Guest character design guide (nonfiction)

This article is a design guide for guest characters (that is, characters created by or based upon friends of the author).

Fiction is a stream-of-consciousness non-linear work: there is no "our story so far" narrative. There are only fiction pages, and non-fiction pages, and the text and images on the pages, and the links that bind them. Much of the content is fragmentary: bits and pieces, in some cases not much more than a title.

This design guide is intended to provide some high-level linearity for guest characters.

Your guest character

A character has its own wiki page, with a brief description and an iconic image.

The iconic image appears as "In the News" items on other pages, providing links between related pages.

Also see the "Fiction cross-reference" and "Nonfiction cross-reference" sections for links to related pages.

What links here

To display a list of links from other pages to your character's page, browse your character's page and click the "What links here" link.

Your image on other pages

To display a list of pages that display your icon "In the News" (and perhaps elsewhere) -- browse your page, click your icon to display the image file page, scroll down to the "File usage" section.

Enemies

Pick someone whose enemy you will be, and notify me.

Drama is driven by enemies. Every character should have at least one essential nemesis, arch-enemy, etc.

• See Category:Supervillains.
• If you are a supervillain yourself, see Category:Superheroes.

These categories are suggestions, not requirements. Pick anyone you like for an enemy.

Someone must regard you as an enemy, and I will plot that someone's development accordingly; but you are free to adopt any attitude you like, hostile or otherwise.

Friends, allies, teams

You are free to initiate friendships within Fiction, although here I will exert some authorial discretion: some characters might be unwilling or unable to team up with you. (By contrast, you can unilaterally declare anyone to be your enemy.)

Some of the regular characters have establishef crime teams and crime-fighting teams. Plan your alliances accordingly.

Themes: Apollonian and Dionysian

Much of Fiction falls into one of two broad categories:

• Apollonian (nonfiction) "of or pertaining to Apollo (nonfiction)".
• Dionysian (nonfiction) - "of or pertaining to Dionysus (nonfiction)".

The Gnomon algorithm

My Apollonian fictions exploit mathematics (nonfiction), computation (nonfiction), artificial intelligence (nonfiction), engineering (nonfiction), and so on.

Mathematicians and computer scientists form the core of my Apollonian heroes. Alan Turing (nonfiction) and Georg Cantor (nonfiction) deserve special mention, because they suffered for their geniuses, and their suffering makes me want to cast them as heroes.

A number of my fictional supervillains are Apollonian: The Boxes is a prime example, having a plural name, singular identity, and no physical presence. Gnotilus is another major Apollonian supervillain, although Gnotilus behaves in a very Dionysian (nonfiction) way, secreting Geometry solvent, waging war on the Golden ratio (nonfiction), committing crimes against mathematical constants, and so on.

In Fiction, Mathematics (nonfiction) has a fictional, Dionysian (nonfiction) counterpart: Mathematics. Mathematics is about how the mathematician feels. Mathematics is poetry in the direction of logic, with heart.

Above all that -- or beneath all that, if you prefer -- is the Gnomon algorithm. That's my bottom-line, last-stand Apollonian fiction. "How does it work? The Gnomon algorithm."

Carnevale Tenebre

In my Dionysian fictions, if you ask "How does it work?" the final answer is demons (nonfiction), or words to that effect.

Carnevale Tenebre is where the demons emerge from heart of my Dionysian dreams.

Author's characters

I have two favorite characters who do most of the speaking for me, when I wish to speak in character:

• Havelock
• Lud the Gamer

Guest characters who want to interact with Fiction in character should probably approach one of these two characters. That is, send me an email in character, addressed to either Havelock or Lud the Gamer -- this represents your character meeting with either Havelock or Lud the Gamer in person.

You can also send an email to me, as yourself, without the role-playing.

Havelock

Havelock is a kind of oracle, or judge. It is a power, a curse, a gift. It works like this. Two men with powerful and irreconcilable visions of the future visit Havelock to settle their destiny. Havelock does not decide, or think, or reason, or extert will: he simply accepts the commission to settle the dispute. Instantly the quantum of destiny resolves: one man, the cosmos accepts his vision of destiny. The other man suffers the impossible fact that his dreams will never come true because they never could come true.

You will generally find him sometime in the late nineteenth century, in the Western reaches of North America, probably in mining town boarding house ... the rough places, edge of the badlands ... like that old TV show Kung Fu ... Havelock doesn't wander much, he tends to stay put for years at a stretch ... but the mood is very Kung Fu frontier town, anything might happen.

For all his mystic talk, Havelock is basically a rational figure. Reverse engineer him, you'll probably find the Gnomon algorithm.

Lud the Game

Lud is a Shopkeeper-Prince -- a guy who runs a comic-and-gaming store. He does not look or talk like the classic "Android's Dungeon" nerd in The Simspons, although he serves a similar function in Fiction.

Lud is a computer programmer, so he definitely has Apollonian qualities, and he talks a good tech talk. But I suspect that Lud is fundamentally Dionysian at heart. For one thing, he runs a comics-and-games store for a living. Also, he is connected with Carnevale Tenebre in a variety of capacities: supplying goods and services to the Carnevale, receiving information in return; occasionally he harbors a Carnevale fugitive.

Real people

Various real people appear in this wiki, for example Bertrand Russell (nonfiction). (The "(nonfiction)" suffix is required on all nonfiction page titles.)

Like all real people pages, the Bertrand Russell (nonfiction) page is respectful encyclopedic nonfiction. The main content of nonfiction pages is entirely nonfictional. "In the News" is fictional, and "Fiction cross-reference" is obviously fictional. But these fictional elements are carefully segregated from the primary nonfiction content on nonfiction pages. The intent is to inform, not deceive or amuse.

In some cases I created fictional versions of real people -- for example Bertrand Russell, the famous philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, writer, social critic, political activist, and world-champion pugilist. My fictional Russell is essentially the real Russell, plus a boxing champion -- "Fightin' Bert Russell".

These "real fictional" characters mostly play heroic roles, in my pantheon of secret superheroes. Many of them are computer programmers and mathematicians; artists and musicians as well. A few are my personal friends.

See categories:

• Category:People (nonfiction) - real nonfictional people
• Category:People - fictional people (including some who are purely my invention, with no real counterpart)

Media

For now, Fiction consists of this wiki.

Plans for the future include:

• Printed book version -- print-on-demand, scripted from the wiki.
• Web comics, animations, webcast interviews with fictional characters
• Graphic novel(s)
• etc.

Fiction cross-reference

• The Gnomon Chronicles Game