With the new story, Welcome to Hell, everything has gone fairly smooth. In the two weeks I’ve been working on it, I’ve written 90 pages. Ninety. 90 pages of a story, a set of characters, and none of it irritates me–all in two weeks. I usually have problems with my main character: I hate her. She’s a petulant bitch to be frank. No matter which character I am working on (Haven, Rebecca, Andromeda), I usually dislike her. While I like some of their aspecets (that I gave them), the majority of the their attributes anger me. I solved that problem with Welcome to Hell.
Jeremy Haidarn, demon, solved my problems. I love Jeremy. He has good traits and bad, but I’m less focused on what makes him seem bad. With my female characters, I can only see their flaws. I use Jeremy’s flaws to play up his good parts. He’s a very generous blend of light and dark, day and night, and I can honestly say I love it. I look forward to writing Jeremy, every day, unlike the characters I dread visiting even if I only jot them down in my journals. I thought that writing from a guy’s perspective would be really difficult. Which doesn’t really apply to my life, because the majority of the people I hang out with are guys; just because I hang out with them doesn’t mean I understand them. But, writing Jeremy wasn’t as difficult as I thought it was going to be.
When I first started the process, I assumed that Welcome to Hell was going to be a short story, maybe a hundred pages or more. Now that I’m almost one hundred pages deep in the story, I know it’s going to be a novel. But at the time, I was writing for time, not quality, and, while some of it was good, the characterization became a lot easier when I didn’t have to delve into the characters past and find reason for all of their actions. I did have to alter some of the thought processes, because I was having to think like a guy, or somewhat like it. I changed language, but I kept his thoughts at a bare minimum until I can plausibly write his thoughts.
While writing Jeremy motivates me, the story is told by two people. Jeremy Haidarn, demon, and Madeleine Black, cop. Strangely, enough, Madeleine hasn’t yet earned my hatred. I don’t mind writing from her point of view, because I know her story supplements Jeremy’s. Creating her was just a way to make Jeremy (and his story) more believeable. There is, however, an extreme possiblity that I’ll reinvent Madeleine’s side of the story and transfer it to Jeremy’s story, so it’s only told by Jeremy. I have yet to decide. Until I get some feedback, the decision won’t be made.
4 Comments
April 1, 2008 at 12:53 am
I love dark heroes, like Jim Morrison, and look forward to hearing more about Jeremy.
When I was young, there was a TV play, possibly from Hallmark, which told the story of a young devil who somehow got to spend time with human children. I don’t remember anything except how much it meant to him to be chosen for one of the playground games. Loners and outsiders have immense appeal – I think we can all identify with them on some level.
Keep on writing and giving us some insight about the creative process.
diane
April 1, 2008 at 11:51 pm
@diane: Do you really? I do, too. I prefer them, because I don’t think “pure” heroes are very credible. It’s almost like they don’t have a reason to be a hero. I think a lot of people identify with them because you are, at some point in your life, feeling loneliness, and you can understand a character better if you’ve gone through what they have. Thanks for your comments, by the way!
April 4, 2008 at 4:30 am
HAY! I hope this is the blog you had asked me to read.
:D:D
You have to let me read this next work of yours once it is complete! I love reading my friends’ writing because it reflects them in a sense, you know?
Btw, I have a writing challenge for you!
April 4, 2008 at 11:20 pm
I want to know this writing challenge immediately! This is the blog I wanted you to read. Blogs really do reflect the person; you can tell a lot from their writing. I wonder what mine says about me…