Let's do it. Ask me anything about the (Other) World

@Akje Got a question for you! From all your books you’ve ever written and finished, what were some of the hardest characters to write, and why?

2 Likes

Well let’s just say that our egos would clash in a glorious lightshow.

2 Likes

Probably the characters I’m writing now, because when the book starts they’re children, and it’s HARD writing believable kids! I don’t know any in real life, so I’m trying to remember what I was like when I was about ten. And then I have to picture myself as a ten-year-old boy. An upperclass, aristocratic ten-year-old boy. In another country and time period. With an alcoholic father and a mother he’s only seen as a ghost. Both my parents are alive and neither one is a ghost or alcoholic, so it’s very hard! ¯\_(ﭢ)_/¯

So what were/are the hardest characters for you to write?

2 Likes

I once wrote a story where one of the POVs is a little upperclass boy of eight who becomes orphaned and goes to live with his artist aunt who turns out to be mentally ill.

Kids can be rather insightful (they can see your mood and read you), but also see the world quite simply (complex things go over their heads). Any nuances they might not catch. And some information might go in one ear and out the other if they find something else to be interested in.

Kids also tend to notice little things like a pretty rock on the side of the road, or clouds looking like animals. They’d also likely not stay on the same topic for too long.

I just observe people a lot :stuck_out_tongue:

Writing from the POV of little kids reminds me of the beginning of The Little Prince where the author, as a boy, draws what looks like a hat. All the adults says it is a hat. But the boy says it’s a snake that has swallowed an elephant.

Maybe that gives you a bit of an idea? :grin:


Characters like Fernando or Richard who are master manipulators. They’re always wearing a mask and might even be lying to themselves. Even as the omniscient writer, I won’t know their deepest depths because they hide it so well.

But I also have to have a vague sense of their hidden selves to be able to write them in a way that, during certain situations, I can show how they might be hiding something more.

Richard is a little easier because I did extensive research on how a psychopath thinks.

Fernando is different. He’s also way smarter than I am, meaning that, when writing The Facade of Quad in Nimrod, I had to figure out what his master plan is while editing. Since it spans a decade, I got headaches :stuck_out_tongue:

2 Likes

Hmm

We can also talk about the demons in this world?

1 Like

Are they spiritual demons or species demons?

1 Like

Both, I guess.

1 Like