Characters, hmm. I think all of Tolkien's characters 5 feet and under (i.e. Hobbits, including borderline cases like Bullroarer, Merry and Pippin-- can't remember their exact heights) were based on real people, friends and relations-- it's just because all the trekking they do over hill and marsh feels so much based on experience. The friendly banter between the Hobbits is so convincing!
I'm not at all sure about the Dwarves.
I have a persistent fantasy that Gandalf was inspired by Tolkien's magnificent spinster aunt who took him on a hike in Switzerland and thereby gave the storm giants of Hobbit fame to posterity. No textual proof, though, that's just my fantasy.
Other than Gandalf, I think all characters over 5 feet (saving Hobbits) were based on parts of Tolkien himself and were inspired by characters in all the ancient literature he read --and also the languages he studied. There's a great quote in Tolkien's letters in which he scornfully explains why Theoden HAS to say 'Thus shall I sleep better' (referring to his death) and would NEVER EVER say 'Thus shall I lie in my grave [more quietly]' (approximate quote) --apparently a warrior king of Theoden's time would literally think of death as sleep and only a maudlin modern would dwell on 'poor me in the cold ground.' That's a complex character point-- impressive, isn't it? --and it seems to be based on what Tolkien read of old kings, Anglo-Saxon and such, and what he had absorbed of their thinking.
As for my own technique for character, I'm just going to quote myself from a post elsewhere:
I often start a character with a real person I've met-- just as a seed, to start with a piece of reality-grit in all its stubborn, surprising integrity. Sometimes more than one person. Once I've got my bit of grit, I begin smoothing in the rest of the character around that bit of real-person grit as I write the story. This smoothing largely comes out of some aspect of my personality because I 'm the one writing the character's actions and dialogue, I'm running his/her reactions to the current situation in a corner of my mind and writing down the results of my character-simulation. So it's my own mind, a part of me, filling in the rest of the character around the original bit of grit. Hopefully I end with a pearl, but you never know!
[ August 18, 2002: Message edited by: Nar ]
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