Characters evolving out of my control

[Queshire]

ARGH!!! As I'm typing my characters are ending up in ways I've never imagined!!!! There's drama! DRAMA! I NEVER INTENDED DRAMA!!! I know this is a good thing, but it's annoying....

Anyways, my current WIP as the characters evolve seems to be about a boy and a girl. They live in a society based off magic. Twice a year they have an Assessment where everybody can get rated on their magical knowledge, power, and / or technique. If you score high enough you're whisked away for a life of luxury learning magic and supporting the state.

The boy and girl are childhood friends, they grew up in a small country town. Five years ago the girl scored amazingingly high on her assessment. She was the town's success story, whisked away from obscurity to learn at Scholomance, the greatest magic school in the country. When she finally returns to help with the latest assessment after five years she's like a completlely different person. While she was once a happy-go-lucky tomboy, she's now become something like a manipulative princess and she's become a Warlock, the most volitile and dangerous type of magic involving summoning demons. She's become a broken bird. I think I might be a bit heavy handed with the damage but oh well, that's what revisions are for. I think the reason for her breaking is that before scholomance she was a big fish in a small pond, in scholomance the competition is a whole lot worse and she's had to change just to survive.

The boy wants to help his childhood friend, but he has problems of his own. In a magic based society, magic hates him. He can't use magic, magic doesn't work right on him, and spells degrade and act wonky around him. All his life he's thought he's been cursed, well, more then cursed since curses are a result of magic. Because of this, he's become a social pariah, and called a Luddite. (btw in my story a Luddite is someone that chooses to not use magic, instead living "like an animal," and is about the worse insult you can give, based off the idea of Luddites in real life but with magic instead of tech) He's a bit sensitive about the whole thing. However it turns out that magic doesn't hate him, he just has a negative magical presence. See, most people have a bright core of magical power inside them. He doesn't and has to actually absorb magic from his surroundings which causes magic to act wonky around him. When this is discovered he gets invited to scholomance as well to learn about his powers.

So, anyways, what do you guys think about this? Anything that doesn't make sense? Any obvious plot holes? Is it too cheesy? I'm not planing exactly on a romance between the two, but I won't be surpised if that's how it develops.

 

[Holdwyne]

I am guessing here but it sounds like you do not write a book synopsis??

A couple schools of thought...
1 - stop worrying and keep writing your draft......1st drafts are never good but momentum IS a good thing always.

2 - Stop everything and write a synopsis so you have a clear line to follow as you write. This can help keep confusion down. Confusion to You and The Reader.

And yet another writer during a seminar i saw would probably respond like this.
Great, You have defined a problem, now all you need is to develop the solution and that should be good for at least a few chapters..

 

[Jon_Chong]

I'm going to go with Holdwyne on this one. Write it out. Let it take its course. You might be surprised at the end result - in a good way, mind. If you feel you must have some control, stop writing and instead work on a plot outline. Once you've done either, evaluate. Was this better or worse than what you had in mind? If it was one or the either, try and identify where it went wrong/right and why did it go wrong/right. And then work from there.

 

[JCFarnham]

It may be me but I see nothing out of control about this. Let me expand on that thought.

If you as a writer have created a cast of characters who seem to take control of situations you thrust upon them then you have done your job perfectly. I'd say that means they're well fleshed out with clear and precise ways of reacting to problems. Not a bad thing.

And there's nothing wrong with hints of romance either. You may not wish to focus on such things, but with love and lust being natural parts of human nature you'd almost be at fault to not address it where it becomes obvious. For example, the act of falling for someone you "idolised" who has since fallen from grace is a well documented phenomenon. It's as though we believe we can redeem them, or NEED to help them. In those cases feelings of sympathy and a certain amount of pity often get confused for love or lust. Could you work with that? Lets add to that the childhood friends angle. Personally, I've never had a real relationship with a childhood friend that worked out. Maybe they're just better as friends, but do they know that?

To ignore this and try to squash it would be a bad choice. With how you have your characters set up at present, the logical option is to deal with the romance aspect, whether quickly or not. I'd kind of expect it from them to be honest.

Oh and it would add a nice layer of humanity to the story I think.

If on the other hand you really really really don't what to get into that barrel of monkeys, the only thing left to do is to set your characters up in such as way that a relationship is completely illogical. Either that or you make it so they have absolutely no plot time to deal with such feelings, and leave it as a juicy hint for all those rabid future shippers you coud have haha

Is there another problem you have with these two that I may have missed? I've been watching as your idea have evolved and I'm really intrigued and willing to help here. Seems good!

 

[Holdwyne]

It may be me but I see nothing out of control about this. !

Well, I am not an expert by any means but Still, I think it could be a serious problem if the character is intended as a Heroine.

The Problem of changing (lets call it alignment for lack of a better word) From a Good aligned person to a Chaotic or Evil aligned person would change the entire Feel of the book, potentially making it very dark..Heroine becoming Dark-lord bent on enslaving the masses is a problem if she was intended to be a Hero!

Heroine losing Faith and recovering is a subplot - A defined problem that needs to be resolved and can be exciting and a good way to introduce another prime character or have 2 primes meet and interact...Just my opinion of course

If the character were incidental however, I would agree. In this case it could simply be a side note that may have implications to the story later as she develops into the Protagonist (Antichrist)..

Again, just my opinion but there it is.........Somehow I got the feeling this character was slated to be a Heroine, perhaps as part of a duo with the wildcard magic user ( the romance angle).

No other characters were mentioned so..........

 

[JCFarnham]

I don't believe the female character in question was ever slated to be a villian, in either case as intended, or as originally envisioned. You right it would be out of control to start writing a "heroine" and having her come across as the "dark lord" without meaning to, but I'm sure Queshire is smarter than that

If we're going by architypes she at best seems to me to be an antihero, but even that might be a stretch. She doesn't seem the kind of character who'd be a real source of conflict, more like a post-feminist damsel in distress from the protagonists point of view haha

Protagonist (Antichrist)

Wouldn't you mean antagonist here? I'm not sure I'm following your line of thought. How is an antichrist character in any sense a protagonist?



Anyway that's enough of that. I'm all for characters showing you the way. Like I said earlier, if you're doing your charactisation right in the first place then there should only be an obvious way a character could react to a situation. I don't see it as "out of control" but a good thing in that sense. See where it leads. Could be fun.

 

[Penpilot]

Nothing sticks out as a big red flag. From the two descriptions, I thought I got a good feel for what the starting points for the two characters are and I could see the possible roads that could be taken, one very valid one being romance.

Since this is a first draft, I'd say don't worry about it too much. No matter how well you think you know a character even if you've planned them out in detail, in first drafts, you learn you don't know them as well as you think. Every bit of new detail you add while writing, that wasn't in your original character design, and each new interaction with other characters, adds a new variable that may cause them to do things you didn't plan for, which can be good. It means the character is a little more complex and capable of doing things that aren't obvious, but are consistent with their character.

For a not so good example. A character who loves eating vanilla ice cream is predictable when they're presented with a bowl of vanilla. Sometimes that's good and sometimes that's bad depending on how you want a story to unfold. But a character who loves eating vanilla ice cream and is presented with a bowl of vanilla, BUT is also lactose intolerant is a little less predictable. There are two very valid choices in this instance and both are within character.

Hopefully it makes some sense and is at lease some help.

 

[The Dark One]

I quite like the characters and what I perceive is a quasi-sexual means of helping each other become better (more centred) magicians. Each giving the other something they need to become whole, as it were.

What I think is missing is the idea of a central problem to which they both need ultimately to turn their attention. Maybe the world can be saved only if they can save each other?

The ultimate central problem is tres important - both for plot and character development.

 

[Queshire]

hmm.... thanks for all the input, but I think I'm going to shelve this characters for the time being...

 

[Benjamin Clayborne]

FYI, and you may already know this, but "Scholomance" is the name of one of the mid-level dungeons in World of Warcraft. Not that that means you can't use it, just know that for some people at least it'll have specific connotations. (It's also a magic school in WoW, except overrun by the undead.)

 

[Queshire]

And do you know where they got it from?

 

[Benjamin Clayborne]

I'd never heard the word before I played WoW, but that doesn't mean they were the first to use it. So in other words, I have no idea.

For most readers, it wouldn't be an issue, but I can tell you that if I was reading a fantasy novel and I came across something called Scholomance, I would have an immediate strong reaction to that name.

 

[Queshire]

Scholomance is THE original school of magic. It was said to be located in Transalvania and run by the Devil. Every year 13 mean would come to learn black magic, at the end of the year 12 would leave, the thirteenth either killed or forced to make thunderclouds for the Devil. Of course in my story they put that particular part behind them.

Required link to wikipedia: Scholomance - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Hmm.. appearently it was 10 students, not 13, but 13 sounds better.

 

[Benjamin Clayborne]

Ah! Well there you go. TIL.

 

[JCFarnham]

Don't be shelving the characters! I like them!

By which I mean you're the writer and you have the power.

 

[Steerpike]

I'd never heard the word before I played WoW, but that doesn't mean they were the first to use it. So in other words, I have no idea.

For most readers, it wouldn't be an issue, but I can tell you that if I was reading a fantasy novel and I came across something called Scholomance, I would have an immediate strong reaction to that name.

I agree. I'd heard of Scholomance before WoW and knew where they got the name, but when I see it now I immediately think of WoW. The association has been made, and I'm sure there are a lot of Fantasy readers who don't know it outside of the game. Doesn't mean you can't got forward using it, but one should be aware of the inevitable association by many and decide whether it is acceptable.

 

[SeverinR]

I think you construct your characters, place them in a situation and let them go.
If you don't feel they are being true to their character consider how to change it. But think hard before changing how they react to a situation just because you didn't plan it. If you change how they react, then it won't be their first inclination on how to handle the problem, and might contort the story/characters into being unbelievable.

IMO know the general path of the story, and basically how you want it to end, and let the characters do what they would.

 

[Holdwyne]

JC..My bad, Yes I meant Antagonist ( antichrist) rather than Protagonist......of course if one were a Devil worshipper one could look at that antichrist as a Protagonist i imagine

Shelve the Character??? Just when the character starts to get interesting??
Problems are opportunities in disguise.

SOLVE the problem and this will make the character that much more real to the reader...

My opinion only of course......