Clark Kenting Characters

Last night, I finished a revision of Mutants and came to a realization. Sometimes, I give my characters these amazing powers and then I either don't provide them the opportunities to use them or I brush over the scenes when they do.

I write Clark Kent's story rather than Superman's.

In some ways, this might appeal to my audience depending on who they are and how far I go with this. The average YA might find more to like and understand in a character with downplayed "exceptional" characteristics. I mean, that's the appeal of Smallville for the most part, in my opinion. It's first and foremost the story of Clark Kent. On the other hand, Clark Kent is such a fascinating person because he's Superman... isn't he? Or is it because he's both?

I think there is a balance there that sometimes I find and sometimes I don't.

For example, I've mentioned I'll be doing a "revision" of Secrets of Skin and Stone for the film agent at my agency. This is going to probably be something I address. My husband, when he read this book, had two primary comments.

First, he suggested that one of the flying scenes be shifted to be from Piper's POV rather than my gargoyle Gris's. Flying is nothing new to Gris... or Superman, so telling it from his POV will downplay the excitement of it. In the first Superman movie, when Superman takes Lois Lane flying the narration briefly slips into Lois's head while the song "Can You Read My Mind" plays in the background. You hear what Lois is thinking while you're seeing what she is experiencing.

It seems like a natural choice in narration to go with the most exciting voice in play in a scene.

Apparently, it wasn't, and I suspect it's because I'm a girl, I focused on Gris's emotions and his worries that Piper would think he was a freak. Piper is flying for the first time in her life! In her life! And I slipped into Gris's head instead. I chose emotion over excitement.

The second thing my husband suggested was the ending where I had the opportunity for Gris to use his powers as a "gargoyle" and I didn't; I went a different way and went for a more human approach to an endgame. I'm not sure if I want to change that, but it's a possibility in a major revision.

In the book I just finished revising, Mutants, Lucas has super-human powers. He's faster, stronger, can hear better, can see farther... but he doesn't use those powers as often you'd think he would. Why? Because his writer is telling the Clark Kent story. I've added a scene at the end to address that, but I suspect, the more I think on it, I need to punch that scene up and focus on Superman.

With both Gris and Lucas, I had the opportunity to go with Superman, and I focused on Clark Kent. As I said, I think this is honestly because I'm a girl. My first instinct as a writer is to still analyze the emotions.

Another reason I think I sometimes go with the Clark Kent persona is because I write "pantsing.' I think a plotter would know ahead of time where to place the focus in a scene. It's something I can work on in revision of course... or I might do some plotting in the future.

My writing style seems to evolve with practice, and this is just another one of those things I'm learning: the balance between telling the right story and Clark Kenting a character.

This week in writing I'll be taking revision notes from betas and doing a final revision on Curse Me A Story and sending it to Sarah. It'll be strange to have that off my "to do" list.

Your characters don't exist and other lies they tell you...

So, I have this shirt that I bought several years ago. It has a vampire-fanged mouth on it with the words "Bite Me" on it. When I started writing my Honor series, it was one of the first things to go into the book--both as her favorite retort and she wears my shirt. (It's okay, though, I borrow it back to wear it. Reeve washes it for her--we're good.) So, I wore the shirt one day and wound up working on the Creche stuff. (It's exactly perfect to wear at church when you're working on setting up nativities--or I forgot I was wearing it.) I pulled off my coat and Katie, who has read Honor, said, "You have an Honor shirt!" (Cue embarrassment.) Yes. Yes, I do. Then, she asked, "Do you wear it when you write?" Yes. Yes, I do. Actually...it's more resounding than that. Heck yeah, I do! I love that shirt. I always wear it to the dentist's office too, but they don't "get me" like my fictional characters do. In fact, typically, they just look confused--my dentist's office, I mean--not my characters. My characters know exactly what I'm thinking.

So, per my adult female prerogative, I just bought myself Christmas gifts. Merry Christmas, Wendy! You're so thoughtful. It's like you knew exactly what I wanted. I bought myself two new articles of clothing that say "Bite me!" (I've been secretly worried that something would happen to my shirt--so it's time to have back-ups.) I was trying to explain this strange behavior and excitement over my purchases to my son and it struck me as slightly neurotic.

It's not the first time, though, that there has been spillage across fictional lines for me. Either I put things from my life into the stories, or I get interested in things from their lives. I'm highly susceptible to their food choices as they are to mine.

(For those that have read the Honor series, Canadian donuts ARE really that good. It's something in the metric conversion, I swear. Also, both the son and I spray whipped cream straight into our mouths.)

Anyone else blur the lines with their characters?

So, Monday is official Kissing Day on the blogosphere.

It'll probably be my last official post for the year. We're hoping to leave Monday night for Utah in order to get ahead of the weather. (No, the car isn't magically better. Le sigh. We're taking our Expedition--which will involve so much money spent on gas--it's disturbing.) I'm hoping we'll be able to drive at night--so that my much beloved six year old will survive. Last night at the church party, they started singing "Twelve Days of Christmas" and several of my friends who've been listening to my ranting this week--snickered. (It's nice that your friends know you well enough to poke fun at an open wound.)

Right in the middle of all my buying self-love, my son managed to turn off my laptop's cursor. He was sent from the room grumbling about how he wanted to buy a shirt too. I spent twenty minutes cursing my lost cursor--and trying to figure out where it was by watching for items to be highlighted. (T has killed my cursor before--I don't know what magic thing he pushes.) Finally, I couldn't handle it anymore--so I called up the husband--who reminded me I have a touchscreen. (This is why I must buy myself stuff--only I understand the strange wonder that is me. Also, I have really good taste.)

Anyway, it's five a.m. and I've been awake since four--when B woke me up. I can't get back to sleep.

I should do my Christmas cards which have been pushed back in favor of other things nearly every day.

Nah.

Have a good Saturday, everyone!

Day Twenty-seven- This hairshirt I wear....

So, in addition to watching Star Trek last night at the husband's insistence, I did the revise on Scorched--the first of many revisions, of course. This was my last revise before it went to both my sisters. Typically, after they get back to me, I fix typos and print three copies on Lulu to give to my beta readers. Then, they circulate for several weeks and make their way back to me with pencil marks, folded over pages, and sticky covers. Usually, they go through about eight readers--the exception being the Honor books which have each been read by probably two dozen readers. I need to put my "Company of Him" books through the process again, so I can start printing those out to hand around.

The strange thing is--you'd think it'd get easier, and maybe it has. Still, there is always that moment when I'm sending someone a manuscript or giving someone a book where it feels like I'm giving them something so personal that I feel like it's peeking into my brain. It feels like I'm giving away my secrets one at a time.

I don't think non-writers get it.

Even as fast as I write--I've still spent hour upon hour thinking about my characters--wondering what they'd do. I still research everything to death. While I'm driving, I'm thinking "you know, it would be amazing if...." While I'm trying to sleep, I'm thinking of conversation between characters. Then, there is that first moment--when it begins--and something wanders into your mind asking "what if?" At the end, when it's over, there is that elation of it's done--they're done with their trip in my head. You know how it ends--you can return to life. You can breathe again. Each little character walks out of your head with some bit of them that is personal to you. Maybe you see a little of yourself in their self-conscious thoughts. Maybe you spent a long time agonizing over what they'd do in a situation. Maybe you secretly hated them--or loved them.

There is a deep intimacy between a writer and what they write.

Each time I hand off something, I worry that it's too obvious how I feel about something. There is that self-conscious instant like stepping out of a dressing room in an outfit that you grabbed on a whim as you walked by. (Only--it wasn't a whim--and you'd been staring at it the whole time. Still, if you act like it doesn't matter--if you pretend that you won't be hurt no matter what--you can be brave enough to step out of the curtain and hope that if they hate it--they won't realize how much it meant to you.)

You'd think it would feel a little less intimate after so many books, but it still feels like I'm standing there in a shirt that looks like Van Gogh hurled on it and bright orange jeans and thinking "this is sort of the real me" while saying "I just grabbed this on my way into the dressing room. It's crazy, right? It makes my hips look huge. The shirt is a little out there."

For the most part, I don't expect brutal honesty. Seriously, does anyone want brutal honesty even if they act like they do? Even if someone says, I want to improve this--tell me what you really think. The translation is: I've worked on this. I've invested in this. It must be good in some way. Help me find a way to make it work. No one wants to hear: "Put that in a drawer somewhere. No, better yet, douse it in gasoline and burn it."

It's harder to send it out to agents and publishers, of course. It stings a little more when they look at your Van Gogh shirt and say, "Whoa! I can't believe that even made it onto the racks. Who'd ever wear that? No one is going to buy that. I'd never wear that."

It doesn't matter, though, right? It can't matter.

It's business--just business.

I hate that. I hate that we're told to think of something we've written like that. If it was just business, your writing would be crap. If you didn't put yourself in it, then there would be no point to showing it to anyone.

I don't care if it's tacky to say this, but it's never business with me. Never. Not in my blog posts. Not in my flash fiction. Not in my manuscripts. It just isn't. It's a bit of me, standing outside the curtain--fully intending to buy the shirt and the jeans--even if I just hide them away in my closet, proud that I had the guts to step outside the curtain.

Day Twenty-- When a heinous past proves golden

Growing up with OCD is hell. I won't sugar coat it, because there is no sugary coating deep enough to take the sting off. I could tell you more but it would take too long and upset my mom--who had no idea and things like this weren't "talked about" when I was growing up.

Still, I survived. I get by. Drugs ease the pain of days and all that. Plus, and this is the real reason I'm grateful, with B having it--I know the worst of things, and I can help her so it won't affect her as much.

Also, and this can't be under-valued, living through things gives you a point of reference as a writer that you just can't research your way into.

My dad was military so I've lived a lot of different places. I've been in a lot of different schools. I've made a lot of different friends. I've had a lot of "first day at a new school" experiences.

My high school experience was bizarre--there is no other word for it. I went through the first three years in the cesspool of moral decay where gangs were prevalent and shootings were frequent, and it was a mad chaos of humanity. The last year I spent at a sheltered school where everyone, other than the guy I dated, was the same religion, and it would have been the polar extreme from where I'd come. I was never popular, but I hung with both crowds somehow. I knew a few rejects--I knew a few popular kids. I saw a lot. I was amused by both those wasting their lives and those sheltering their lives. It felt easy to get into the minds of those around me, because I noticed everything due to my OCD.

After highschool, I did a little college with a focus on English. I stayed in dorms for a while. I went to technical school. I got a job. I got into an abusive relationship. I got out. I met my husband and fell in love. We moved to the PNW--the most beautiful place on earth. I focused on my career for a few years where I met a huge scope of different people and learned what made people tick from an adult's perspective. Then, I had kids--and that opened up the world of parenting, Autism, and therapy. The husband and I went through marital difficulties due to stress. We've bought and sold houses. We've dealt with the suicide of a neighbor. People married. People divorced. People lived. People died. In the middle, I sat watching.

As writers, regardless of what you're writing, it'll only be as real as it is to you.

If you can't understand the lone girl at a new school, you can't write her story. You won't know her story. You won't know how someone will react when they've just received bad news, if you've never gotten a call in the middle of the night--or sat in a doctor's office and heard the words that would change your life. If you've never fallen in love, you can't know what it feels like for the rush of emotions--and the way your heart feels a little like it wants to explode.

If you've never been to Prom, you can't feel the magic.

If you've never been to a funeral, you can't understand the unreality despite proof.

It's true that we'll still need to take a few steps out into the dark of imagination and fill in blanks, but writing a novel shouldn't feel like grasping. You should be able to step into a different pair of shoes and know a few of the steps so you can imagine the journey and the dance.

Anyway, I was thinking about what I've lived through and how much it's impacted my writing. I know why people are the way they are. I know why I am the way I am.

There are days I'd want a redo on despite their value to a writer, so I'm grateful we don't get that chance. If I had to have it easy, I would. Having it hard, though, has been the best resource for my writing, and it's not something you can duplicate or hand to someone else other than through your characters.

One of my friends said that one of my characters is the most like me, but I find myself thinking that every last one of my characters is a little like me--even if it's just in the tiniest way. I'm them. They're me.

Okay, this is a little deep for a Friday--especially after a bunch of silly Flash fiction.

Still, has anyone else thought of how much the bad experiences as well as the good have impacted their lives? Were there specific experiences that really taught you about human nature?

I'll be gone for most of the day, so we'll call it "unplugging" because I also want to work on Scorched. I got a sudden burst of inspiration last night after a week of shuffling along, and I want to work on it before I take off for the rest of the day. Have a good weekend everyone!

Day Sixteen- Following their instincts....

So, I'm still pushing off my planned topic because I noticed something today when I was dropping my kids off.

It's dumping rain here... buckets. So, a lot of parents were dropping their kids off at school. Plus, our school is a nice school so we have a lot of parents that "open enroll" their kids from outside the boundaries so they have to bring their kids. The end result being that the parking lot is mad chaos in a circle for about twenty minutes every morning... and more so on rainy days.

I'd already dropped the kids off when it happened. As I was waiting in line to exit the parking lot, the first group of kids with a parent (on foot) went out of their way to cross in front of me. It happened again and again. I was watching around me and I would guess that people were four or five times more likely to cross in front of my car than other cars. I even had people choose to cross in front of me over the cross walk right behind me. I don't know what it was specifically. I'm overly cautious by nature (OCD in action) so I tend to leave a larger gap in front of me when it comes to driving and idling. Was it that? I also am not a rolling idle sort of person who eats up inches as soon as they become available. So, my brake lights were severely obvious, and I wasn't moving--was that it? What part of these people's instincts said that I was the right person to cross in front of? Their instincts were right--I'm cautious to the point of disturbing. I'm also the one that lost children in stores come to. I can't tell you how many times I've taken a child to find their parent or walked them to the courtesy desk. Children also come talk to me over other adults. What is it about me that says "safe"? When I was helping in T's preschool class, I had several kids--the first day--go home and mention me as a friend.

Instincts. They're weird. Sometimes they're logical. Sometimes they aren't, but they are there. I just wrote a scene that involved instincts of a crowd--which are even more baffling at times. Did you know that if you're ever being assaulted... instead of yelling for help... you should yell "FIRE?" I learned it in a self-defense class put on by a police officer. Statistically, you'll be more likely to have people rush to see the fire than to help. (Plus, I imagine it'll confuse the heck out of your attacker.)

I feel like instincts are key to writing three dimensional characters. Writing fast--as the NaNo opportunity provides, I think gives you even more of an ability to get into characters--to write THEIR dialogue and not yours. Every time I say to myself, "No, he/she wouldn't do that--she would do this," I mentally pat myself on the back for recognizing the difference between my instincts and my character's.

The other nice thing about NaNo is that you can go wildly off onto tangents that you might later cut, but it does get that word count up. Plus, who knows... maybe your tangent is right on your character's instincts.

If you don't feel like talking about this, the post below is empty... so you can say anything you feel like.

I'm having a bit of a Thanksgiving type of day today. I'm so freakishly thankful for antibiotics. I'm also thankful the husband replaced the tire on my car. I'm thankful for meeting Diana. I'm thankful that my parents are home from France after a year and a half and we'll get to see them this week. I'm thankful for a wood pile that is keeping my house warm. I'm thankful my kids are in school for several hours so I can find some peace and quiet. (T has been out of control. I think the strange feeling from his head wound is setting off his sensory system. He has this same problem every time he gets his hair cut.) I'm thankful for so many online and real life friends. I'm thankful that I'm meeting a friend this week for pie and a place that makes amazing pies. I'm very thankful for what sleep I got last night after so many nights of coughing and feeling like my lungs were drowning. I'm thankful for a friend that turned me onto to Castle. I love that show. I'm thankful for a laptop that makes my life so easy. I'm thankful for my husband who made the best roast in the world yesterday on a day that needed it. I'm very thankful today. I'm very thankful for the Frosting I'm about to go eat.

Have a good Monday everyone.

Day Nine-- Characters so flawed that you just want to hug them and love them and call them George

So, my sister Heidi discovered the mother of all Easter Eggs in my writing--nearly all my main characters have some sort of sleeping issue... whether it's insomnia or talking in their sleep or something. That's a recurrent "flaw" in my characters, but it's not the only one. I really like my characters to have flaws. Most of them are insecure. Several of them have had horribly bad relationships in the past. I've written characters with OCD, agoraphobia, PTSD, migraines, blindness, schizophrenia, and paranoia. No one is perfect, and I like that... I like it a lot. It makes me really get into my characters to know that they're not perfect.

My current characters:

Sidra's father left their family for a woman and she's dealing with the grief of having cared about him once and being a daddy's girl while she despises the man he has become. She is a pyromaniac who feels like a reject at school where a bully has targeted her due to her father's poor choices. She's lonely and afraid to trust anyone. Sidra is easily distracted and spends a lot of her time daydreaming about fire--and then about Asher. Her autoshop teacher has modified his lesson plans to include lots of words that are related to fire just to keep her attention. Her high school vice-principal has the hots for her mom and is nearly encouraging her to misbehave just so he can meet her mom. They, Sidra and the VP, have an ongoing feud with minor pranks as a side plot. Plus, Sidra is hiding a massive secret in regards to her recent paintings of fires.

Asher is hiding an even bigger secret, and he's never even thought of having a normal life. He's been on autopilot since he was six and his mother died at the hands of pyrodemons and his father became insane for vengeance. He's been in training to become a pyrohunter ever since. It's made him feel like his father cared more about vengeance than him. His father has died so he has no way of making peace with that. He really likes Sidra, but he's desperately trying to go slow because the only decent bit of advice his father gave him is that when you meet someone you really want, you'll treat them differently. It's embarrassing for him that his shadowhound feeds off his excitement and keeps going crazy with nervous energy and excitement around Sidra.

So, those are my characters. I love their flaws and exploit them whenever possible.

Speaking of flaws, I'm deep in the land of disgusting sickness. My ears are killing me today, but I think it's just relayed pain from my throat. I've stuffed cotton in them, and it's so much better. Actually, I've got some major auditory sensory issues so it's nice to have noise blocked. It's sad but keeping the cotton in even after I'm better sounds good. If I could wake up without an alarm of some kind (or several alarms) I'd probably go back to wearing ear plugs at night. I'm weird, though... and grossly germy. I love the season of sickness.

On the bright side, I had an entire king-sized bed to myself and I slept wonderfully.

The downside--I had the bed to myself because I'm the queen of germs and gross snoring. C'est la vie. (Such is life--for those that haven't had random French thrown at them their whole lives. My parents both speak French so they've tried to teach us entirely in idioms and phrases. I can also mumble the words to Frere Jacques--though it sounds like nonsense in both English and French, and I might even be insulting someone's mother.)

Have a good Monday everyone!

Day Eight-- Where your plot suddenly

So, I suspected this yesterday, but yeah... my throat is toast, I feel achy. I've been nailed with something new and exciting. It's probably just T's cold. Still, T is just raining buckets of snot. He thinks it's hilarious and finds particularly ghastly sneezes to be amusing. So, really--with a little boy literally spraying snot, it's not such a huge jump that I'm sick. So, I'll be applying cold medicine liberally to my day.

As for writing, I know a ton of you write with an outline, but I sooooo don't. I start writing and when I get to the end, I stop. So, my current story is going along well, but I don't know how it ends. I'm closing in on the end of the book and I have no idea if there is a monster there or not. This isn't so massively unusual for me to not know twenty steps ahead, but it's a little disconcerting when I'm not dealing with a mystery this time. I have a problem instead of a mystery--I have all these pyrodemons running around that my MCs need to take down, but that will require a big throwdown and I have no idea on the hows or whens of that. I'm not entirely sure how far away that is either.

I'm not sure how to deal with a plot that suddenly stops. I guess I'll just keep writing and hope that chapter by chapter I'll get there.

In the meantime, I have two hormone driven teens that I've got to keep apart. Do any other YA authors have situational cold showers that they use to avoid massive makeout sessions on the couch?

A Rose by any other name would be called Tara

Above is one of my "goofing around with my new touch screen" pictures done with Paint. (I had Photoshop on my normal computer, but that computer fried. C'est la vie. It's minimalistic to have to work with a program meant for so little use. Yeah. That's it.)

So, I'm trying to pick a new name for my Dystopian's MC. Her name is currently Tara, and I don't know why I picked it because it just didn't fit her.

I've been going through IMDb looking for better names for her and for my NanoWrimo entry. I'd read somewhere recently about someone doing this, but I can't remember where. I've always previously gone through baby books... which isn't a big help for surnames... for the record. It's really fun to look up some of the bigger Hollywood movies and get down to the make-up artists and mix and match first and last names.

That's basically what I've done with my day. (I know--it's pathetic, but I'm sick, so I'm pretending it's not.)

Okay... back to my monologue on names:

Speaking of names, my son, T, has decided, at six, that he would like to go by the nickname "T.J." from now on. We haven't quite established if we're to implement this immediately or if he'll be doing this on a case-by-case basis. T was initially going to be called T.J. until he was born and we decided not to initialize because he didn't look like a T.J. He likes the way it looks-- two letters--side by side. I don't know what the expectation is, but it feels a little strange to suddenly start calling our son a different name. One of my brothers was known as "Dave" at work whereas we'd never called him that a day in his life. It was strange to hear that he was a "Dave." He didn't look like a "Dave" in my opinion. (I find it strange that we have these preconcieved notions of what "So-and-so" looks like based on names. I found out that Diana doesn't look like Wonder Woman today. I know... weird, huh?)

I don't have a nickname or a pet name even. Not really. I keep trying to get the husband to call me "bug" or really anything sweet, but he isn't like that. My mom calls me Wen-weet, and I really keep trying to get her to stop. (Wendy makes retching noises.) The kids call me "Mom" and "Mommy" and that's as close as it gets. Sigh. I call the kids all kinds of nicknames as does the husband--they're more pet names, though, not anything you'd put on a form as a "I go by this sometimes" sort of thing. (Wendy snickers to self and considers putting "Sweetie" in the next 'fill in the blank" that comes.)

I want to have a nickname. I wish it was as easy when an adult to get a nickname. Nicknames make you feel special like you mean something to someone more than you do to other people. I think other women get that, but I don't really think guys do. I shorten the husband's name (for that reason) and he gets annoyed, but doesn't say anything. He only lets me do that... which makes me feel special. I won't say all nicknames are like that or are something that one would choose, but some nicknames are like that. It's not like Wendy is easy to shorten into anything and rats on that, but still... I want a nickname.

Wow. This is so completely random.

So, as I was picking my names for my characters I was also thinking along the lines of "but they'll go by this" and picking nicknames for them. I like the process of naming characters. I also like the find and replace function for when I name people the wrong thing and I realize that half-way through.

Okay, I need to buckle down and pick a new name for Tara.... Poor thing. It's a good thing this doesn't happen in real life to people. ("Sorry... your father and I hate the name we chose for you fifteen years ago, so now we'll be calling you Penelope. Cheers.")

Okay, then... Wendy needs more sleep and to stop talking about herself in the third person.