Brainstorming Characters
One look at the time/date of this blog post will tell you that I am not doing what I am supposed to. I did homework for a little over twenty minutes before falling asleep because I am an irresponsible college student. But for whatever reason I am facing the strong urge to discuss my characters. Probably not the characters themselves, but the thought process that went into them.
I started writing back in elementary school in hopes I would someday publish a fantasy novel. I don’t know why I started this absurdly long project in which I’m still working to this day. Though it had a lot to do with my friends back at the time. Another day I may go into a more in-depth reflection of my writing journey. Most likely after I successfully publish the stupid thing.
The day I can properly express the thought processes behind each of these characters will be a day, where I can be myself. But, like the stuff in the previous little paragraph that is a topic for another post. It would not be a stretch to say that some of my protagonists' qualities are more extreme versions of the attributes buried within me.
An example of this would be my character, Amelia Fang. Amelia is my protagonist for the decade long fantasy novel still in a series of drafts scattered about my google drive. On the surface she seems like a typical leader, outgoing and strong without any doubts to their cause. If she were a word, it would be perfection. The person everybody aspired to be.
Since this project started in elementary school, take into consideration the media I had been consuming. As you can probably guess, Amelia is by no means a perfect person. It is all a facade to escape the terrors looming just over her head, eagerly waiting for the slip up. When not being actively surveilled, her heart is quite distant. She never smiles genuinely. Resembling more of a doll than a human being. So much so that in the early drafts of the story, that would be a frequent source of comparison.
Basically, she is the embodiment of every other female lead in the genre with only subtle differences. Amelia is unwavering yet ruthless, well aware of her demise from the get-go. I would argue she is not even a likeable character from the way she interacts with others.
Knowing this I would be a fool to keep Amelia the same as back then. However, her personality has not changed all that much. If anything, it is identical to the original. The reasoning is simple; she needs to act her age so she can grow throughout the story.
What's up with media portraying twelve- to fourteen-year-old children as competent heroes with little flaws? It may have not been apparent from the short description of the character, but Amelia is written to act her age. She is a child who does what her parental orders her to do, as to not disappoint them. Especially at the cost of other people’s views and emotions. At this point in time, she does not possess critical thinking skills necessary for the amount of power she wields. That will come with time, alongside her emotional growth.
Amelia goes from emotionless doll to a mischievous little bastard who thrives in messed-up fantasy world.
I relate closer to the older version of the character, towards the middle of the story. Though, if this were to ever resurface someday, I would like to re iterate how I said extreme.
I am at a point in my life where it pains me to change the details of the characters I’ve spent so long with. This project does not fit what publishing houses say there currently looking for. Indicating that this project will most likely not be traditionally published. Even so, that is my end goal for this ridiculously long project.
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I have nothing against self-publishing. I plan to self-publish several books before I graduate University. Like I said, I want to be an author. Right now, it won’t be any good, seeing how I don’t even edit my blog posts. But someday I will achieve it.
With the current trends in mind, I have started to write characters with different prospectives in life. Whether that be in the aspect of gender identify, sexual orientation, religion, or economic status. Who wants to read from an author who only writes about straight white people in magic land? It is a slow-burn spice free romance though.
So, now I am going to talk about the first story I’ve ever written about LGBTQ+ characters. If this project were to ever come out, I think I may get a lot of hate from it. Primarily because it is a straight romance. How can it be a straight romance with LGBTQ+ characters?
This project has a prequel called the Fall of West Birch. Essentially a short-ish story about a crumbling town out in the middle of nowhere. Due to the rampant witch trials, accompanied by some other factors (spoilers) our protagonist Annable had been raised as a boy. An upbringing that deeply affected the girl into adult hood.
She dresses rather androgenous and will occasionally go by he/him pro nouns. One of her love interests in both story lines is a girl. However, Annabelle will end up with a guy. This ending to the love triangle will inevitably upset the majority of readers who picked up the book thinking it was a gay love story. I hate to break it to you; Annabelle is mostly straight. Her female love interest, Linseah, is a toxic bitch.
I know some section on the internet is a fan of doommed Yuri. So, in hopes those people will not cancel me I’ll go into a little depth about the character Linseah.
Linseah is not based on anyone I know. Friends who stumble across this, do not think too hard please. Linseah moved into West Birch admits its fall, due to being a girl she had not been allowed to go to school. Not that she could go to school anyway because of her weak constitution. Even so, she still made an effort to go spend time with the other children during the evening hours.
The villagers found Linseah’s life unfortunate. Born in a time where her value is practically nothing. However, Alan (Annabelle) thought otherwise. The presence of another girl in the village made Annabelle happy, but she saw past the pleasant witnessing firsthand the cruel acts she committed. It started with harmless killings of insects, where she’d dissect them piece by piece to slip into the food of the people who irritated her. Guess how it will evolve from there.
Linseah has a one-sided obsession with Annabelle that started in her childhood. Like the possessive psycho she is, Linseah will do anything in her power to keep Annabelle glued to her side. Linseah is my embodiment of a walking red flag.
I came up with her character out of boredom. My teenager brain went, what if I created a character that was just a red flag. No redeeming qualities. Yet I have the feeling that some will root for her since she is for the girls.
For the record I do not believe that lesbians are psychos. Since these characters are not underage, I plan for there to be semi-spicy scenes between the two female leads. Would it really be a vampire romance novel without a little bit of tension?
Brainstorming characters is fun. Maybe I’ll talk about my male characters in another post. It is actually flushing out their stories onto paper, at a satisfactory level that is difficult.
