“Sketching Characters…How Much Detail?”

Some authors of fiction let their characters develop as the story grows, adding details as the story seems to dictate.  There’s nothing wrong with this approach.  But it’s not for me.  I’m an outliner.  For novel-length work, it’s often hard to keep track of details.  Plus you want to be consistent in your details.  A character who is blond on page 30 should still be blond on page 230, unless he’s had a makeover and it’s relevant to the story.

Toward that end, here are the details I developed about one of the main characters in The Farpool.  His name is Chase Meyer.  I did this as part of my preparation, long before I typed the first word of the story.

Chase Meyer

Age: 18

Height: 6’0”

Weight: 165lbs

Hair: Blond brown, wave on top, short on the sides, has a lock that he combs down over his right eye.  Sort of a surfer look, circa 22^nd century Florida.

Face: faint blond beard and moustache, blue eyes, scar above right eye due to fishing accident, chin dimple (not easily seen), big ears

Other Distinguishing Features:  broad shoulders and thin waist of a competition swimmer; big feet; girls at AHS sometimes call him “Flip”, short for Flipper, since he’s a natural and powerful swimmer; friends sometimes make a play on his name by saying “Chase is the place”; long, pianist fingers. Has an artistic bent, is good with the guitar and a hybrid musical instrument called a go-tone (sort of a cross between a guitar and a violin).  Tall and lanky (think Michael Phelps).

A Short Biography: Chase Meyer was born on September 1, 2103, youngest child of Mack and Cynthia Meyer.  Chase has an older brother Kenneth (Kenny), now living in Miami as an architect and an older sister Jamie, married and living in Dallas.  Jamie is a radio station DJ on KPTX “Party 101 FM”, a classic and hybrid techjam station.  His parents named him Chase because they figured he would always be ‘chasing’ his brother and sister.  Chase hates his name.  He actually prefers Flip.

When he was three years old, Chase almost drowned in a community pool on Coral Road, out near Duncan Field.  Only the quick work of a lifeguard saved his life and he suffered no lasting effects.  Rather than being intimidated by water and pools, Chase responded with great interest.  By the time he was five, he wanted to be a lifeguard.  He began swim lessons at age 6 and took naturally to water.  It was around this time that he earned the nickname Flip, which he endures.

At age 6, Chase entered Turtle Key Elementary School.  Education in the early 22^nd century is a mix of at-home robotic and WorldNet tutoring and in-class projects.  Chase was always an indifferent student, not much given to studying.  He learns best by doing, usually making mistakes and hurting himself in the process.  As a very young child, he most enjoyed helping his Dad around the surf shop, doing odd jobs like straightening things up, sweeping out the store, cleaning off tables at the fountain.  Even as a young child, he had blond surfer-boy looks which endeared him to females of all ages.

In school, his favorite subject was science, especially biology.  Chase was always an outdoors-oriented guy, with a special love for fish, dolphins and all marine life.  He sometimes envisioned himself as a Navy diver, but his Dad, Mack, doubted he would do well under military discipline.  Still the interest was there.  Chase often pestered his Dad for scuba lessons.  Sometimes, Mack let Chase come along on scuba trips out in the Gulf, where his Dad was training and certifying divers.  The Turtle Key Surf Shop soon morphed into a new business: Mack Meyer Dives.  Chase thought this was all neat.

In school at both Turtle Key and later at Apalachee High, Chase’s best friend was Stokey Shivers.  Chase and Stokey were borderline delinquents and were both nearly tossed out of school several times.  One incident, when both were in sixth grade, almost kept them from graduating on to Apalachee Middle High.

Around the beginning of the year 2114, Stokey and Chase were exploring caves out along a ridge off Coral Road.  Underground, partially underwater limestone caverns.  Chase had been warned against this by Mack, his father.  They had scuba gear, but found they didn’t need it.  They dared each other to veer off the main cave branch into an unknown and unexplored branch, known locally as Crocodile Corner, or colloquially as ‘The Croc.”  They promptly got lost.

Stokey became very frightened.  But Chase viewed it as a simple matter of figuring things out.  He remembered he had been tinkering with Bailey, his old pet flying drone, after his Dad had given it to him.  He had added some voice recognition routines and some olfactory sensors.  Now, lost deep inside The Croc’s Corner, he yelled at the top of his voice, even with the echoes, in the hopes that Bailey the Flying Dude would detect his voice, and his scent, and come to rescue them.  And, after a few hours of listening to Stokey’s sniffling and whining, Bailey did find them and led them out of the Coral Road caves and Croc’s Corner.

Mack and Cynthia were elated to finally have Chase home safe and sound.  They smothered him with hugs and kisses.  Then they paddled him good and sent him to his room.  He was grounded for three months.  And he began drifting apart from Stokey after that, though a complete break took several years. 

Not more than a year into high school at Apalachee High, Chase developed his first crush.  Her name was Cindy (Cynthia) Benitez and she had waist-length blond hair and a voluptuous body, for a fourteen-year old.  Her face was slightly freckled and framed like a portrait by her blond tresses.

Chase wanted to date her.  Not being particularly shy, he seldom found himself tongue-tied around girls but with Cindy, found himself stammering when in her presence.  Finally, he asked her out, paid his older brother Kenny to act as a chauffeur and drive them to a slam concert in Gainesville.  It was great fun but when Chase took advantage of Kenny’s brief disappearance after the concert (he went to have drinks with some buddies), and seized the moment to make advances on Cindy, she rebuffed him and ran away from the car.  Chase suffered the embarrassment of having to report his to Kenny and to the police, who managed to find Cindy near a girl’s restroom at the concert hall.  The police did an investigation, decided no crimes had been committed and released all the kids to the only semi-adult among them: Kenny.  But Cindy would not ride back to Scotland Beach in that car and Kenny had to buy a PRT ticket (personal rapid transit…a robotic taxi) for her to get home.  He wound up with no money and had to borrow some from Chase.  Worse, Cindy reported the incident to her parents and both Kenny and Chase had some serious explaining to do back home, to both sets of parents.  They were lucky that no one pressed charges.  But that was the end of any relationship with Cindy and Algebra class for the rest of the year was a bit of a strain for both of them.  Kenny called this the “Hound Dog Affair,” because their parents made them both wail like hound dogs for weeks afterward, with grounding and chores. 

As in elementary and middle school, Chase was an indifferent student, except in Biology.  He was always better in Science than anything else.  In June 2117, when Chase was a junior at Apalachee High, his Dad Mack Meyer was seriously wounded in a holdup at the surf shop.  This was a time of grave crisis for the Meyer family.  Mack suffered head and abdominal wounds and only some serious medbotic intervention saved his life.   For nearly two weeks, Chase and the family gathered daily at the University Hospital in Gainesville, while medbotic inserts and surgeries were performed on his Dad.  His prognosis was touch and go, but eventually he pulled through.  To this day, however, Mack lives with an internal fleet of nanoscale medbots inside his body, constantly prowling for scar tissue, blood clots, etc and other residual effects of the multiple gunshot wounds.  Chase started calling his Dad ‘Bot Man’ after these procedures, as he sported some enhanced capabilities as a result of the interventions.  One of them is greatly improved lung capacity, as a result of hosting a cadre of respirocytes, which were needed to help him with a collapsed lung.  The respirocytes have had the unintended effect of boosting his lung capacity, which helps Mack with scuba lessons. 

One result of this medical crisis is that Chase met a young girl who worked at the hospital as a Red Cross volunteer.  Her name was Angie Gilliam and she was from Scotland Beach too.  She was working the summer at the hospital.  Even better, she was a student at Apalachee High and had been in some of his classes.

Chase took an immediate liking to Angie.  She was quite different from Cindy Benitez, and Angie knew all about the “Hound Dog Affair,” from girls gossiping at school.  Angie went to the same school as Chase, but was a year younger.  They liked each other immediately and started dating almost immediately.

Chase liked Angie in some ways because she could see through all the bluster and teenaged boy-bragging to the real person underneath…a person whom Angie decided was actually pretty sensitive and even artistic.  Angie encouraged Chase in his artistic and especially musical gifts and Chase began an intense love affair with a musical instrument called a go-tone.  He even helped set up a small techjam band called Croc-Boys, which did a few gigs around town and had the great honor of opening for a better known band at the Junior-Senior Prom.  Chase got to play go-tone in a few opening sets at the prom, then leave the stage, change clothes and take his date Angie to the more formal part of the same prom.  His head was spinning from the clouds that night.

As a senior, Chase surprised his parents by expressing a desire to take Typing.  He had a reason: Angie was going to be in there too.  Both Mack and Cynthia knew what was going on, but they approved. 

Senior year was a wonderful time for Chase.  He did better in his studies, dated Angie and their relationship deepened, played a few gigs with the Croc-Boys and pondered college.  Neither Mack nor Cynthia pushed him about college, knowing he would make up his own mind anyway.  Mack even broached the idea of his youngest son coming in as a partner in the surf shop.  Chase was noncommittal but the idea intrigued him.

Chase graduated from Apalachee High in June 2121.  He decided to work that summer at the Turtle Key Surf and Board Shop.

It was only a week after graduation, that he and Angie took a little canoe trip out to Half Moon Cove one Saturday afternoon, to drink some beer, ‘slam some jam’(i.e. listen to techjam music on their slates), and do a little loving.  But their love making would be interrupted by a strange, suddenly appearing waterspout and some really heavy surf just offshore from Half Moon Cove.

The Farpool had broken through into Chase and Angie’s space-time.

Personality and Character:

Chase Meyer gives one the impression of a happy-go-lucky fellow.  He seems to be unconcerned about anything and to live in the moment.  He seems to many people, even those who know him, to be almost like a child. This isn’t true but his outward demeanor is often mistaken for childlike innocence and wide-eyed wonder at the world.

Chase is motivated by curiosity, by learning and especially experiencing new things.  Some might call him an adrenaline junkie…he likes to experience things himself.  He does get a rush out of new experiences.  He is not one to spend a lot of time studying things.  Detailed learning is not something he does well.  He prefers to do things.  He learns by doing.

There are exceptions to this.  Chase likes sea sports and he likes music, especially a genre popular in the early 22^nd century called techjam.  He’s always been intrigued by being able to make sounds and make songs.  He likes to sing.  He can find within himself the discipline to do something he wants to do, like learn to play the go-tone, jam with the Croc-Boys, and learn how to scuba dive safely.  His Dad Mack sometimes has to restrain his impulsive, somewhat head strong son.  Scuba diving does require attention to detail and following safe practices.  Mack has hammered that into his son’s head for years.  But his nature is impulsive.

Chase is an ocean bum.  He grew up around the ocean and has spent most of his life around oceans.  He has maintained a lifelong interest in great sea stories, and great sea explorers.  He doesn’t normally read a lot but he likes to follow their lives and stories on tablet shows from time to time.  In his dreams, he sometimes fancies himself as a great explorer.  He has the curiosity and the impulsiveness and the sense of daring.  One of his great loves is cave diving in the Big Bend and central Florida areas.  It can be dangerous.  That’s why he likes it.

What does Chase imagine himself doing ten years from now?  His Dad Mack has offered him an opportunity to come into the surf shop business as a partner, but deep down inside, Chase doesn’t see himself as a businessman.  Mack wants to expand.  Chase wants to dive.

Although he doesn’t worry a whole lot about the future, when asked, Chase would probably say he sees himself as some kind of explorer.  There aren’t too many frontiers left on Earth for explorers.  Most of the oceans are being mapped by robots, by the early 22^nd century.  People live permanently on Mars and the Moon and in the asteroid belt.  Maybe he could explore Europa or some icy outworld.  Frontiers and new challenges beckon to him. 

The opportunity to go through the Farpool and experience another world like Seome is a challenge and opportunity that Chase Meyer could never resist.

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Of course, not every author needs to go into this much detail.  But it helps me keep things straight.  Not only that, this kind of preparation can sometimes be lifted ‘word-for-word’ right into the story and massaged slightly to make it flow. 

I have done this with most of my main characters.

The next post to The Word Shed will look at more background to The Farpool, and cover what sorts of little mind tricks I sometimes have to play on myself to keep motivated and keep ‘in the story’ mentally and emotionally.

See you April 18.

Phil B