When creating a new persona there are many things that you need to keep in mind:

• Age
• Sex
• Physical description
• Personality traits
• Personal/family history
• Etc.

I will use my own persona, Anna Hippon, as an example. I created Anna as a young servant/slave of a rich and unsympathetic mistress. She had been sold into servitude when she was 11 years old by her impoverished parents so they could survive and feed her younger siblings. She had been with the Hippon family for 5 years. Of course, as a slave, she was not married at the normal age of 14 or 15. Medea, the Hippon matriarch has made Anna into a scapegoat for many things in the household, and was not inhibited from beating her as she saw fit.

These things all influenced Anna to be slightly shy and withdrawn. She does not trust easily, but once her trust & friendship is earned, she’ll do anything in her power to help that person. She is a very hard worker and gets tasks done competently and quickly, although she is always certain that her work is poorly done and uninspired.

When I created Anna as a new persona, the only thing I knew was that she was going to be a teenager and a girl. I already had the avatar I currently use (see image), and this was my inspiration for her creation. I had to do a fair amount of research on everyday life in Ancient Greece in order to flesh out her details. I learned that very poor families sometimes sold their children into slavery in order to put food on the table. I also learned that in general slaves were not allowed to marry, but free girls were often wed shortly after puberty.

I will go into more detail in future articles on specific steps one can take in researching their persona and other role playing tips and tricks that I’ve learned over the years. While these have helped me flesh out my characters, they are not the end all to character/persona development.

Next Month: Doing Research Online.