ROSE!

creating and understanding your oc’s personal moral code! no, i cannot tell you whether they’re gonna come out good or bad or grey; that part is up to you.

anyway, let’s rock.

i. politics

politics are a good way to indicate things your character values, especially when it comes to large-scale concepts such as government, community, and humanity as a whole.

say what you will about either image; i’d argue for the unintiated, the right image is a good introduction to some lesser discussed ideologies… some of which your oc may or may not fall under.

either way, taking a good look at your character’s values on the economic + social side of things is a good place to start, as politics are something that, well… we all have ‘em, you can’t avoid ‘em.

clearly, this will have to be adjusted for settings that utilize other schools of thought (such as fantasy + historical fiction and the divine right of kings), but again, economic/social scale plotting will be a good start for most.

ii. religion + philosophy

is your oc religious? do they believe in a form of higher power? do they follow some sort of philosophy?

are they devout? yes, this applies to non-religious theist and atheist characters as well; in the former’s case… is their belief in a higher power something that guides many of their actions or is their belief in a higher power something that only informs a few of their actions? for the atheists; do they militant anti-theists who believe atheism is the only way and that religion is harmful? or do they not care about religion, so long as it’s thrust upon them?

for the religious: what is your oc’s relationship with the higher power in question? are they very progressive by their religion’s standards or more orthodox? how well informed of their own religion are they?

does your oc follow a particular school of philosophical thought? how does that interact with their religious identification?

iii. values

by taking their political stance and their religious + philosophical stance, you have a fairly good grasp on the things your character values.

is there anything they value - due to backstory, or what they do, or what they love - that isn’t explained by political stance and religious and/or philosophical identification? some big players here will likely be your oc’s culture and past.

of everything you’ve determined they value, what do they value the most?

iv. “the line”

everyone draws it somewhere. we all have a line we won’t cross, no matter the lengths we go for what we believe is a noble cause. where does your character draw it? how far will they go for something they truly believe is a noble cause? as discussed in part iii of my tips for morally grey characters,

would they lie? cheat? steal? manipulate? maim? what about commit acts of vandalism? arson? would they kill?

but even when we have a line, sometimes we make exceptions for a variety of reasons. additionally, there are limits to some of the lengths we’d go to.

find your character’s line, their limits and their exceptions.

v. objectivism/relativism

objectivism, as defined by the merriam-webster dictionary, is “an ethical theory that moral good is objectively real or that moral precepts are objectively valid.”

relativism, as defined by the merriam-webster dictionary, is “a view that ethical truths depend on the individuals and groups holding them.”

what take on morality, as a concept, does your character have? is morality objective? is morality subjective?

we could really delve deep into this one, but this post is long enough that i don’t think we need to get into philosophical rambling… so this is a good starting point.

either way, exploring morality as a concept and how your character views it will allow for better application of their personal moral code.

vi. application

so, now you know what they believe and have a deep understanding of your character’s moral code, all that’s left is to apply it and understand how it informs their actions while taking their personality into account.

and interesting thing to note is that we are all hypocrites; you don’t have to do this, but it might be fun to play around with the concept of their moral code and add a little bit of hypocrisy to their actions as a treat.

either way, how do your character’s various beliefs interact? how does it make them interact with the world? with others? with their friends, family, and community? with their government? with their employment? with their studies? with the earth and environment itself?

in conclusion:

IF people acknowledge it, they play the necessity card– there weren’t any women out on the range, so they had to “resort to men.” this claim completely erases 1) the romantic (not just sexual) writings of actual cowboys, 2) the acknowledgement of cowboys’ potential homosexual activity by writers at the time, and 3) the possibility that some men would deliberately become cowboys with the intent to seek out homosexual encounters.

The Classics

Browse works by Mark Twain, Joseph Conrad and other famous authors here.

Classic Bookshelf: This site has put classic novels online, from Charles Dickens to Charlotte Bronte.

The Online Books Page: The University of Pennsylvania hosts this book search and database.

Project Gutenberg: This famous site has over 27,000 free books online.

Page by Page Books: Find books by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and H.G. Wells, as well as speeches from George W. Bush on this site.

Classic Book Library: Genres here include historical fiction, history, science fiction, mystery, romance and children’s literature, but they’re all classics.

Classic Reader: Here you can read Shakespeare, young adult fiction and more.

Read Print: From George Orwell to Alexandre Dumas to George Eliot to Charles Darwin, this online library is stocked with the best classics.

Planet eBook: Download free classic literature titles here, from Dostoevsky to D.H. Lawrence to Joseph Conrad.

The Spectator Project: Montclair State University’s project features full-text, online versions of The Spectator and The Tatler.

Bibliomania: This site has more than 2,000 classic texts, plus study guides and reference books.

Online Library of Literature: Find full and unabridged texts of classic literature, including the Bronte sisters, Mark Twain and more.

Bartleby: Bartleby has much more than just the classics, but its collection of anthologies and other important novels made it famous.

Fiction.us: Fiction.us has a huge selection of novels, including works by Lewis Carroll, Willa Cather, Sherwood Anderson, Flaubert, George Eliot, F. Scott Fitzgerald and others.

Free Classic Literature: Find British authors like Shakespeare and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, plus other authors like Jules Verne, Mark Twain, and more.

Textbooks

If you don’t absolutely need to pay for your textbooks, save yourself a few hundred dollars by reviewing these sites.

Textbook Revolution: Find biology, business, engineering, mathematics and world history textbooks here.

Wikibooks: From cookbooks to the computing department, find instructional and educational materials here.

KnowThis Free Online Textbooks: Get directed to stats textbooks and more.

Online Medical Textbooks: Find books about plastic surgery, anatomy and more here.

Online Science and Math Textbooks: Access biochemistry, chemistry, aeronautics, medical manuals and other textbooks here.

MIT Open Courseware Supplemental Resources: Find free videos, textbooks and more on the subjects of mechanical engineering, mathematics, chemistry and more.

Flat World Knowledge: This innovative site has created an open college textbooks platform that will launch in January 2009.

Free Business Textbooks: Find free books to go along with accounting, economics and other business classes.

Light and Matter: Here you can access open source physics textbooks.

eMedicine: This project from WebMD is continuously updated and has articles and references on surgery, pediatrics and more.

“Well,” said Alice, “these are a dreadfully strange assortment of objects!”

“They all symbolize different aspects of Our Lord’s martyrdom,” said the Fisher King, casting a line into his teacup.

“Indeed. I am sure everything symbolizes something else, for if everything was only itself I should be very confused. Might I ask what the point of the bleeding lance is?”

Alice regretted asking the question as soon as she had done so, for she saw the pun that would likely be made about the word point. Instead, however, the room erupted in applause and shouts of “The Grail! She has achieved the Grail!”

“Which shall you choose?” asked the guardian. “The underwater bridge or the sword bridge?”

“Both sound dreadful,” said Alice. “I think I’ll just float the cart across.”

The guardian sputtered so hard his helmet broke.

“You cannot ride in a cart to rescue a queen!”

“I don’t see why not,” said Alice, growing cross. “It can’t be worse than abducting a queen.”

“Oh, much worse! For to abduct a Queen is wicked but heard of, while to save he on a cart is virtuous and unheard of.”

“Certainly not!” said Alice.  “For if you can survive such a blow, it would be quite unfair to me, and if you cannot, then I will have killed a man over a silly game!”

“Silly games are the most important thing in the world,” said the Green Knight, “for it is after them that we judge honor.”

“You have nothing to fear,” said the robber knight, “for you are traveling alone. Everyone knows a knight may not attack a maiden alone, but only a maiden traveling with a knightly protector!”

“That can’t possibly be a law,” said Alice. “Camelot is absurd, but not that absurd.”

“It is not a law, but a custom.” The robber knight sounded as if he were lecturing a fool, which Alice felt was very unfair of him. “Customs are far more important than laws, for laws may change, but customs never do.”

Alice didn’t think that was true, but she would not argue the point.

“What about attacking a knight?” she asked. “Can someone attack a lone knight, or only a knight traveling with a maiden?”

“One may attack a knight any time and under any circumstance. That is the meaning of the word ‘knight’- he can be attacked by day or by knight!”

Here is a page for premodern weapons, broken down into a ton of subcategories, with the weapon’s region of origin. 

Here is a page of medieval weapons.

Here is a page of just about every conceived superpower.

Here is a page for legendary creatures and their regions of origin.

Here are some gemstones.

Here is a bunch of Greek legends, including monsters, gods, nymphs, heroes, and so on. 

Here is a website with a ton of (legally attained, don’t worry) information about the black market.

Here is a website with information about forensic science and cases of death. Discretion advised. 

Here is every religion in the world. 

Here is every language in the world.

Here are methods of torture. Discretion advised.

Here are descriptions of the various methods used for the death penalty. Discretion advised.

Here are poisonous plants.

Here are plants in general.

I remember when there was this LiveJournal community where you could just ask about anything you needed for your novel - medicine, professions, vehicles, how things function in country X - and people who knew something about that would answer.