So I finally understand what folks say about knowing what the character wants. I've got plenty of characters that never really bother to share that with me and it doesn't bother me writing their stories that they didn't. But when you've got some flash fic that doesn't really want to get fleshed out, there comes a point when you need to know what's going to make it flesh out anyway. Salvation came from my biggest troublemaker of all: Hayley Lamar.
She knows what she wants.
This is a girl that's a troublemaker, has lousy citizenship and academic grades, and has some serious social interaction issues. She doesn't care what a single person thinks about her and she skated into Kailin on a scholarship because she had aptitude. Much desired aptitude. She knows what she wants and she knows how to get it, and that's just a little bit scary.
Hayley surprised me quite a bit from the time I've started writing her because, frankly, she's adapted. She started out as a fanfic character in a fandom world, but when I plugged the stories into the Alliance universe instead, I hit a bit of a shock as the characters started changing on me. Now, I've had a character warp on me and become a flavor that could only exist within the premise they appear in, but I've never had a character simply change into someone else altogether. Hayley's doing that and it's awesome to behold.
As I see her starting to take over a story (starting by taking over Jack's favorite haven and turning it into her own personal platform into the most exclusive program in the school), I felt a light little tapping on my shoulder and turned around to find a former bubbly, over-the-top personality now christened Jena Kee wanting to politely inform me that I had her wrong. She's precise, very precise; ridiculously polite with her elders and superiors, but doesn't take an ounce of guff from anyone else. She's an explosive weapons expert and notices everything. Got it?
I kind of stare at my characters and wonder to myself: how in the world did I create such pushy people?
"I'm not at all pushy," Jena protests politely. "I just want my story."
Yeah. That.
