Who are your colonists?

Probably the most important thing in a colony type story is your colonists. After all the colonists are the characters and the characters create the conflict which drives the story. So when you are creating your colonists whether it's too another planet, the moon, or even if you are writing a historical or fantasy and just moving somewhere else on your planet here are some questions to keep in mind.

Who are your colonists? Are they all male? Are they all female? Are they family groups? Are they young? Are they old? Are the ages mixed?

Why are they going? Did they volunteer? Were they forced to leave by their society? Are they persecuted? Are they out for adventure and exploration? Is there something wrong with their homeworld? Did they even know they were going?

Where are they going? How far is it? Do they all want to leave or do some of them want to stay at home? If there are some that don't want to go why are they going? Are they younger people such as teens or preteens and they are forced to go by their parents? Are they going because someone else is going but would never go on their own? Are they starting a new colony or one that is already established?

For example, Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy he has 100 colonists that are made up of mostly American and Russian scientists with a handful of scientists from other countries. It's a joint effort between Russia and the US to explore Mars and to see how well it would be for colonization. Only the best and the brightest of the scientists were chosen. They are both male and female and on the older side of the age spectrum.

In Monica Hughes young adult book Invitation to the Game the colonists do not have a clue.

In Ray Bradbury's Martian Chronicles there are a few different colonists. One man goes in order to avoid the censors and censorship that have taken over Earth. Another man moves there in order to plant Apple trees. Another moved there with his wife in order to make a lot of money.

In Paula Danzinger's young adult book This Place has No Atmosphere a teenage girl is forced to go with her parents to spend a year on an already established colony on the moon.

As much as I hate outlining and answering questionairres these questions will help you when writing your own colony story. Don't say just because I need it to go this way to work for my story. Give them a real reason. Remember fiction has to be more rational than reality.

I have a plot

After creating 122 characters I finally came up with a plot. It has internal conflict, external conflict that involves overthrowing the existing government power. I knew it would come to me eventually. Although I don't know if you would call this outlining. I'm not much of an outliner and when I do I seem to lose interest in the story.

In order for this story to work I'll only need the 1400 original colonists, the first generation and possibly the second generation. Of course they have by no means reached the new home planet. I smell a sequel and so it might just be a trilogy because they are oh so popular in science fiction and fantasy.

The ever popular question: Do you outline or wing it?

Not much happening...

I did some more characters so I now have 110/1400 characters complete. My first 100 characters have American surnames. I've decided for my next 100 characters will have French last names. This is my attempt at getting some racial/ethnic/cultural diversity since the default especially in science fiction it seems to be white.

Does anyone know of any books where the main character is not a white American guy? The only book that comes to mind that I've attempted to read is Aftermath by Levar Burton who played Geordie LaForge on Star Trek: The Next Generation. I'm always looking for some great reads so if you have one please leave a comment.

Update on the book search

Before I give results on the book search I just want to say, woohoo! I just reached the 100/1400 mark in my character creation. Now I can switch surnames. I was using American surnames so I think I'm going to use Belgian surnames for the next 100 characters. This way I get a nice mix.

I ended up going to Borders and Barnes and Noble for my book search. Books-A-Million while closer does not have a good selection and when the customer service rep did a search did not seem to have any books in this category in stock. I was able to find The Mysteries of Mithras: The Pagan Belief that Shaped the Christian World by Payam Nabarz Forward by Caitlin Matthews and The Book of gods & goddesses: A Visual Directory of Ancient & Modern Deities by Eric Chaline.

It looks as though the Mithras book is more about neo-paganism rather than a historical account of Mithras worship I could still find it useful as something to extrapolate, I think that's the word, off of. I'll let you know when I finish the book. I guess that would mean a book review. We'll see how well I do with that.

The gods & goddesses book is a basic list book seperated by religion/region and just says what the major gods are of that religion/region. It's basic, simple, and a good jumping off point. I don't think I'll have any of my characters worship any of these gods or goddesses but it's good see characteristics given to them and what the represented and controlled, good things to know when creating your own gods.

I'm also working on a calander system. My fiance said I should base it on the planet they going to colonize that way when they reach it they will already be used to it. It's a good idea and I'll do it that way but I think I'm going to put off world building that until all my characters are completed.

Character or Plot

From my previous post I'm working on 1400 Earth colonists. What I forgot to add was I'm also doing all their children as well but only for the next 1000 years. This can become a lot of characters most of which will be ignored. Yet, knowing there are that many people will influence how the story is written. What places are particularly crowded? Where can a person go to find some peace away from everyone else? Plus, any other more important questions dealing with population.

What drives a story forward character or plot? I think that's like asking which came first the chicken or the egg. A good novel has a good mix of both. Sometimes a novel will be more plot heavy and others are more character driven. I believe it just depends on what kind of story you are wanting to write. I believe that with creating so many characters it will be safe to say that the situations in my novel will come from the characters themselves. I have only been able to do this after years of trying out different ideas and reading lots of books to find something I can stick with.

Two of my favorite books that I have read numerous times are, 45 Master Characters: Mythic Models for Creating Original Characters by Victoria Lynn Schmidt and 20 Master Plots: and how to build them by Ronald B. Tobias

In order to keep track of all of my characters I not only have a computer record but I also have it on index cards. You can never be too careful. I've lost whole short stories due to corrupted files, power outages during use, and forgetting to save the story due to becoming distracted.

For the original colonists I use this form:
Name:
Age:
Married to:
Children:

For descendants of the original colonists I'm going to use this form:
Name:
Birth: _____ Death:_____
Parents:
Married to:
Children:

Almost forgot: 58/1400