, not my actual, current, 50-year-old self. I suppose a lot of this comes from my psych background, but creating the personality and the "surface" traits that helped shape that personality, is very much a part creating and developing a character for me.

But I do not think of or see those "surface" details as superficial. They are to me essential in establishing the embodiment of the character. The "face" and personality that are Grisha, for ex, differentiate him from Henri in so many ways, from self-image to how others see and react to each of them. Grisha is aware of his effect on women because of his looks. Henri is oblivious to a similar effect because he's too wrapped up in his insecurities. And that's before I even started writing them. Yet I didn’t consciously know it until I wrote scenes where it became clear to me. Though if I hadn’t had set faces in mind for them, they might not have reacted or been reacted to that way. I work mostly on a subconscious level but I need something for my subconscious to draw on.

So I pick actors to cast as my characters, not just so I know Grisha has hazel eyes and brown hair or whatever, but to put a mental picture of him in my mind and a voice into my inner ear. When I see that face, so many things are conjured up, the effect of that face on me emotionally, which is why all my protagonists must be actors I like. If I don't personally like them, they can be as handsome as can be, yet they won't have the desired effect on me and I won't be able to get into the character's mindset.

In response to a statement from the poster that she doesn’t know what her characters look like, but she knows what they think of each other, I said:

It's great that you can know that without other info to back it up. For me, I know what Grisha thinks about Teo, for ex, because I've been writing it and because I gave them a history together that is part of the setting and character bios. And those thoughts and feelings will evolve as Teo does things that Grisha might or might not like.

But I couldn't write it and learn about it until I had both characters set in my mind and I needed the faces to do that.

Re: her statement that she has no idea what her characters sound like, I said:

I was able to write fan fic because I "heard" the characters’ voices in my head, and it's been that way for my original characters, too. So I hear the high pitched voices and the deep voices, and stammers and softspokenness and so on.

For her, character is what they say, not how they say it.

And character for me is everything about the character: what he says, what he thinks, what he thinks about himself, what he thinks about others, his personality, his likes and dislikes, his tone of voice, his goals and desires, the way his eyes narrow in when he's talking to someone, the way he (Grisha, in this case) assumes a lecturing tone, and so on. Whether it all gets onto the page, tho, is another matter.

Asked if I’m a highly visual person, I answered, Oddly enough, I'm a visual person who doesn't visualize. I don't see images when I read, so descriptions in books are lost on me that way. And it's why I cast my characters – to put the visual I need in my mind because I can't conjure it for myself.

And I don't actually “see” the face when I'm writing. Rather, I'm seeing thru his or her eyes. The character comes into existence and I feel as if I'm channeling him or her.

And there’s nothing that says my way is any more right than any other way. It’s right for me. Every writer has to discover the best way to create and develop a character for him/herself and to bring that character to the page. It’s easy to say a character looks one way or acts another, or that the writer needs or doesn’t need to know what a character looks like. It’s another thing to get that onto the page and into the story, to bring that character to life.

A book I’ve found very helpful because it groups character traits the way they appear in real people (and the writer can use as much or as little as desired), is The Writer’s Guide to Character Traits by Linda N. Edelstein, PhD. I’ve tried many how-to-write books focusing on character, but they didn’t work for me due to their writerly approach. This book approaches the subject from a psychological view and while it shouldn’t be used blindly, it can be a useful tool, one of many out there. It is very useful in listing traits associated with various personality types, including dysfunctional ones, ie addicts.

From comments in the AOL version of this blog:

Comment from mavarin....
Along with mythology, I'd like to suggest literary references: Caliban, Prospero, Mercutio, and so on--and that's just the tip of the iceberg on Shakespeare, let alone other writers.

And of course, if you're working in an alien or fantasy language, you probably aren't going to dig into baby books for Fred or Ezekiel, Lawanda or Maisy. I like coining names from combinations of sounds, or else by taking a "real" name and changing it to fit a set of made-up rules. In Mavarinu there are no silent letters, no doubled consonants to make the vowels short, and hardly any names longer than two syllables, except for mages. Fun stuff. The thing to watch out for--and I imagine this is true even if you're populating a novel with real-world names--is a tendency to use too many similar names. Otherwise it's all too easy to end up with a run of "J" names or Biblical names or names ending in y. (I have too many J-names myself, but Jamek and Jord and Jor and Jerela won't let me change them, no matter how nicely I ask!) Your point about variety is therefore a good one. - Karen

Comment from Shelly at ImPRESS Books....
I read Howard the Duck back when it was first published--I don't recall how many issues I had, but I loved it. The names were among the best I've seen in fiction.

Those are all good ideas, Karen. The fantasy ideas are useful. Thanks. I'm more into science fiction, so coming up with fantasy names isn't my thing. And I do like using Biblical names, tho, mainly OT. Also other names that have fallen into disuse. For something futuristic, using a long unused name can give the sound of something familiar yet not.

I like variety re: ethnicity, so I have a lot of naming resources. The nature of your setting might restrict this or otherwise influence it. More on that later. I use the following print books for reference:

Baby name books are probably the best for given names.

New American Dictionary of First Names by L. Dunking and W. Gosling, Signet, 1985. An old paperback, but the most comprehensive I've seen.

Melting Pot Book of Baby Names, 2nd ed, by C.E. Lockhart, Betterway Books, 1990. Comprehensive, organized by nationality.

Writer's Digest Character Naming Sourcebook by S. Kenyon, et al, Writer's Digest Books, 1994. Organized by nationality, includes sample surnames. While it and the Melting Pot Book of Baby Names overlap a lot, there are names in each not found in the other.

A World of Baby Names by T. Norman, Perigree, 1996. Over 30,000 names organized by ethnic group or nationality. Very comprehensive. I love that it separates African-American names from African names and makes other clear distinctions.

Mythology. There are a number of books and online sources. I don't limit myself to Greek and Roman, but have tried Norse myths and Asian lore, too.

Online sources are a bit iffy. There are plenty out there, but I check them by looking up my name and they almost all get the origin wrong. My given name was "created" in the 1930s in the US and spread to England by the '40s. It looks French, but according to the New American Dictionary of First Names, above, is unknown in France. Yet many if not most resources, now claim it's French. That said, we're looking only to name our characters and the following sites allow for varied searching.Unfortunately, baby name sites are subject to a lot of popups, even more than AOL's popup controls were able to zap.

BabyNames.com http://www.babynames.com/V5/ Got the origin of my name wrong, but is searchable.

Baby Center http://www.babycenter.com/babyname/

Baby Chatter http://www.babychatter.com/

Behind the Name http://www.behindthename.com/ Got the origin of my name wrong, but is searchable.

Surnames: This is harder if you're trying to find names by nationality, but there are places to look. The Statesman's Yearbook (mentioned in an earlier entry) and any history on a country are good sources of last names, as is the newsmedia, both newspapers and newsmagazines and now, online news sites. I keep lists of names I like, by nationality, and refer to the lists while naming characters. Medical directories and phone books are also useful, but you'll have to guess at the nationality. If you don't care and just want a good sounding last name, these work fine. Surnames.com http://www.surnames.com/ is an online source I've recently found that looks useful.

There are also genealogy books. I have a few specialized ones. Along with the ones I have that are listed below, I've seen books for Irish names/ancestry and Scottish names/ancestry.

A Dictionary of Jewish Names and Their History by B.C. Kaganoff, Aronson, 1996, 1997.

1,001 African Names: First and Last Names from the African Continent by J. Stewart, Citadel Press, 1996. Alphabetical listing of given names includes national/tribal origin of each name, but it's the appendices and extra info that make this book special. Surnames are listed by national/tribal origin, an English to African name listing, naming customs, terms of endearment, supersititions re: names, and a pronunciation guide, all packed into a small trade paperback.

Before getting into fact checking and subject resources, I thought it time to discuss characters. Now not everyone approaches writing in the same way, and I'll be getting to that in a later post (probably more than one), so keep in mind that the order I discuss topics here has nothing to do with any order writers write. Characters might be the first thing a writer works on or the last, but sooner or later, he or she will probably need to create some.

Creating characters can be broken into stages, tho doing so is not required. Some writers might come up with a fully realized character, name and all, all at once. Perhaps they dreamed the character or are basing him or her on someone real or another character, tho a few details might need changing. If you're writing something autobiographical or using your mother as the "villain," you probably wouldn't want her to instantly realize the evil shrew looks and sounds a lot like her. Using a celebrity might lead to accusations of libel, unless it's satire, and even if you're completely in the right, who needs the aggravation.

Using someone else's characters as a basis of yours can be problematic, too, if the character is well known, like Han Solo or James Bond. So changing some details might be a good idea. And better for you as a writer. Making a character your own is one of the best ways I know to make him or her believable to the average reader. I wrote fan fic for 15 years. I know how much fun it is to write my own adventures for such diverse and beloved characters as Napoleon and Illya, Robert McCall and the rest of The Equalizer gang, and so on. I made the move to original fiction when I discovered I was enjoying the characters I created from scratch much more than the ones someone else conceived.

So, for me, characters are developed in two or three stages that can be broken down even further, but I'll review the broad stages that I use. I start by figuring out who/what they will be in the story. I don't get all the supporting cast right at the start, and often don't use some I created in advance, but I do get the main characters established in my mind. I usually have the setting first, which I'll discuss in a later entry, so I try to find character types to fit that setting.

I need two things first--name and face. I always "cast" main characters with actors or sports figures or singers I like. This helps me describe them because I really suck at that. It also helps me bond with them. With name and face, they can get fixed in my mind and start to "talk" to me. I usually hear them in the sound of the celebrity's voice if I know it well. I might also pick up the cadence of the actor in a particular role for my character. I suppose that's a holdover from my fan fic days.

Choosing a name that fits the character and face is most important to me. Some writers don't seem to care what they call their characters, or will use placeholders until they find a name they like. Not me. I need that before I can do anything else with the character. Since this is getting long, I'll break it here, and put Naming Characters into its own entry.