Jen's Word Stew
A Melange of Words and Recipes

Heroes - Fact and Fiction

2006-09-05
I created one of the main characters of my YA book based on someone out of my past.

My character is brave, an individual, and straight as an arrow. He doesn't follow the crowd and he doesn't care. He's a nerd and proud of it. He's himself. He's very bright, a little too serious at times, but very imaginative.

My friend had a lot of those qualities. He was less sure of himself. He wasn't straight as an arrow. While he didn't have a "drug problem," he did have problems with drugs. From time to time. But it was the 70s and everyone we knew grew out of those problems.

From what I knew of this friend he grew up from a kind of scattered, hippy type, to a very focused athlete and professional who "made good" despite unbelievably difficult circumstances.

We parted long ago, but I always wished him well. Always thought of him as one of my heroes, in a way. And so it made sense to capture him in time in aspects of my story's character.

And I really like this character. This character has flaws, but all good characters do. This character is too impatient, too self-righteous at times, and he can hold a grudge - to his own great detriment.

My old friend, however, has greater flaws.

I found out, recently, that this friend got in serious trouble. After all his hard work. After all the true adversity that he had faced "on the way up."

It's not clear what happened, but I expect drugs came into play.

I guess maybe he needed to live his life in NarcAnon meetings, and he chose not to. I guess he wasn't as strong as I thought he was.

So now this friend's perfect life is gone and the goals he worked so hard to achieve have eluded him.

And now, in my fictional world, I'm rebuilding, reworking my character as I work through the revisions. And in the past, I always thought to myself, "what would X do in this situation?" I wanted my character to be true to life, true to the model that breathed spark and quirks into my character.

But I don't want to do that anymore, because I keep trying to puzzle how that strong, cool kid went so terribly, terribly wrong as an older adult.

And I want my character to grow up to be a strong, cool adult. And he can. And that's why I love writing fiction.

What's Cooking

Well, not sure about dinner - probably chicken enchiladas. But I do know about baking today - I'm making a carrot/applesauce cake. It seems just right for the fall weather we're having and for the first day of school.

6:27 a.m. :: 0 comments so far ::
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