The call of the second (and third, and fourth) character

Most people I encounter in this hobby seem to have a predilection towards doing multiple characters. It's natural, since most of us have more than one favorite wrestler, or in the case of folks like myself, Dan West, Roger Albrecht, Bill Dempsey, Steve Thomas and Gregg Gethard, mild schizophrenia.

But how do you do a second character without making it seem like your characters are running together?

Well, here are a few things I try to do.

-Make sure your characters have different gimmicks. And make them different enough so that you aren't inclined to be lazy and promo as the same guy for a different character. If you're doing a hooker-crazed redneck, try not to do a horny college student from Florida State as well.

-Try not to do all heels or all faces. The best way to differentiate between characters is to have fundamental differences in the way each one acts. You won't promo the same for a face as you would for a heel, no matter how similar the characters.

-Try different nationalities/races/creeds/ethincities/etc. But only do this if you know enough about the culture you're emulating to be believable.

A lot of people who try second characters and fail often make the above mistakes. People have a tendency to be lazy or complacent, so they won't try other characters if a certain kind of character works for them. I've found in e-fedding everyone wants to be a heel, because heels get to be badass and run people down and trash-talk with the best of them. And the best is when you get the newbies who are like "he is a heel, but people cheer for him" or "heelish tweener," which is almost an implicit plea for that character to get a face pop in writeups.

But yeah, if you can do more than one character, then it's impressive.

But... not nearly as impressive as it is for people who do one character and do it so well in every fed they enter in. Guys like Dave Brunk, who just have their one main character they use; I think it's a lot harder to do this than to keep thinking up different gimmicks, because it's a lot harder not to burn out, especially if you're like Brunk and enter in every fed that has a pulse :p

But as an addedendum, I was talking to GG today about characters and what they mean to you, and I came up with a rating system. Here goes for my characters.

"A" Character - Jericoholic Anonymous - He's my #1 character, the one guy who is really an extension of who I am, and who I also put the most work and thougth in for RPing.

"A₁" Characters - Maggot and Roderick McRatrick - These guys are good enough to be "A" characters, but they're not quite on the highest level.

"B" Characters - Benoitholic Anonymous, "Cowboy" Jimmy Donovan, The Phantom Republican, Captain Suleimon, Der Braumeister, The Thrillbillies, Priest - They're guys I use as main characters in a given fed, and I put a lot of effort into them, but they're not as near and dear to my heart as my A/A₁ characters are.

"C" Characters - Everyone Else - They're either blatant throwaway comedy characters or concept characters that I was doing on a trial basis.