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I rather like it, too. And I know it's a nightmare trying to come up with good lesson plans; I was a student teacher for a year, and believe me, it drove me nuts trying to come up with good stuff.

...Not sure why I'm giggling madly (although I've never thought of All Along the Watchtower that way, and had it stuck in my head yesterday, so yeah, pointless parentheses here), but I think it sounds pretty good and I'll snap it up as soon as it's "released" :D

A unique combination of our backstory, physical traits, emotional reactions, and relationships makes us who we are. It's the same with characters. For that reason, not all of those things have to be unique (read: OMG uber speshul) to make an original character--they just have to COMBINE in a way that makes the character compelling and able to carry the story.

The thing about backstory in particular is that experiences in our childhood have an astounding impact on us, whether we like it or not. For example, someone raised Jewish may always keep kosher even if they stop going to synagogue. Someone like me, forced to listen to symphonic music and watch Olympic ice skating even when I didn't feel like it, may find as an adult that they appreciate them and even that those things are special to them. Nothing, unless they are extremely powerful things, will ever get under our skin like the things we experience as children.

Physical traits in literature are important in a different way: they can be and often are assigned symbolic significance whether the author means for it or not. Scars are the ones that come to mind instantly. A physical scar can often stand for an emotional scar. Perfect (if extreme) example: the Phantom of the Opera. It's not just his face that's making him so messed up. Less extreme example: Frodo Baggins, scarred once by the Nazgul blade and again by the loss of his finger, could also never recover emotionally and live a normal life in the Shire.

Other things, like glasses, are simply associated with certain traits, in this case intelligence (or possibly geekdom). However, being nearsighted might also indicate a tendency to miss the forest for the trees, whereas a farsighted person might overlook things they consider minor details in favor of the bigger picture. Being left-handed has long been associated with being evil, or backward, or contrary, or just not normal. Tattoos (excluding concentration camp ones) symbolize rebellion, but the specific tattoo can also mean anything you like. Beware, however, of hidden meanings in the symbol you choose. There may be associations you're not aware of.

Colors are a big deal, too. Having a character wear a certain color can say loads about them. Also, we all "know" things about blondes, red-heads, etc. Same goes for eye color--the reason Suethors go for weird eye colors is because it's a quick and dirty way to tell us that there's something special about the character without having to show it to us with story-telling.

This might be a good excuse to get into the "show, don't tell" principle. Just because something is a physical trait doesn't mean you're showing us.

Hence the importance of emotions, actions, and relationships. It's the character's behavior and speech that really show us what they're about. It's how they handle those things hanging around from their childhood that defines them, not those things themselves. It's how they use everything they've got to solve problems, or fail to solve them, or whatever needs to happen.

And it's always important to remember that your characters can and will surprise you. It's a lot like kids: you can set them up with certain background experiences and basic traits, but eventually they will develop to the point where they start to go off in their own direction, and there's nothing you can do about it. Trying to control every detail will stifle them, leaving you with writer's block and possibly a dead story.

... I think I've talked about enough now. ^_^; I hope that helps.

~Neshomeh

I'll try my best, though it would be up to whoever teaches the lesson to pull it off, of course. I'm simply writing the lesson plan!

This is AMAZING! Thank you so much! I especially find the little note on 'Cheap Freudian backstories' really helpful! ^^

Welcome to the insanity; nothing will ever be the same again.

*thwaps self and quits mangling quotes*

Have a bag of pebbles and a Random Shiny Object as a welcome gift. Hail to a fellow worshipper of Tolkien. :D

(Hos d'you feel about the Great God *holy horns* Terry Pratchett?)

*pokes*

Ahh, I see a Tolkien nut before me. This bodes well. Just remember: no matter how stupid the fanwriters act, the PPC does not kill them. Neither do we encourage flaming, though what you do on your own time is up to you. Just don't do it in our name.

As you get acquainted with us, I recommend a trip to the PPC Lost Tales archive, which is the only place to find some of the stories written contemporarily with the Original Series since GeoCities sought the Halls of Mandos. The OS, of course, is required reading. The rest is just fun. {= )

Welcome!

~Neshomeh

I spend a fair bit of time at the moment poking at ways of developing my own characters, and a friend sent me a version of a Character Development Questionnaire. I find it massively useful in a lot of respects, though I use a modified version of it to fit my preferences.

Here, I put it on Gdocs and published the page, so you can have a look if you like.

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=ddkcfxr6_101fr4n7wtz

Hope that helps.

Have a panda that eats, shoots and leaves! :D

Don't feed it any Sues, Other OC's, or normal humans. You can, however, use it to tear Sues apart.

Nothing will ever make sense again.
Yes, I think you'll fit right in with the rest of us nutters; oh, and don't worry--none of us like Mary-Sues either.
Have a random pointy object.
And since no one has yet offered...*drags out an enormous bag*
Linkage! The Wiki--this is a general reference to everything PPC. This goes to all of Trojie and Pads' missions. They work in badslash, and are....slightly touched, shall we say. This is The Original Series. It is not to be confused with Star Trek. These are the missions of the original agents, Jay and Acacia.
Oh, and if you have the time after everything else, check out the DOGA files. They're the guys who get flamethrowers and can blow stuff up without getting in trouble...Well, not as much as other agents.
Anyways, welcome to the PPC, and remember--Have fun. Everyone here is crazy What do you mean I'm exaggerating?
-Honu_Wahine

Welcome to the PPC! Here's a sabre from the Raven Armory and a bottle of bleeprin!

Help yourself to a venomous arthropod.

Have a softnose laser to shoot down all those defilers of Tolkien with. Enjoy!

You sound a bit like me, except slightly less crazy.

Anyways... Nice to meet ya.

Fair winds!

Hello!
It's a pleasure to meet you all. I just discovered your little organization, and realized, in some divine epiphany or something, that it would be a terrible tragedy if I didn't try to become apart of something so awesome.

To introduce myself:
I'm username Unconquered, though given my email address my real name is not exactly hidden. I'm 'slightly' insane, massively egotistical yet at the same time deeply insecure, have a tendency to take things extremely seriously, sometimes about inconsequential details nobody else cares about.
I hate most things by default. If I like them, I take the slightest criticism of them personally. Particularly Tolkien. Anyone who goes against Tolkien better make peace with god (I sometimes get the two mixed up, but they are separate individuals). Also up there is Robert E Howard, Robert Jordan and a few other authors.
I'm never as eloquent as I'd like, though I'm not bad. And I live for a discussion.
I can never leave things once their done, in particular my own attempts at writing, and keep taking them out to tinker with them, even after they're mostly done. And most of them never make it past draft stage anyway.
My hatred of Sues comes from an unfortunate event in my childhood, that's ramifications I have never really psychologically recovered from.
I hate canon Sues nearly as much as inserts. But if I start on them, you'll never hear the end of me.
Aside from that I'm a well-rounded, well-balanced individual.
In short, I should fit right in.

My suggestions: Use examples and humor. Kids will listen to you more if you are an amusing speaker, and they'll understand better if you use examples of what makes or unmakes a Sue.

This semester, one of my assignments for English class is to teach a class (or rather, make lesson plans for 5 fifty-minute classes) about an unit of writing of my choice. I decided to do a small unit for a Creative Writing class, and the goal is to write a character analysis, based on a character that the student creates.

So my question is, how do I explain the importance of Background, physical traits, emotions, relationships to other characters and actions to a class of high schoolers? More specifically, how do I explain the importance of NOT making a Sue?

Any help is welcome!

I've meant to mention the SO's greeting, too. It would be nice if the really important links were spelled out instead of just saying "here," and words like "important," "must," and "expected" wouldn't go amiss, either. A direct link to the Board should also be there. This IS the SO, after all. Officiously ordering people here and there is what he does. {= )

I don't see how NOT signing in is a security thing, though. It certainly isn't secure for the Wiki. As for simplicity, it's not that hard to log in. If you're using your own computer, you can just STAY logged in--no fuss, no bother. If not, then you just hit "logout" when you're done and close the browser window. Many public computers are set up to clear the cache/browser history automatically every time this happens, and if it isn't then you can do it yourself. If you're that worried about your data, you should do that anyway.

But really, when it comes to established PPCers, it's more about accountability. If you're doing something, and you don't want anyone to know you're doing it, chances are you SHOULDN'T be doing it. On the other hand, if you're doing a lot of good stuff, it's nice to know who's doing it so we can appreciate the effort properly. Logging in also enables dialogue--it's really awkward and possibly pointless to try talking to an IP address, which may or may not be used again, and if people are logging in regularly there's a better chance of being able to get their attention if you want them specifically.

... What I REALLY don't get is how new people miss the PPC Intro Pages, which, if they looked at them, would solve a lot of problems. But that's a whole other kettle of fish.

~Neshomeh

Anyway, you probably don't know me, but welome to the Board!

Have a free Geass Canceller!

Except to me, you're a new new friend, because I'm pretty new here too...

Annyway, have a venomous arthropod!

Wikia policy is to avoid locking most pages at all, so the interface is relatively limited -- someone with Administrator/Bureaucrat access has to attack the Special:UserRights page, if I recall MediaWiki right, which doesn't seem too fun. On the other hand, a number of wiki edits from even established PPCers aren't always logged in, either for security or simplicity issues, and that may be frustrating when it's a rapidly-changing character page.

At the very least, putting relatively finalized stuff (the The Boards page, the FAQs, that sorta stuff) as SemiProtected should be relatively simple and prevent the sort of mangling the FAQ pages have gotten recently, and that's both easier and less intrusive than large-scale group changes. Perhaps the Sunflower Official greeting could also be made much more obnoxious? It's very well-written right now, but the important stuff isn't as quick to grab the eye as it could be.

If you're interested in real-world type names, Behind the Name is a very good resource. The search functions are very useful and they have categories for things like literature, historical, and various mythologies as well as regular names by country. They have features I haven't even explored in the left menu. There's also their counterpart, Behind the Surname, but it's not nearly as complete (I think).

If you had something else in mind, I'd be interested to hear about it. I like coming up with names.

~Neshomeh