This is mainly directly at the writers on the forum rather then the readers, but their input would be interesting to hear from as well.

Not as in a smoking hot femuscular character - that's a given. 

No, I mean as in a character that is decidedly a smoker.  As a writer have you ever included one as a part of a story or if you haven't up until now, would you concider including one?

If so, as the principal hero / heroine of the story - or as the villain / villainette of the story - or as simply one of the supporting characters, major or minor of the story?

Finally, what format would you use - cigarette, cigar or a pipe?

Is this directed at me?  

Have I included a smoker?  Yes.  As some may or may not recall my character Kate (a main supporting character in the Necklace) smoked like a chimney.  I had no real reason for having her do so, it was a direct offshoot of the personality she developed as I was writing her.  She smoked cigarettes and she smoked them often and she did so not because I felt I had to offer a "token" smoker or because she needed a prop, it was just what she did.  I'll never forget one of the last days I spent at college, not long after completing the necklace.  I was leaving classes for the day and happened to see a girl from across the hall who was the exact spitting image of how I had always pictured Kate to be.  Wavy red hair, bright green eyes, the same self confident smirk as she put an unlit cigarette between her lips when she still hadn't reached the exit yet, daring anyone to make her put it away.  One of the weirdest feelings of deja vu (or however else you describe an event of that nature.) I've ever had and I never saw her again afterward.

Would I consider having another smoker?  I honestly couldn't say.  Having someone chain smoke would feel to much like trying recapture Kate in another form and there will only ever be one Kate Wyler.  A pipe or a cigar?  That would depend on the characters personality.  If I can believably have a cigar smoker I will but I write the characters first and props develop from them, not the other way around.

Smokers probably appear very seldom in FMG type stories because fitness is an ideal that's exalted in them.  But in the real world people smoke and even the most fitness conscious person likely has one friend who smokes.

Full disclosure requires me to admit that you were the first to come up in the back of my mind while crafting this questionnaire - however, I have other reasons of my own to pose this one to the membership.

Oh, and yes - I've had four characters in my stories that have smoked - two villians, one villianette, and one supporting major character, hero-esque type.

And no, I don't concider smoking to be a disgusting habit - chewing / smokeless tobacco is another matter entirely, and not germane to the subject of this thread.

==========

Update 09/23/07

Seems I was in error, I have had not four, but five characters in the role as smokers - I forgot about the cigar-chomping air force general (done in the Curtis LeMay tradition) in one of them.

What an interesting question. I think I would, but only if the character is a villain. As has already been mentioned, the stories we write tend to be "fitness = perfection", and we know that smoking is an enemy of fitness.

Well, you know what I mean.