30 Days

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Claire rubs hands together gleefully over today’s topic….

10. What are some really weird situations your characters have been in? Everything from serious canon scenes to meme questions counts!

If it’s a potentially ridiculous topic, you know I’m going to love waxing on about it. And I do have a few examples.

Dori from My Fair Vampire has many head-shaking moments. To set the stage, you should know that a) she is an inept vampire and b) she is not all vampire but has a shape-shifting ability that gives her avian qualities. Shifting comes as a sudden surprise to her and she’s not quite sure what controls the on and off switch. She bemoans the fact that there’s really no user’s manual when you’re a one of a kind.

Here’s a taste of what Dori herself dubbed the weirdest day of her life (unedited excerpt, so be kind):

I wished I could see my face. Did I have a beak or was it some hybrid human and bird visage?

I remembered the side view mirrors of my car and flew over, landing on the top of the mirror. Digging my talons in, I dipped my head upside-down and took a peek. What I saw made me gasp. It was me but it wasn’t me. The eyes I knew were mine; they looked identical. The colors of my plume were similar to my human hair color. I looked somewhat like an eagle, but it was hard to see much from my precarious perch. Nevertheless, I could tell I was one pretty bird. I’d have to find a better mirror next time, but had no desire to fly around in search of one.

I was ready to go home but hadn’t a clue how to become Dori the humanoid again. Before, the changes had just happened, taking me along for the ride. I focused my gaze where my fingers should have been, where I saw nothing but beautiful crimson, orange and gold feathers, the colors of flame. I concentrated and willed my fingers to return. Nothing happened. I pecked at my feet, feeling a little stupid doing so. Still nothing. I crouched down like I was sitting on a nest. Nada. Nil. Negativo. I gazed at the sun a bit but all that did was make spots float before my eyes. Frustrated, I launched myself in the air and circled the area.

Now what? Should I fly home and wait it out or just stay here? What if someone sees me?

I landed and hopped in a circle around my clothes. I wasn’t going to leave those puppies unguarded, not with my car keys right there with them. Throwing my head back, I screeched into the sky before a wave of fury hit me. I tucked my head inside a wing and plucked out a feather, silently cursing the damn things as I did. As soon as it pulled free, all of the other feathers fell to the ground, revealing the pale human skin beneath. My eye level rose higher and I watched in awe as a dust devil swirled through and swept up a few of my discarded feathers and tossed them high into the air. The grit sandblasted me and I spit out the dirt particles that forced their way into my mouth. After it passed, I brushed off and put my clothes back on.

That day pretty much took the top prize for weirdest of my life.

Another scene from My Fair Vampire pits Dori against a Were-Komodo dragon named Mawar. She triumphs in the death match and is aided in the hush-hush disposal of the body by Donovan. Here’s an excerpt (also unedited):

The gun gave a loud click as he loaded another odd-looking bullet. “Now for the head. I should warn you first. Upon impact, it will be reanimated, but only for a few seconds. However, during that time, she’ll be able to see, hear and comprehend. She may even be able to speak, though it’ll be whispery or raspy since the vocal cords are cut. Best not to let her see or hear us during that time.”

“How long?”

“Maybe fifteen, twenty seconds. Throw me her dress, please.” He pointed to the heap of her clothes, shoes and jewelry he’d kicked to the wall earlier. I retrieved and tossed it to Donovan’s waiting hands.

He aimed and fired a bullet into her forehead then immediately draped the dress over the top of the bucket.

“Where’re you bitch? Why can’t I see anything? Where voice? No! No! Aaahhhhh…” A long, low gurgly exclamation rose in pitch before it tapered off, until at last, Mawar was quiet.

Donovan and I exchanged looks, my wild eyes I’m sure in stark contrast to his unaffected ones.

“I never cared much for Mawar.” He lifted the dress and inspected the interior of the bucket. “Good. All gone.” With a kick of his foot, he pushed the bucket toward me. “Hurry and empty it in the toilet, give it a rinse, then let’s clear out of here.”

I disposed of the head goo and turned in time to see Donovan’s bare ass as he stepped out of his boxers.

(Had to end on a titillating note, heh-heh.)

It’s macabre little scenes like the above that make me happily abandon paranormal romance in favor of urban fantasy as the genre for Dori’s story. But no matter the genre, I will always feature the weird and especially the ridiculous.

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Day 9 and not a question I feel all that qualified to answer in an insightful manner. But I’ll let you judge for yourselves.

9. How do you get ideas for your characters? Describe the process of creating them.

This chicken and egg type question had me stumped because don’t think of characters independent of their stories. My first thoughts are to create the story which in turn shapes the character(s) needed to tell it. That may be bass-ackwards for many, but not for me.

Most of my stories start with a “what if” scenario. Let’s look at Dori in My Fair Vampire as an example. That novel started off as a piece of flash fiction, produced in less than ninety minutes as my take on the theme word “impossible”. My impossible tale was “what if you had a vampire who formed an attachment to her mortal enemy?” That would certainly be an impossible situation so how could the lovers overcome it? What if the vampire was still in training but not quite getting the hang of her new life as a vampire? What if her would-be lover was the same? I envisioned a baby lion playing with a baby lamb (ugh, I did not intend to mimic or mock Twilight with that analogy; please forgive me for leaving it intact though, because it works)–neither knows they are mortal enemies at that tender age.

Working backward, I wondered first: Why was Dori not catching on? Was she stupid? (Answer = No. My characters are never stupid. Period.) Was there something organically preventing her from picking up the necessary survival skills? Bingo. Maybe she wasn’t all human to begin with; maybe certain paranormal creatures have innate characteristics that are incompatible with vampirism.

Question two: Why would Dori be attracted to a hunter in the first place? Was she so starved for affection that she welcomed it even from a sworn enemy? Bingo again. Why was she starved for affection? Bad home life / childhood? Difficulties cause by her other paranormal abilities?

I repeated this process for each character, backing up from the primary story a bit more each time until I had a fleshed out profiles and histories of who the main characters were.

I have no idea if this is how most writers create characters or if most develop a character first then place them into a story. Were I to be asked to write a second book about Dori, I believe I could do it because having finished the first, I see many other tangents her story could take. That would be my first attempt to build a novel around a well-developed character, something I’ve not yet done but hopefully will do one day. Those sequels aren’t clamoring for my attention, however, because I have a notebook full of other tales singing like sirens to give them a chance to live and breathe, they and their tellers, whomever they may be.

(As a completely unrelated aside, I’m loving WordPress’s recommended media gallery and recommended links, all context driven.)