How did you create Hertha? I know where you got the idea for the fic, but how did you decide what her personality and background were like?
The usual way, I'm afraid; like Lancard, Jos Perlman, Célestine Bribot and every other OC I've put into one of my stories, I quite literally made her up as I went along. I had the vague idea that Raoul had married the daughter of a Jewish banker, but the fact that her older brother had died in adolescence and her mother suffered a nervous breakdown from which she never really recovered -- save when plot-convenient ;-p -- simply emerged out of the blue as I was writing about the family leaving Vienna. So did all her backstory with Raoul. And this version of Raoul's family (his mother is an invalid too, so they have a fellow-feeling), and of Christine's background; it has to fit in with what is said in canon, but beyond that I can put in anything that feels like a good idea on the spur of the moment, and I do.
I started out writing her without knowing what she was like; I just sat down and wrote a description of the Opera House and its audience, and then started writing a description of Raoul through her eyes, without having any preconceptions of what sort of person she was and how it would sound. And a 'voice' came out, just as a 'voice' came out as soon as I started writing Durocq, the perpetual complainer of the "Requin".
It really is that basic, I'm afraid. No character sheets; no quizzes on favourite colours, how the OC would react under given situations, or what the 'strengths' and 'weaknesses' of your character are. I just do it the way I first started doing it back when I was five years old and nobody had ever told me any different.
no subject
The usual way, I'm afraid; like Lancard, Jos Perlman, Célestine Bribot and every other OC I've put into one of my stories, I quite literally made her up as I went along. I had the vague idea that Raoul had married the daughter of a Jewish banker, but the fact that her older brother had died in adolescence and her mother suffered a nervous breakdown from which she never really recovered -- save when plot-convenient ;-p -- simply emerged out of the blue as I was writing about the family leaving Vienna. So did all her backstory with Raoul. And this version of Raoul's family (his mother is an invalid too, so they have a fellow-feeling), and of Christine's background; it has to fit in with what is said in canon, but beyond that I can put in anything that feels like a good idea on the spur of the moment, and I do.
I started out writing her without knowing what she was like; I just sat down and wrote a description of the Opera House and its audience, and then started writing a description of Raoul through her eyes, without having any preconceptions of what sort of person she was and how it would sound. And a 'voice' came out, just as a 'voice' came out as soon as I started writing Durocq, the perpetual complainer of the "Requin".
It really is that basic, I'm afraid. No character sheets; no quizzes on favourite colours, how the OC would react under given situations, or what the 'strengths' and 'weaknesses' of your character are. I just do it the way I first started doing it back when I was five years old and nobody had ever told me any different.