My First Story Ideas

The very first character I ever created was a little alien I called a Whatzit. This is what he looked like:

I dreamed of a whole line of Whatzit books. In the first book, he was scared to go to the dentist. Truth be told, I didn’t get beyond that first book. I didn’t even get beyond the first page, because I learned that I am not an author/illustrator. (I was nine years old, by the way.)

A few years later, inspired by The Babysitters Club series, The Twelve Candles Club series and The Best Friends Club series, I made plans to write a story called The Kids Klub. (Real original, eh?) Very much like the other three series, this series would feature a group of friends, about 12 years old, who formed a business to go around their neighborhood doing odd jobs. Actually, if you ever read any of those books, you’ll find that my story idea is exactly like those others. The market was kind of saturated with that trope, and I didn’t get very far with that project.

The summer after seventh grade, I spent a good amount of time in our unfinished basement (where it was coolest) handwriting a story about a girl on her first day of seventh grade. It bore a striking similarity to my actual first day of seventh grade.

Thinking back, a lot of my characters were blatant rip offs of other characters that I had grown to love. But I think that’s where inspiration starts. You find something you love, and you start tinkering around with ideas on how to make it your own. And that’s okay. Just make sure you change it enough to make it your own, or make sure to give credit to the real creator.

It’s a dream of mine to have kids creating characters based off the characters in my books. Maybe someday.

What kinds of characters did you create when you were little?