Build Characters From Your Own Voice: A Simple AI Exercise You Can Use

Building the Bee World in Public · Part 3 of 3

Part 1: Meet the Characters · Part 2: Why They Exist · Find Your Voice Hub

You do not need a fictional universe to use the same process I am using to develop Bee Righteous, Match, Anchor, Loop and Nook.

You do not even need to want fictional characters.

The useful part is learning how to identify the ideas underneath your work and then finding better ways to express them.

That can lead to characters. It can also lead to stories, lessons, videos, songs, products, workshops or something completely different.

The starting point is the same:

What are you actually trying to say?

Step 1: Mine Your Own Work First

Do not begin by asking AI: “Give me four characters.”

Start with what you already have: your writing, conversations, notes, music, business ideas, lessons, frustrations and recurring questions.

Look for patterns.

For me, one of those patterns was: Flame → Rock → Cycle → House.

That existed before the Bee characters did.

Try This Prompt

I want to identify the ideas that genuinely repeat in my work before creating anything new. I will give you examples of things I have written, created, taught, planned or repeatedly discussed. Identify 3–5 recurring principles, questions or tensions that appear across the material. Show me the evidence for each one. Do not invent a framework just because one would sound impressive. Tell me where the pattern is strong, where it may be weak, and what I should examine before deciding that it is actually part of my voice.

Step 2: Challenge the Pattern

Do not assume the first framework AI gives you is profound.

Sometimes a pattern is real. Sometimes AI is simply good at making things sound connected.

Push back.

Try This Prompt

Challenge the principles you just identified. Which ones appear genuinely distinctive to my work, and which ones could apply to almost anyone? Where am I forcing a connection? Which principle appears strongly enough that I could build more around it without pretending it is more original than it really is?

Your goal is not to invent mythology around everything you have ever said.

Your goal is to identify what may actually deserve development.

Step 3: Turn the Principle Into Behaviour

If you want to experiment with characters, do not start with appearance.

Ask how the principle behaves.

Match started becoming useful when Flame stopped being just a symbol and became behaviour.

Match notices. Match gets excited. Match wants to move.

That gave him personality.

Try This Prompt

Take this principle: [INSERT PRINCIPLE]. Turn it into a character without starting with appearance. What does this character naturally notice? What question do they repeatedly ask? What do they want? What do they contribute to a group? What kind of situation makes them useful? Keep every answer connected to the original principle rather than creating a generic personality.

Step 4: Give the Strength a Cost

Perfect characters are boring.

More importantly, perfect principles are often dishonest.

The useful quality should be capable of going too far.

Match's curiosity can become impulsiveness. Anchor's caution can become paralysis. Loop's experimentation can become chaos. Nook's desire to find a place for things can become attachment.

Try This Prompt

This character's core strength is [INSERT STRENGTH]. Show me how that same strength could become a weakness when pushed too far. Give me three situations where the character creates a problem specifically because they are overusing something that is normally valuable about them. Avoid unrelated flaws.

Now you have something that can actually produce stories.

Step 5: Create Meaningful Disagreement

Characters become interesting when two good principles point toward different choices.

Match wants to move. Anchor wants more evidence.

Neither one has to be stupid. Neither one has to be the villain.

That is where tension becomes useful.

Try This Prompt

Here are my characters and the principles they represent: [INSERT CHARACTERS AND PRINCIPLES]. Give me five situations where two or more characters would reasonably disagree because each is following their own principle. Do not make one character obviously correct. The disagreement should force a meaningful choice, test or consequence.

Step 6: Decide Who Gets to Choose

This is one of the most important questions in the Bee World.

Bee Righteous can challenge the Operator. He cannot replace the Operator.

Your project may use a completely different structure, but you should still know where responsibility sits.

Try This Prompt

Review this character or teaching system and identify who currently has decision-making authority. Is one character, narrator, expert or AI solving too much for everyone else? Show me where the audience, protagonist, student or user could retain more meaningful agency without making the story confusing.

Step 7: Find More Than One Door

Once an idea is strong enough, ask how different people might encounter it.

Someone might prefer a story. Someone might want a practical guide. Someone might respond to music. Someone might prefer a short video. Someone else might want a workshop.

That does not mean creating the exact same content five times.

The idea should adapt to the format.

Try This Prompt

Here is the core idea I am developing: [INSERT IDEA]. My audience includes [INSERT AUDIENCE]. Give me five genuinely different ways someone could encounter this idea. Include at least one story-based approach, one practical approach, one entertaining approach and one educational approach. Do not simply reformat the same message. Explain what each version adds that the others do not.

Step 8: Map It Back Into Something Real

This is where a lot of content creation falls apart.

You make something. Post it. Move on. Then make something else.

Soon you have a pile instead of a system.

Before adding another piece, decide where it belongs.

Try This Prompt

I created or am considering creating this: [DESCRIBE CONTENT]. My larger system currently includes [DESCRIBE YOUR WEBSITE, PROGRAM, BRAND, PROJECT OR BODY OF WORK]. Tell me where this belongs, what it should connect to, what should link back to it, what the natural next step should be for someone who likes it, and whether this adds meaningful value or mostly duplicates something I already have.

You Do Not Need Everyone to Enter Through the Same Door

This is one of the ideas I am testing most seriously through the Bee World.

People connect differently.

Someone may never care about the framework that created Match. They may simply like Match.

Someone may never watch the animated story. They may use the Core Squared process.

Someone else may come through Righteous Kingdom. Another person may come through Creatorverse. Another may hear a song.

That is okay.

You do not need to force every person through the same funnel.

You need to make sure the paths you create actually lead somewhere worthwhile.

Quality Still Matters

AI makes it incredibly easy to create more.

That does not mean more is automatically useful.

If you add five new entry points and all five are weak, you have not strengthened your work. You may have made it harder to understand.

The goal is not endless output.

The goal is: more useful ways for the right people to connect with something worth caring about.

Then map those pieces properly. Link them. Let them support each other. Give someone a reasonable next step.

And when something no longer belongs, be willing to change it.

Build in Public Without Pretending You Are Finished

I am doing this publicly because the development itself is useful.

There was a point when I considered calling Rock's younger character Pebble.

It was not a terrible idea. It made sense.

But beside Match, Loop and Nook, it did not carry enough of what I wanted Rock to represent.

So Pebble became Anchor.

That is not failure.

That is development.

And I think showing those decisions is more useful than pretending every idea arrived perfectly finished.

Because finding your voice does not mean never changing your mind.

It means understanding why you changed it.

That is what I am trying to do with Bee Righteous.

Build the characters. Build the world. Test the ideas. Connect the pieces. Keep what holds. Change what does not.

And give people more than one meaningful way to come inside.

---

Continue from here: Explore the Find Your Voice Hub · See Righteous Kingdom · Explore Creatorverse

Revisit the series: Part 1 — Meet the Characters · Part 2 — Why They Exist