Hannah M. asked Rachel Caine:

I was wondering if you had any characters, items, places, dialogues, etc. that you have taken out of your stories that I could use for a story idea that I had? The idea is about an island where every story piece that was given up on, thrown out or abandoned ends up. I've been asking authors if they have anything I could use because I want to put some truth in the idea. It's fine if you don't have anything. Thanks! :)

Rachel Caine Hi, Hannah, interesting idea but I'd suggest using characters or items that are in published books already, or the idea won't work. But the trick is that you'd need to obtain permission to use those characters (legally) if you['re planning to sell that story. I could give you a thousand characters but nobody but me knows about them, so they'd be no more "true" than what you've come up with yourself.

You might try writing character archetypes instead: a soldier, a doctor, a vampire, etc. Writing familiar types of characters but then bending them in unexpected directions is always fun.

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