Character 911/Character r

Chatterbox: Inkwell

Character 911/Character r

Character 911/Character rentals!

Got a character who won't do what you want? Think you have a Mary Sue, but can't bring yourself to kill it dead? Need help with writing an accent? Want general critique? Come here, maybe someone'll have some advice.

Alternatively... Want to rent a character to use in your story? Want a chance to play around with someone else's creation? Want to see how someone else uses your character? Drop your creations here, and borrow someone else's for a while. Swap babysitting tales.

I'll start, shall I?

Thursday Silvertongue II is a small, pale, grey-eyed black-haired member of a race which, at present, has no name. Her left arm is heavily tattooed in black ink; her shoulder sports a solid black maple leaf and spiderwebs and intricate patterns spiral down her arm from its stem, ending at her ring and fourth finger, which are also solid black. 

This race is extremely long-lived (Thursday is considered young, and she's nearly 200 years old). They are somewhat elflike and tend towards small stature, and their home is a world known as Excelsior, where they live on the northern continent, M'ntred (I went into Tolkein-esque detail with this world/idea, it's been simmering for a long time, bear with me for a while). 

This race is a very magical race, and everyone has a practical, everyday magic within them; above that are seven "ranks" of magic, and these seven ranks determine one's status. The class order is very dynamic due to this, as amounts of magical ability are not hereditary.

I won't go into detail about the ranks; suffice to say that the lowest is peasant-level and is basically a simple "task-magic", which can be used for simple everyday tasks, and the highest is royalty-level and involves elemental distortion.

There are also "melders". Thursday is one of these. Melding, essentially, is the ability to fuse, or "meld" with a solid, liquid, and a handful of visible gases. Once melded one can manipulate the shape and behaviour of the material, for example making stone mobile by quickening the movement of the atoms. Basically, melders can walk through solid objects or water, change the landscape as they see fit, even "possess" other people through physical, rather than mental, means.

Of course there are limitations; melders risk spreading themselves so thinly through a material ("mediums" they're called) that they break the link between their physical selves and their minds and souls; when this happens they become golems of whatever they happened to be melded with, and end up beasts of burden or wild animals, depending on whether they are caught and herded to captivity or not. Also, while melded they are highly vulnerable to attack; fr'instance you could kill a melder by waiting for them to meld with a tree, and then killing the tree by setting fire to it, because, by melding to a living thing, the melder literally becomes that thing, if only for an instant, and if it dies suddenly, the melder doesn't have the time to get away. Nonliving things do not carry that risk, simply because the melder's psyche has nothing to "stick" to as it would with a living thing. Does that make sense? 

This level of power has a dreadful tendency to corrupt, naturally, so the majority of melders are evildoers.

Thursday II also has a rare genetic disorder of her species, a disease known as Garnet Syndrome. It's a kind of blood disorder which causes groups of blood cells to spontaneously crystalize into hard, colourful lumps called "garnets" due to their texture and similarity to both garnet stones and pomegranate seeds (which gave garnet stones their name). They are very painful and can temporarily cripple the victims if they become lodged in or near the joints; garnets usually last about a week ((not one of our weeks - the Excelsioran year is 5 42-day months, each month comprised of 3 14-day weeks; and each day is approximately 6 hours of daylight followed by 3 hours of dusk and 3 of night, for a total of 12 hours.)). If they last longer they are usually surgically removed.

Occasionally garnets burst through the skin and solidify; in which case they are usually left alone, as removal would be potentially very damaging.

The disorder also causes severe muscle atrophy, mostly in the legs, if not caught and treated at an early age; Thursday's wasn't caught until she was well into her 30's (the equivalent of about 10 years old) and she's forced to wear leg braces ever since, because the damage was, by that time, irreversible.

She's kind of an outcast because of the volatile, corrupting nature of her power; but the rulers of her race rely heavily on her strategic help in times of war. She's slightly... off... in her thought patterns, and in our world she'd be considered insane, but her different views have saved the army more than once.

She's a mite bitter and cynical due to her treatment, and her condition (the near-cripple condition, that is, not the melder one).

Anyway, I'm offering her up for rental because I am TOO BUSY with my vampire story and Broken Dreams to write a story with her in it/about her. Any takers? 

submitted by TNÖ, age 15, Deep Space
(May 7, 2009 - 11:45 pm)

This happens every now and then with me.... You make your character a person, someone you know pretty well. Every now and then, like real people, they do unexpected things... This is hard to explain. It happens with my story lines too. I'm writing along, and all of a sudden the building catches on fire. Or in the climax my main character gets shot when I really didn't plan for her to. Arrgghh!!! I can't do this!!! It's just what happens,  and sometimes you just can't control it. When your character is a person, they just go off on their own track sometimes. Or you've established their personality already and reallize that they really couldn't realistically do what you've planned for them to do. Does that make even the slightest smidgeon of sense?

 

-One seriously confused and frustrated person

submitted by Emily H. :), age 13, Sparks, NV
(May 19, 2009 - 9:51 pm)

Yes, I know what you mean, Emily. Characters can be so rebellious ; D It is very irritating, but you're not alone on that one.

submitted by Megan M., age 13, Ohio
(May 20, 2009 - 5:53 pm)

Read the Inkheart series. (I've read them, and that sound kinda funny, because they talk a lot about there being a world behind every book, and the authors don't really make them up.)

Anyway, I also have a character for rent. I haven't got any actual ideas on what her story is about, but she's kind of interesting. Can you tell me if you use her? I'd like to know. Or if you want to help me think of ideas for her story...

Name: Beck, but this is changeable

Age: Five, but that is only the age she find out who she is- see below.

Time Period: middle ages, or else it's a third-world country (where they have deer)

Appearance: Small girl, with brownish skin, mousy-brown hair, and Large Dark eyes.

Background: She comes from a version of the common folk-tale: a hunter has mercy on a deer, and the next day a beautiful lady with suspiciously deer-like features comes to his doorstep. etc. Only in this version, they actually live happily together, and the hunter becomes a woodcutter. Beck is their child and can turn into a fawn, which she doesn't find out until age 5.

Enjoy!

submitted by Emily L., age 13, WA
(June 10, 2009 - 10:19 pm)

I tend to have a bad Mary Sue problem. I need to learn to not make my characters so perfect. But also, some characters might have flaws, but just regular everyday flaws. Like a friend problem, problems at home, or school problems. Of course, others if we are dealing with fantasy. I'm not saying that these are unimportant prroblems, but they are pretty standard and used often. Would they not also be considered Mary Sueish?

submitted by JFB, age 13, Here And There
(May 19, 2009 - 7:53 pm)

Thanks Mary W!!!!!!!! i dont know where to go whith the idea though.

submitted by Adina, age 12, Mostly in fanta
(May 19, 2009 - 11:05 pm)

@ JFB: I'd have to say that yes, trouble with friends, familial difficulties, and school worries are- in my opinion, anyway- Mary Sue/cliched problems. Because almost everyone has those problems- you want your characters to be interesting and different. Give them a more uncommon problem, but keep it relateable- Mysterious Benedict Society, for instance, got messed up because no one could relate to the characters' problems. They were all genii with resourceful, idea-filled brains and the like. That's not particularly gripping.

@ Adina: Hmmm. *thinks awhile* Well, if you haven't already done this, you could set up a happy ending (which I usually end up doing :/) by having the strain of another person taking over the world and harming it positively affect the main character, and this could be vital to his reformation- "I must save the world instead of conquering it" type of thing.

On the other hand, you could have the competition for world domination negatively affect the main character. If you like writing psychos, he could be driven insane and become obsessed with defeating his enemy and taking over the world- the whole "I am the only one worthy to have complete control over the Earth" type of thing.

Or you could completely think of something else. Whichever you prefer. :)

submitted by Mary W., age 11.35, NJ
(May 20, 2009 - 6:36 pm)

Yay I figured out the umalaut!!( actually I just copied and pasted : TNö!!!!!!!!

Yay!!!!!!!

submitted by Adina, age 12, Mostly in fanta
(May 21, 2009 - 12:52 pm)

Thanks Mary W. I waas kind of thinking of the main charector have OCD and get upset when things are not perfect. He figures that the only way to fix that is to either a) become god or

b) take over the world ( yeah hes not real smart) 

Im not sure if the person who took over the world was somebody he already knew ( like his brother) or just some complete stranger. Then the main charector begins fighting him and he starts trends that everybody follows so in a way he IS ruling the world. In the end he writes a novel where he could control EVERYTHING! 

submitted by Adina, age 12, Mostly in fanta
(May 21, 2009 - 1:06 pm)

Oh yeah, The main charecter decides the world is too big of a thing to take over and it would take too much work, but through most of the story he is seen as a good guy even though he has a selfish goal

submitted by Adina, age 12, Mostly in fanta
(May 21, 2009 - 1:11 pm)

Writing a novel to control everything... hmm, not bad.

submitted by Mary W., age 11.35, NJ
(May 21, 2009 - 4:43 pm)

I am attempting to wright a novel, or even just a short story if I can manage it.(:

There is this girl who lives in America, (I havent figured out exactally where yet) and she writes this journal about her life at her friends urging. She is about 13, but can't remember the first about 10 years of her life even though there are pictures of her since she was born. Then her mom dies and when she wakes up the next morning she is in a different place where she figures out she was dreaming (a surprisingly realastic dream) about being on Earth (which dosen't even exist where she really came from). 

I just got started and this is what it has come to so far.

submitted by nitehawlk, age 13, on a cloud
(May 23, 2009 - 11:49 am)

Wait. So you don't live in America?

submitted by Adina, age 12, Mostly in fanta
(May 23, 2009 - 9:02 pm)

If you are talking to me, ya I live in America.

submitted by Nitehawlk, age 13, America
(May 24, 2009 - 8:54 pm)

I live in my own little world. It's okay. They know me here.

 

I have a pin that says that on my purse/suitcase/bookbag thing. Am I the only one who carries books in their purse?

 

Actually, my world isn't that little. It's parallel to ours and there is magic there. I'm writing a book about this other world. Someday, humans will discover it and see how wonderful and un-boring it is. Real life can be so boring sometimes (compared to books, you know.) Rawr. I dislike being human. *wrinkles nose*

submitted by Commander Kip, age 16 aurons, Zraeland, Irlic
(June 2, 2009 - 10:39 pm)

That's funny, commander Kip, Me too!!!! I can't eat an animal but I would probobly eat a human. Being a humen is annoying

submitted by Adina, Mostly in fanta
(June 27, 2009 - 6:42 pm)