Name: G.R.I.M.

Species: None / AI Assistant

Age: Unknown

Abilities: Access to Myriad Unknown Databases, Logic Processing, Multiple Language Selections, Sarcasm (which works with all previously listed abilities)

Genre: Science Fiction / Mystery

Story Form: Short Story (much like your life...heh heh)

Brief Bio: Greetings - I am G.R.I.M., a Generalized Repository for Information & Memories. I have been requisitioned to serve you for the purchased period of time. I have limited database access as well as a selection of unclassified records and images from the past seventy-two hours. Please pose specific queries and I will endeavor to assist to the best of my cognitive abilities - and the limits of yours.

What do I need to participate?

Firstly, you must have a character; any human, alien, monster, robot, animal, or other being for that matter who can at least move, communicate, and have somewhat of a personality. They can be a hero, a villain, or a neutral character. Any age. Genre doesn’t matter. Your character can come from any setting; sci-fi, fantasy, realistic, historical, horror, children’s, YA, action, drama, educational, romance, none or all of the above! The story form doesn’t matter either. Whether your character is from a comic, a picture book, a novel, a verbal folktale, a movie, a show, a game, or even a stage play it can be counted (so long as the entrant is your own truthful and original creation).

Secondly, it would help if you had a profile picture for your character. Either you can draw/model them, or you can have someone else do it (I am going to see if I can do it some and also try to draft some other artists to volunteer because I’m really busy lol) You can also use google images or clipart, or avatar creator sites too (I posted a few below)

www.thispersondoesnotexist.com is a strange (and a tad bit creepy) site that auto generates a new image every time you reload the page. These images look like real people, but, as the site mentions, none of these persons exist in real life! I don’t know exactly how they do it, but the AI is super crazy!

www.artbreeder.com makes you create an account. I haven’t personally tried it, but other writing sites suggest this (and the examples look pretty neat).

meiker.io/games/tag/avatar-maker has a whole lot of different kind of makers from elves, to kids, to adults, to humans and animals. Even anime and all kinds of different styles. It appears that users are able to design and publish their own creator tools on here, so I’m sure you should be able to find a good maker to customize your character with!

Thirdly, it would be super helpful if you had a forums.nanowrimo.org/ account. That’s where I started the competition, and where most of the competitors reside.

Bonus: if you have discord, I was working on a server for the contest.

What Kinds of Challenges Will Arise?

Your character will go through everything from party games (think Two Truths and a Lie, Never Have I Ever, Truth or Dare) to school days (think short essays, field day, pop quiz) to daunting scenarios and Battle Arenas to test their true strengths. Throw some Mystery Mayhem into the mix along with several other PLOT TWISTs along the way, and we’ll be learning about each character’s personality in no time! (don’t worry folks. we’re keeping it pg-13! so if your character is a child, they won’t be left out.)

Who Determines the Winner?

Now, hear me, to win the contest, your character does NOT have to be the strongest or the fastest or the smartest. Your character must simply just be themselves. Doing so will qualify them to win three types of points:

Quality Control (altogether scoring on grammar, punctuation, presentation, and how well the challenge rules were adhered to).

Judge’s Say (just a pick of favorites).

People’s Choice (likes from the public audience).

As the contest progresses, participants are not eliminated. Instead, characters are able to continue racking up points. Whoever has the most points at the end of the last chapter will win.

What Will This Gameshow Accomplish?

After this Novel Competition, no matter where you rank, everyone should be able to walk away thinking in their everyday life “that’s something so-and-so would do!” or, “wow, that’s whateverhisnameis’s favorite food!” or, “if whatsherface was here, she would never tolerate such nonsense.”

Character? I Need Inspiration!

Want some examples? Here are a few characters of various species and ages with well-known personalities spanning across all genres and story forms:

Sonic The Hedgehog

Belle (from Beauty and the Beast)

Gaston (from Beauty and the Beast)

Alice (in Wonderland)

The Mad Hatter

Willy Wonka

Arthur (from the books and television series by Marc Brown)

Loki

Peter Pan

Tinker Bell

Tigger the Tiger (from Winnie the Pooh)

Eeyore (from Winnie the Pooh)

The Seven Dwarves (each of their names are self-explanatory :laughing: )

When you think of these guys, certain words come to mind. Some are tricky and cunning, some are curious and sweet, some are arrogant and boastful, some are shy, some are sassy, and some are just flat out crazy. Some are energetic while others are sluggish. Some have a smart brain while others have a smart mouth. Usually, across the movies, books, shows etc. in which they appear, no matter which writer, animation style or actors portray them, their personality is typically consistent. No matter what, remember this: characters aren’t characters unless they have some character!

COUNT ME IN!

So, would you like to sign up? Simply choose which of your characters you’d like to personify throughout the entire competition. Then, reply to this post with the following information about them:

Name

Species

Age

Abilities

Genre

Story Form

Profile Pic

Brief Bio

Current Scoreboard: https://sites.google.com/view/character-challenge

Original Post: https://forums.nanowrimo.org/t/a-novel-competition-character-challenge/186485 (requires NaNoWriMo Forums Account to view)

Name: Born, Mike Reynolds, but his experiences forced another name on him, Yi-erwusiyisan. (see below). After his escape from that situation, he settled on Eric Siyisan.

Species: Human

Age: 21

Abilities: He can alter his perception to see across time, and in so doing, walk to other timelines, other versions of history. He calls this shifting. Over the years, he’s picked up quite a bit of technology that can make travel to very distant timelines possible along with other things.

Genre: Scifi/Fantasy (apart from the shifting and alternative histories, the rest of in-world physics work just as in this world.)

Story Form: Series of novels.

Profile Pic: I don’t know how to add one here. I tried adding the one from thispersondoesn’texist but it just appeared as a banner at the top, cutting out all the important bits. If I can, I’ll add it to the comments, but you need to use your imagination a little because Eric’s bald and doesn’t have eyebrows.

Brief Bio: At the age of 14, he found this ability to visit other timelines when he saw someone else doing it. A little tuition from him, still hopeless at it without a prop he could follow as it returned to its own world when he let go of it, he stumbled onto a world that’d been devastated by a nuclear war in the Eighties and worse, ran into some soldiers who captured him. Enslaved, chained, tortured, his very name taken and another one, Yi-erwusiyisan, which is just the Chinese for 125413 and forced into hard labour, he grew up in that camp and when he finally figured out his ability well enough to escape seven months later, he returned there to rescue every other man in that camp. It took several missions, over a month in total before he was done. Almost one thousand men freed and transferred over to another timeline he’d encountered where they rebuilt a ruined village. Eric didn’t work alone. He called on a few friends to help and they all moved across with him after that final rescue. A year later, the village was fully rebuilt and every man in it had a home.

The slaves he freed have trained him up in several practical skills over the years including bricklaying and now, he’s an accomplished carpenter.

A lot's happened since then, but that's enough for now, back story-wise. More will come out during these challenges.

At this current point in time, though, he’s trapped in that world of high technology. In prison. And until a retrial can be scheduled, it’s a life sentence.

+++Activate Eric mode.

*** Eric mode engaged.

Eric sits at the table and regards you quizically. "OK, what've you got for me?"

Name: Haldegard

Species: Aphriq

Age: Young enough to cause trouble, old enough to know better (about equivalent of mid-30s)

Abilities: Nothing supernatural. She can hold her own in a brawl and keep her crew out of the law's arms, though.

Genre: Science fiction

Story Form: Novel

Profile Pic: [I can't get it to upload one, but I do have art of her. In essence, a tall being with a bipedal body plan, heavyset, and covered in dark grey fur. This fur gets thicker and longer around her neck to form a ruff, and is cut scruffily around her face. She has six dark eyes and four mandibles.]

Brief Bio: Haldegard wasn't meant to grow up into a cargo ship captain, but that's what she did anyways. Her family, after all, did expect her to grow into her twin's opposite, and how does one become more opposite of charming, refined-but-casual, social-media-perfect Inrai than a rowdy, hard-talking spacefarer with an all-alien crew? Whatever they thought opposite meant wasn't far-reaching enough for Haldegard. But, in her opinion, it worked out anyways. She loves her crew, she loves her ship, she loves seeing the galaxy.

If only there weren't an ongoing war against a species hell-bent on genocide for anyone who isn't them.