Project Megan: Megan
When first coming up with the character, I was torn at first on what to name her. I wanted her first name to be "Megan" first off, but I don't know if my friend Megan would mind. I was naming this character after her, after all. But it didn't matter, and I didn't get clearance anyway. I know that the real Megan loves it anyway.
For her last name, I wanted to come up with a name with a music reference. Maybe "Megan Halford" or something. I came up with "Entwistle," named after The Who's bassist John Enwtistle, but I was afraid that might be too obvious. In the end, I just went with it, although a bit paranoid.
It wasn't until much later that I nailed down what age she should be (18). At first I thought maybe 14, maybe 16, maybe 17, and maybe 18.
I also had to actually figure out what state she lived in. Ohio was what I came up with, and the best idea since it was the same time zone as the state I currently live in--nothing would've been worse than trying to come up with the time and forgetting that it's supposed to be two or three hours earlier.
The rest of the details about this fake Megan's parents and school life I either avoided or made up on the spot.
And naturally my introduction to the newsgroup would create a little confusion, since there was already a well known "Megan" who posted to the newsgroup before, but left before my fake Megan joined. Since my fake Megan had been reading the newsgroup a few months before she started posting (which was bullshit since I hadn't even seen the newsgroup for a few months before coming back under character. You can see one of my normal conversations, as myself, with this other Megan here.
And of course, there was already ANOTHER Megan that I knew, the one who I named my own fake Megan after. I have posted a few chat logs with her on my site already, one of them being here.