Candie had never had a Mum or Dad. She had always just travelled with a group of other cat-humans. She had full faith and trust in all of them. One night they were out hunting for water so that they could find fish to catch. They were all running along in the moonlight when the woods suddenly stopped. Candie was the only one who didn’t notice. She was too busy laughing and looking back to her friends. Suddenly she felt her foot slip and the ground begin to crumble underneath it. She looked down, only to realise they had run out of the woods to a sheer drop down a cliff. She fell, but caught onto the edge of the cliff with her very fingertips. She yelled for help, but her friends all ran away without a second look back. As she fell all she thought about was that the ones who she had grown up with, trusted and protected had betrayed her. She was sure she would die, but by pure chance a vine caught at the back of her t-shirt and she could scramble back up the cliff. She didn’t try to follow her ‘friends’. She spent the rest of the night sitting on the edge of the cliff, wondering if she could ever trust anyone again.
Monthly Archives: April 2017
Lilian’s Story
I decided to stick the backstories of my characters on the book blog because only a few of the parts of the character’s backgrounds will actually affect or appear in the story.
Lilian was a normal child. She had everything she ever wanted, except two things; friends, and the attention of her parents. Her parents worked a lot to bring about the mild wealth of the family, so without anyone else to spend time with it was only likely that she spent most of her time just thinking to herself. She developed a habit of staring into mirrors; “Not because she was vain, but because it always made her feel more calm and relaxed, as if she were talking to her opposite self.” She had always wanted to do something to benefit others, but the reason why was never explained in the book. I always imagined it this way;
I walked down to breakfast by myself, just like every day. Mum and Dad had already headed off to work. It’s not ‘cos I don’t get up early. I wake up at 6:30 every day, I just don’t leave the room ‘cos I don’t wanna see Mum and Dad go out of the door. You might think I’d always want to watch them leave so I could see as much of them as I could. I did used to do that, but every time I saw them leave I got a huge shiver up my spine and I suddenly felt like I’d been kicked in the stomach. So I stopped. They only come home at 6:00, so I hardly ever see them.
Anyway, I came down to the kitchen and sat down at the table. My cereal was laid out for me. I gulped it down as fast as I could and then ran upstairs as fast as I could. The house is pretty big, but I don’t like it at all. It makes me feel so small and lonely. The only rooms I like are my room and the upstairs lounge. When we first moved in my parents let me choose my room, and I chose the smallest room; I like it being small, because it makes me feel less little and like I take up more space… like I’m more important. I like the upstairs lounge ‘cos it has a window seat behind the curtain. I like to lie there and close the curtain and stare out at the rest of the town. That’s what I did.
I stared down into the town square and saw something. It was two boys fighting. I don’t know why, but I suddenly jumped up and bolted downstairs. I skidded out the front door, down the lane and round the block to the square. I saw them, still right behind my house. I sprinted over, right between them and gave them both a shove. “STOP! PLEASE!” I yelled. All of us stopped, panting. The two boys straightened up silently. Then, without saying anything, one of them hit me hard on my chest. I staggered and fell backwards, curled on the ground. They both walked away. I lay there, frozen. It didn’t hurt my body. It hurt me. I lay there shaking for about five minutes. That’s when I realised I wanted to improve the world, because even the people who try to help get hurt and that’s not right. Nothing’s right.
Creating Love in Stories
One of the hardest things I’ve ever tried to do when writing a story is to plan my characters a love story. It’s amazingly difficult put those kinds of feelings on a piece of paper. Whenever I write a story that’s taking place in real life I always try to communicate a character’s feelings by their actions and thoughts. However, that’s not so easy in a romance story. Whenever I’ve tried to give my characters feelings, I’ve always read back over the page and asked myself, “is this really what happens when I feel like this?” If the answer is yes, I happily continue, satisfied with my work. If my answer is no, I rub out the page and start again.
Usually I always say feeling are essential to a story, but in some stories I wouldn’t even think twice about adding a love life to a particular character. For example, in my new story The Nights of the Unknown, the only character I’ve ever thought about adding a love life to is Lilian. If this does happen, it would most likely be a huge part of the story. She would meet the guy/girl, she’d fall in love with them, and then she would have to make the huge decision of whether to stay with the love of her life, or the loyal friends who had given up everything else to come with her. Knowing Lilian, she would probably choose her friends because she values loyalty most. However, if she chose the love of her life, what would happen to the story? Would it follow the journey of Kiwi and Candie, deeply disheartened by their friend’s betrayal? Or would it stay with the protagonist, Lilian? Following my judgement of story structure, it wouldn’t switch back and forth; I always find it makes for a less gripping story in most of my cases, probably because I don’t have enough practice in that kind of stuff. I would probably have it follow Candie and Kiwi, and that’s where I come back to my point of how hard it is to write about love. I just can’t think how I would write about days, maybe weeks, of Lilian simply being happy with her new-found love.
Let’s pretend for a second this has actually happened. As the story follows Candie and Kiwi, there are 7 possible outcomes:
#1 The two friends are simply strengthened by their loss and survive the journey with victory.
#2 The two friends stay together, but are weakened by their loss. They do not survive the journey.
#3 One friend sacrifices themself for victory. The other, motivated, continues to victory.
#4 One friend sacrifices themself for victory. The other, weakened, does not survive the journey.
#5 Both friends decide they cannot go on and return home.
#6 Lilian returns to her friends.
#7 The two friends’ friendship is weakened and they seperate.
Only two of these results in victory with survival of all three friends, so I think it’s safe to say we can push love out of the equation for this story.
That doesn’t mean love is necessarily a bad thing to put into a story. It can add drama, plot and suspense. It’s just better with a different plot and character cast than most of my stories.
