JENNY: Meet Mare
We're about halfway through the book now and we're just starting to understand each others' characters. Hell, I'm just starting to understand MY character. I had a good idea of her voice and her desires and the way she moved through life, but watching Eileen and Krissie write her and saying, "Yes, that's Mare," or "No, that's not quite it," having to explain her to them, and most of all, playing her off the antagoninst, all have really helped me shape the character faster than I usually do.
So in the beginning, we picked our characters, and I got Moira Mariposa, the butterfly baby of the family. She was Mari when she was little, but she goes by tough girl Mare now that she's 22. She spontaneous and vibrant and big with the snappy patter but bad with authority and empathy.
I didn't realize how bad she was with empathy until I wrote the first half. She's the baby of the family so she's spoiled, but it's a tough pull-up-your-socks kind of family, so she doesn't think other people should do things for her, she takes care of herself, she just doesn't think about other people. If something happens that forces her to notice them, she cares, but she tends to go ahead then and fix them so they fit into her worldview which is that everybody should be free and happy. This works most of the time but sometimes it backfires on her. Which she doesn't notice because she's not paying attention. So she ignores her bossy older sister/mother figure and giggles with her middle sister but mostly just goes through life arranging things the way she wants them, which is reflected in her power: she moves things with her mind, so she can literally rearrange things, no hands.
But I really like designing my protags to reflect my antags so I've made her the younger version of Aunt Rellie, kind of the Anakin to Rellie's Vader. And that made her a drama queen who loves sex and shiny bright things and wants to control the world. And a liar when it suits her.
I really love Mare, she's so much fun and she's so screwed up and then she gets together with Eileen's Dee and Krissie's Lizzie and the good times roll.
I love this book.
So in the beginning, we picked our characters, and I got Moira Mariposa, the butterfly baby of the family. She was Mari when she was little, but she goes by tough girl Mare now that she's 22. She spontaneous and vibrant and big with the snappy patter but bad with authority and empathy.
I didn't realize how bad she was with empathy until I wrote the first half. She's the baby of the family so she's spoiled, but it's a tough pull-up-your-socks kind of family, so she doesn't think other people should do things for her, she takes care of herself, she just doesn't think about other people. If something happens that forces her to notice them, she cares, but she tends to go ahead then and fix them so they fit into her worldview which is that everybody should be free and happy. This works most of the time but sometimes it backfires on her. Which she doesn't notice because she's not paying attention. So she ignores her bossy older sister/mother figure and giggles with her middle sister but mostly just goes through life arranging things the way she wants them, which is reflected in her power: she moves things with her mind, so she can literally rearrange things, no hands.
But I really like designing my protags to reflect my antags so I've made her the younger version of Aunt Rellie, kind of the Anakin to Rellie's Vader. And that made her a drama queen who loves sex and shiny bright things and wants to control the world. And a liar when it suits her.
I really love Mare, she's so much fun and she's so screwed up and then she gets together with Eileen's Dee and Krissie's Lizzie and the good times roll.
I love this book.
posted by Jenny at
3/04/2006 12:01:00 PM
1 Comments:
Does she really have a problem with authority? Or is she more like my best friend who claims he doesn't have a problem with authority - he "has a problem with stupid people. Is it really his fault that there are so many stupid people in positions of authority?" Seriously, when he puts it like that, even I'm hard pressed to disagree with him.
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