The twelve characters of Murder Nevada were not created out of thin air.
These characters represent a part of me, or someone from my past. Originally, I started to write to help deal with my anxiety, depression and regret, which, at the time, were running on overdrive. I was in a very bad place, and my only avenue out of the darkness was to orchestrate my thoughts on paper. At the time, it helped a little, but not enough. However, while I was trying to self-heal myself, something remarkable was happening. While I was jotting down a few things about my day, I thought to myself, “Hey, why don’t I turn my anxiety-ridden self, or my regretful self into a character and I can write a fictional account of their life.” It was supposed to be therapy to write about my newly created characters, but it ended up being a whole lot more.
With already a couple of characters in the bank, I turned my attention to some of the other maladies which have inflicted me over my life. Anger, OCD, loneliness, feelings of failure and an insatiable desire to get a girlfriend all came to mind. Some of these I have long since defeated, while others were still brewing inside of me. However, the one commonality between these emotions were the painful memories I once experienced. All of a sudden, I was up to eight characters and I started to write about each one as if their particular malady was, at the moment, wreaking havoc on me. Over time, four more characters were added to come up with the set we currently have. So, without further ado, here is a brief description of how I came up with each one of the twelve characters and how it reflects on me.
He is a lonely individual who feels his life of isolation can be lifted by one thing—getting a girlfriend. Before I met my wife, I was just like Adam; always wanting a girlfriend and believing I was never going to get one. Fortunately, I found my special person. We’ll see if Adam can find his.
If you suffer from anxiety and paranoia, you will sympathize with Tyler. He is afraid that someone, or something, on the outside world is out to get him. This causes him to experience several panic attacks while he goes about his daily routine. Although Tyler is an exaggerated characterization of myself, I have suffered through several panic attacks in my life. Most notably, when I’m driving in the snow or taking a test.
She is one of the characters who is a derivative of another person, even though there are a few similarities with myself. She has feelings of jealousy and sorrow because her friends in high school are very successful and she is working at a dead-end job. The one similarity I have with Christina is that we both feel we should be more successful in life. Will Christina be successful, or will she commit murder? You’ll have to wait and see.
Another one of my stronger emotions is social anxiety and shyness. Something that’s very troubling for Paige and Alex. Although the difference between these two characters is that Paige wants to remain a social recluse, while Alex wants to come out of his shell. I created two characters for this emotion because I have felt both ways; I used to be like Paige and wanted nothing to do with everyone. Today, I want to be more like Alex and socialize more.
I created two characters out of my feelings of regret and choosing the wrong path when I was younger. I have always felt how different my life would be if I had done this rather than that, and that’s exactly the malady causing great heartache for Armando and Gina. Their stories are filled with what could have been, and how they are dealing with it now. This is certainly one of my strongest emotions, so it wasn’t hard for me to create two characters out of this.
In the past, a lot of people would have said I was a perfect replica of Katy. I used to get angry at the littlest thing and throw unnecessary temper tantrums. Shoot, I once broke a badminton racquet after I lost to my sister. Today, however, I am able to keep my anger under control… to a certain degree. That being said, the memories are still with me and it was very easy to write about Katy.
I feel everyone has a little OCD in them and I am no exception. I’m always looking to make sure everything’s in order. I like my letters and numbers to be neater than a calligrapher and I am a little particular when it comes to germs. Similar to Tyler, Caleb is an over-exaggeration of myself and his OCD is constantly with him, but will it lead to murder? You have to go into Murder Nevada and find out.
Even though this has not been the predominant feeling throughout my life, this was certainly the prevailing emotion when I started to create the characters for Murder Nevada. At the time, it felt like everything I touched turned to failure, and this is certainly the case with Jake. He can’t go a day without thinking about all of his failures and how his life is majestically perched on a stinking pile of rubbish.
Another derivative of a person I used to know. Of course, we have all encountered someone like Rob in our lifetime—a person who tries to bully their way to the top. Usually, we see someone like Rob in high school, but they can also guest star in our adulthood, which is what we’ll see in Murder Nevada.
We’ve all had them—the boss from hell. That being said, I don’t think anyone has ever had a boss like Ryan. Similar to Rob, he tries to intimidate everyone in his path to get what he wants, but he is so much more. Ryan is chauvinistic, narcissistic and was able to attain his position in life through the most egregious case of nepotism in the free world.
So there are the twelve characters of Murder Nevada and the reason behind their creation. I’m fairly confident you resemble one of our characters, or, at the very least, you know someone who displays these tendencies. Whatever the case, I’m sure you are going to enjoy the adventures of our characters.
-Steve Miller