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Congrats! Now I will have to make an effort to get over there and take a look at his Don fellow and see him in person!
 
Does Maximilliano even know he was character writer of the week? I haven't seen him around for awhile....
 
wow this is amazing... thank you so much, i am honored. I always felt Vera Cruz was inadequate in his role in the story, but they say a writer is always his own harshest critic. Thank you to everyone for this :eek:o i hadn't even known... with orientation and classes i barely had a chance to catch up on my favorite aars and then my laptop... well thats another story. As i am about to passout, i will have to pick a new winner tommorow, im so sorry for making you wait even longer.

Thanks again,
Maximilliano
 
Ok so I noticed that a specific writer has yet to be nominated (i believe, if im wrong, i will pick someone else). I would like to suggest the great Rensslaer for character writer of the week, for his fabulous work in Fire Warms the Northern Lands. In this AAR he creates a plethora of memorable and well developed characters, my favorite including Prince Rensslaer and an extremely wily Louis Napoleon (not to mention a string of Prussian Kaisers). While the aar has been completed for sometime i think Rensslaer deserves the recogniction for his hard work and epic AAR.

Congratulations Renss!
 
Great work, Renss. Even though it's been over for a while, we might as well honor your great creations. Congrats.
 
Yes, indeed. Congrats, Renss!
 
Indeed. Louis Napolean was/is one of my absolute favourite characters I have read on this forum. Talk about a life of ups and downs...
 
Excellent choice. Congrats Rensslaer!

Joe
 
Well deserved. Congratulations Rensslaer :)
 
Congratulations Rensslaer! Definitely well deserved. Fire Warms was an masterpiece centered around its great characters and we're eagerly awaiting its sequel. :)
 
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Maximilliano.... First, Congratulations on your award! Very well deserved. I'm sorry I've been so busy and didn't make it by in time to send wishes during your week.

But also Thank You! You were certainly one of my most valued and enthusiastic supporters, and I appreciate it!

And it's an honor to receive this award. I always saw the characters in Fire Warms as the center of the story, with the game/historical portion wrapped around them, rather than the other way around.

And -- as Frogbeastegg says -- it amazed me how these characters took on a life of their own that I could never have predicted.

For instance, a character I meant only to use once or twice (Pavel Skiedweza) ended up being nominated by several people as their favorite character in the Forums! :eek: So he became a recurring character. I also never intended for Rensselaer to take on a major role in my story. He was a plot device, early on... meant really as a one-time cameo appearance. But it kept turning out that he fit into new elements of the story I wanted to tell, so instead he became central to most of 19th Century Prussian History!

And he tied in so perfectly with one of my favorite recurring characters, Louis Napoleon. They knew each other too well, it seemed, and so they kept crossing paths.

It occurs to me that I killed off two of my favorite characters in very bloody ways! :eek: Both Louis Napoleon and Kaiser Wilhelm II were very complicated characters who were fun to write for because of their contradictions and their dual sympathetic/antagonistic natures. Both were tragic heroes, and both were infamous, in their own ways.

And they were also fun because they were historical characters, which I tried to represent with faithfulness to their historic attitudes, aptitudes, inclinations and personalities. Their real-life complexity made writing for them ten times more fun than a character I could have come up with on my own!

But I'm not sure who -- of all the dozens of major characters -- was my favorite. Pietr Van Rensslaer, Joachim Longanecker, Kronprinz Friedrich Wilhelm, the fictional Kaiser Waldemar... All are my favorites in different ways! I even made the author of my alternate history book -- Miss Dr. Reinicke Herz -- into a flesh and blood character in the story! :D

Naturally, like any author, I enjoy hearing why different readers liked different characters -- usually for reasons very different from what I might have predicted.

Thank you all for your kind words! Now I have the pleasure of deciding who, among so many brilliant character authors, to pass this along to!

Rensslaer
 
Congratulations Rensslaer! ! :)

a bit later than normal, but certainly very well deserved ! ! :cool: