The Friday Challenge - 2/12/10

This week in The Friday Challenge

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Kersley Fitzgerald provides a list of sites with useful information for writers. She also gives us a list of books on writing that she'd love to have. Join the discussion...

Henry Vogel writes about his earliest Super Bowl memories, speculates on the most important professional football game ever played and wonders how long it will take for his teenage son to decide his father isn't an idiot after all. Join the discussion...

Ultimate Geek Fu discusses Lost and speculates on the mysteries to be solved and not solved. There is also speculation about what will happen to longest running characters. Join the discussion...

Also, Kersley Fitzgerald shows the highs and lows of finishing that first novel, Miko is the winner of the 1/29/10 Friday Challenge, "Wii for Geezers," with Patrick Henry scoring an honorable mention. All this and more, this week in The Friday Challenge!

Everyone gets a weekend off from reading entries and voting because there isn't a lesser challenge running. I suspect this will always happen the week after a greater challenge is introduced. But now that we're a week into the Splatter Cinema greater challenge, it's time to introduce a new lesser challenge.

Three Little Things

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A long, long time ago in a magazine whose title I'm not sure I remember -- I think it was Locus but it was over 30 years ago -- I read an article on writing by Roger Zelazny. Zelazny was discussing characters and what he would do to help him get a better feel for characters in his stories. In the article, he discussed the method that worked best for him.

While developing a character for his stories, Zelazny would come up with three characteristics that would never be used in the story. These characteristics could be just about anything; annoying habits, hobbies, compulsions, general interests, the kind of food the character enjoyed eating, how deeply in debt the character was and why. You get the idea.

The challenge for this week is to select a well known fictional character and develop Zelazny's three little things for that character. You could tell us what Luke Skywalker's hobbies were before C-3PO and R2D2 arrived in his life. Or tell us what Frodo Baggins' favorite food was before he became the Ring Bearer. What does Superman do on his weekends when he isn't busy saving the world? The characteristics don't have to be blatantly obvious, but they must not contradict what we already know about the character, either.

AS an example, let's consider a character who we know enjoys reading science fiction, watching science fiction movies, writing science fiction and comic books, telling stories, playing pencil and paper role playing games and working in the IT industry. Two easy unknown characteristics of this character could be that he covers his desk at work in science fiction toys, especially space ships, and enjoys playing video games, though first person shooters give him motion sickness. Both of those minor characteristics fit with what we already know about the character. Our third characteristic can be something that isn't so closely associated with those characteristics we already know. So let's say our character is also a hopeless romantic who believes in love at first sight, true love and living happily ever after. While he may not be willing to watch Beaches, he does enjoy light romantic comedies. He was even somewhat disappointed that the main character in Heinlein's Starman Jones didn't get the girl at the end of the novel.

And there we go, three characteristics for our completely unknown, make up off the top of my head, no idea who the guy could be character. Simple, right?

As always, we're playing by the badly out-of-date Official Rules of the Friday Challenge and playing for whatever is behind equally badly out-of-date Door #3. The deadline for this challenge is midnight Central time, Thursday, February 18.

And also as always: remember, the objective here is to have fun!