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 strongly 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.
This design guide is intended to provide some high-level linearity for guest characters.
Enemies
- Have at least one essential nemesis, arch-enemy, etc. Drama is driven by enemies.
Images
- Have a primary image for your character page.
Author's characters
I have two favorite characters who do most of the speaking for me, when I wish to speak in character:
Guest characters who want to interact with Fiction in character should probably approach one of these two characters.
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)".
Apollonian fictions: 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. Gotilus 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."
Dionysian fictions: Carnevale Tenebre
In my Dionysian fictions, if you ask "How does it work?" the final answer is demons (nonfiction).
Carnevale Tenebre is where the demons emerge from heart of my Dionysian dreams.
Nonfictional comic book characters
By "nonfictional", I mean not authored by me. Superman (nonfiction) is nonfictional in the context of Fiction. (Nonfictional pages by the page title suffix "(nonfiction)".)
I have a special obsession with Green Lantern (nonfiction) and the DC Comics Power ring (nonfiction). See Green Ring for my fictional version of the Power ring.