Tonight, I am a completely different person. Tonight, I am Rachelle Cohen, enjoying the last few moments of serenity before the world crashes down. She doesn't know what's going to happen next, so she is blissfully ignorant. She smiles so much, it makes my cheeks hurt. She is so naive; a quality which seems to grow rarer every day. She thinks the best of everyone she meets. She is the social butterfly that I've been having such a hard time being lately. She just wants to sit back, listen to Nataly Dawn and talk.
I've been neglecting doing any solid writing lately. Instead, I pick fights on forums and sling out unedited posts on this blog. I've just been regurgitating every brief thought that comes to me. I spent a lot of yesterday trying to do something creative. I thought it would be a good time to start fleshing out my characters for the novel that I talk about incessantly but never write down. I must be a total pain in the ass to listen to about it, I'm sorry!
Yesterday didn't go so well. It felt awkward and uncomfortable to try to speak for my characters. How would they react? What would they say? All of my characters have a little bit of me in them, but I think all fictional characters do. But I'm not Rachelle. Some of the questions I'm using, for example:
1.
What is the thing that has frightened you most? Do you think there is
anything out there that's scarier than that? What do you think that
would be?
2. Has anyone or anything you've ever cared about died? How did you feel about it? What happened?
3. What was the worst injury you've ever received? How did it happen?
4. How ticklish are you? Where are you ticklish?
5. What is your current long term goal?
6. What is your current short term goal?
7. Do you have any bad habits? If so, what are they, and do you plan to get rid of them?
8.
If you were a mundane person, what would you do with your life? What
occupation would you want, and how would you spend all your time?
9.
What time period do you wish you had lived in? Why? (Looking at this as
an attempt to change history doesn't count.) What appeals to you about
this era?
10. How private of a person are you? Why?
I don't think I could answer most of these questions about my best friend and be even remotely accurate. It feels weird to just pull it all out of thin air, to know a person like I know myself. Earlier this week, I turned my nose up in disgust at my father and brother watching UFC, and then immediately return to read 'Conan of the Red Brotherhood'. Within two paragraphs of picking it up, the barbarian hero cleaves a pirate in two. No big deal, Conan. What's the difference? Aren't I just trading one violence for another? I'm still finding entertainment in bloodshed.
When you dive into a book, the story comes alive and the characters feel real. When I read about the Vixen docking at Thieves' Port, I can almost smell the salty air. Any bibliophile could explain to you what I mean. You become immersed. I can only hope that the characters I write about will come alive to my readers. A believable character is so important to a novel. It is the main reason I read 'Paper Towns'. So here I am, filing out the second half of Rachelle's character development questionnaire. Even if I am making it up on the fly, I know a little bit more about my hapless heroine. I hope it transfers over well, otherwise this seems like a huge waste of time.
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