to create a persona, you must start, of course, from those you know.
to start with an idea is too dangerous because it lents itself to cliches and trite characterizations, and in the end, all you'll have left is a piece of glutenous membrane slathered on the pages,
revealing only the skin of a human, and lacking all the necessary virility and substance of life.
like i can look to the Noble Savage for inspiration, but it's precarious to carry any story with coined, capitalization. We need to believe in the Noble Savage to believe that there is something beyond our own insufficiencies and doubt. Thus, Savage represents an idea, a imaginary culmination of all
that we wish we said and could have done.
like i can look to my parents. i spend a sufficient amount of time with them outside of school. i dine with them, and feast with them over the latest
blockbuster in air-conditioned cubes of space, and cry with them when bad news hits and i think i'm just not cute or cut out to be competing with my friends. i've seen them in fluorescent lighting, and they the same with me. beyond words, we communicate through our eyes and gestures. and i know the root of them and they know the of me.
so it's better when i formulate a hypothetical character based on my closest people. i can draw blood and muscle from them. and in that weird way, i'm drawing from myself. because what makes me me, makes them them. and isn't that what all writers want to write about? themselves, but in a different light?
