rai_ryu

Going through a giiiiant period of character obsession right now.
Once again, characters from one of my oldest stories (Coming into fruition when I was around the age of 10/in the 5th grade).
Anyway, it has grown a lot since then, and so has the universe around it.
This recent bout has been brought on by the band Fun. I am utterly useless and want to do nothing but lay around and listen to their music.

I guess what I'm really thinking is, if their music can make me feel so much about my own characters, then I want to be able to write these characters (when the story reaches its final incarnation), in a way that will inspire whoever reads it to feel about them just as deeply as I do. It's actually painful to me to think of some things about them, and I know I've felt that way about other creator's characters too, so I hope one day I'll be able to write just as well and as effectively.

I was accepted into another anthology, though editing is going slowly. This is partially due to my character melancholy, but also because this new editor is a little bit harsh. It's made the worse by the fact that this is a very personal story. I'm trying to be mature about the suggested edits and look at things objectively (it helps that I can rant to other people about how unfair said edits are, rather than sending in ill-planned letters to the editor :P)

Sometimes I wonder if when I get all these thoughts and stories and characters out of my head and sufficiently down on paper, if they'll stop doing things like this to me. But I don't really think that will happen.

Also I have developed an obsession with Nate Ruess's face.

Anyway, I started writing more of FMM today (need to revise title), which pleases me because I haven't worked on it in a while but I seem to be on a roll. Ish. Sometimes when I write it feels strange and almost as if its not written "in my style", which is weird because I'm the one writing it. Anyway, I suppose once the whole thing is done, I'll have to go back and read it to see. And I'll have others review it and say if they think its consistant.

I was thinking about what I want to do with the characters in the rewrite. The first copy focused more on just getting the story out and was pretty bare-minimum with everything. Now, the characters and story are a lot more fleshed out in my head. Well, sort of. I've begun to think about them more and I realized the story will have more plot points.

Something I want to show through subtext is how Jeice and his companions are really just young guys. Back in that time people did fall into grown up roles a lot earlier (Jeice was married at 16/17 and in the story is the commander of the rebel forces at 18. Zack is a year younger than he is and serves as a soldier for them). I won't go as far as to say "they're just kids" because they really aren't, but I want to show more of the fact that they still haven't fully matured, even though in most ways they're very mature for their ages. I kind of got the idea whilst watching Fullmetal Alchemist. Because, although Ed is mature for his age and has been through a lot and dealt with it like an adult, you can still see his 15 year old self coming through. For instance, covering everything with skulls because he "thinks its cool", and he chose his red coat because "its such a manly colour". This kind of came through in the first version of the story, as when the three joked around it was much in the way that highschool boys do. So I'm keeping that in mind now when I write scenes with them together.
On a side note, I'm trying not to make Jeice seem like a sexist douchbag. While by today's standards he would be considered sexist, its more in a kind hearted way. And I'm sure he would still hate Minh even if she were male. Its just that back then it was not uncommon to believe a woman wouldn't do well in fighting a war (and lets face it, Minh pretty much proved that stereotype). Jeice also wouldn't want to risk a woman getting hurt, especially not Leah. Its less of a concious effort on his part to see women as not having a place in "a man's world" and more of a case of "that's just the way it is".

Another thing I decided is that I want to send Enre into darker places. While in the first one, sure she kills a bunch of people, only really realizing the gravity of it when the war is over, but that's all done in the context of war, so it wasn't really played out to be bad at the time she was doing it. That's the way I felt, at least. When you get to the end and she starts feeling guilty, it kinda goes through your mind that "Well duh you were a soldier, so of course that would happen". I think I will write more specific instances of her killing people, and not have all those instances take place on the battlefield. Its easy to say she swung her sword around and people died, but its harder if its a concious decision to kill someone. If I can pull it off, I also want to have it look as though from her point of view, she's still a war hero (at the time she's doing the actions), while the reader is horrified of her point of view. Afterwards, when those around her end up sharing that point of view, she will realize she was wrong after all.

I want to write the later scenes really badly, which always happens to me when writing :P I tend to gloss over the stuff in between the really dramatic scenes I have an itch to write. Which may be the reason for the style inconsistancies. But I'll have to keep trucking through because every part of it is important.

Anyway, that was long, and I applaud you if you ended up reading the whole thing