Loving My Side Characters (Don’t Neglect Us!)

Every hero needs an awesome sidekick

The COT universe has many side characters so I have to take special care of this bunch. I have main side characters and minor side characters. The main side characters pack a pretty heavy punch to the flow of events in the story and heavily influence the direction my three lovely MCs take. Sometimes it’s easy to neglect side characters when you’re focused on making the MCs the coolest and realest people on this side of the imaginary world. Therefore, it’s only fair that that I surround my MCs with a fascinating and sometimes twisted bunch of supporting characters.

Zackaria, Ryker, and Meliz share three best friends that make the siblings bizarre, confusing life so much easier. First, there’s Ezekial Rushil Battacharjee, aka Zeke, who is half-Indian (father), half-Jewish (mother). He is also Zackaria’s boyfriend. Tall, athletic, kind, possessing gorgeous green eyes speckled with red, it’s no surprise that the 16-year-old junior at Caber Daley Academy (the private school they all attend) has a strong band of followers and admirers. His parents are big shot Hollywood screenwriters who write for award-winning dramas on prime time television. They travel constantly (alone), leaving Zeke behind with the help and his thirteen-year-old bratty brother. He writes frequently, taking from his parents, and video records his friends whenever they hang out because he dreams of becoming a big time movie director a la vein of David Fincher. Zeke’s main problems are that his parents are getting a divorce, and he later discovers that his girlfriend, Zackaria, possesses some sort of freaky super human abilities. Who has a girlfriend who can possibly kill you before you blink? Zeik does.

Next is Zeke’s good childhood friend Faust Beckett. German born Faust is another wildly handsome junior at Caber Daley high school. Half-Black (father) and Half-Latino (mother), Faust has a reputation for being the class clown who takes no prisoners. His father is a punk rocker and his mother a poet. He has two older sisters in college—one is in Germany and the other England. Faust speaks fluent Spanish and German. He moved to the States at the age of nine and met Zeke shortly after in elementary school. Although he has the face piercings and tattoos of a punk, he doesn't want to go into music, but rather loves making graphic novels and comics. Faust is a talented artist and he and Zeke used to combine their creative energy to make comics that they would sell to their classmates. His main problem concerns his new girlfriend, Cielle Jeong, who happens to be the Kato siblings’ biggest pain in the ass. He loves Cielle, but she seems more preoccupied with his friends.

Their third friend is Fallon Nolan, the short but sweet Irish girl with the big, long curly mane of bright copper hair. Her tresses make her easily identifiable at Caber Daley. The junior is the daughter of a former-model-now-photographer (mother) for the nation’s top fashion magazines and a designer (father) who lives in Italy. Faust’s parents are divorced and she’s an only child. Her parents backgrounds have influenced her interests in fashion and photography. She runs a popular fashion blog whose high status has given her access to fashion shows in New York, Italy, and Paris. Her biggest problem right now is making a decision about whether to accept her father’s offer to study fashion in Italy and leave behind her dear friends. She cares a lot about Meliz and worries that her friend is sinking further into herself.

The Kato siblings' friends are two years older than they are but since the siblings have heightened intelligence, they take a mixture of the most advanced junior and senior classes at the school, sharing a few classes with their friends. The trio knows that they’re adopted and their adoptive parents (a Japanese couple who recently had a son—the trio’s newest sibling) revealed that the papers say the Kato siblings are fourteen-years-old. 

Anyway, Zackaria, Ryker and Meliz love their friends to death because these three are the only true friends they’ve ever had. Past attempts at friendship often failed because of rumors and fears circulating around Zackaria and an incident involving the serious injury of three students. That event belongs to the story only, however. Haha. Hope you enjoyed reading about some of my three main side characters.

Question: How do you take care of your side characters? 

Thanks for reading,

CSS

Good-bye Chrisa; Hello Ryker. Why Change is Good.

HI :)

I mentioned in my previous post that I had made a big change to COT. This single change means I'll have to do more work. Now, why on earth would I do something that would result in more hard work for me? Because it's refreshing, new, and just what COT needs to push it over the edge, and I'll admit, be more marketable. It's one of those executive decisions that I struggled with for a bit but ultimately decided was for the best. Now, I'm really excited about how this change can transform my book.

So what big change did I make? If you're not familiar with COT, it tells the sci-fi story of three adopted sisters who possess a terrifying secret that can not only destroy their world, but their minds as well. The girls live in a universe of intergalactic antagonists, beautiful but conniving dictators, former killers turned scientists, assassins, and more. The MCs' names are Zackaria, Meliz and Chrisa, and they each have their own quirk that makes them unique. Zackaria possesses a deadly temper that matches her bossy character; Meliz is an aloof, cold girl who is also intelligently manipulative; and Chrisa is a borderline suicidal thrill seeker. I love these girls. I've known them for seventeen years'; they're my daughters.

HOWEVER…dum dum dum…I've decided to release Chrisa into oblivion to have her become Ryker, a boy who embraces her thrill seeker personality except his will be two notches above hers. Their problems will be different as well. Chrisa suffered from the lack of normalcy and honesty in her life because of the bizarreness suffocating her. Ryker's problems are that he can't experience happiness despite this thrill seeker ways, along with the bizarreness of his life. They both are super cheerful on the outside, but deeply sad on the inside.

So, COT will no longer be about three sisters, but three siblings, Zackaria, Ryker, and Meliz. I think Ryker's personality will serve as a good counterbalance to Zackaria. As the leader of the group, Zackaria's  character often overshadowed that of her sisters. She will still remain the leader of this new group, but Ryker will add a new dynamic that equals things out. Meliz has always been withdrawn so I feel her character will also benefit from Ryker's appearance. She has two super hot-headed siblings, and is now more than ever their voice of reason and calmness.

It's very hard to say good-bye to Chrisa, but I know she will live on in Ryker. And now you understand what I meant about all the work I'll have to do. I'll need to rework all the scenes involving Chrisa and make sure that the character encompasses Ryker's personality and not just left over bits of Chrisa. It will be a challenge, but one that I embrace and ready for. Change is good.

thanks for reading,
CSS

A Resuscitation is in Order!

HI :)

Never thought I'd update this blog, did you? It took more than a year, but I am back. This time I've dropped the pseudo-name Sammy Suzuhara. Call me CS. Severe is my real last name and I haven't given it enough credit for its radness. I am still working on Children of Tokua, the new name of this blog. This book has haunted me for seventeen years and finally, finally---no, I really mean it this time-- FINALLY, I am going to produce a finished product. I've made some serious changes that has revitalized the book, along with my interest in writing it.

Before I give you any details of what those major changes are, I want to share with you one essential process that I had to undergo to finish COT. Desire and motivation are very important when writing a book, without them, the thing never gets done. And this is true about any major project in our lives. I've been focused these past few weeks on raising my self-consciousness and performing some deep introspection. I had many obstacles to writing COT but I never dived deep into figuring out what they were. I assumed I was a chronic procrastinator, lazy, not disciplined, etc. And then sometime last week, I haphazardly visited this website called Personal Excellence after listening to a list of inspirational music which I arrived at through listening to Susan Boyle's rendition "I Dreamed a Dream" (Can't get enough of that song! Yes, I know it's a depressing song but it nonetheless inspires me, haha). I highly recommend the Personal Excellence website because it pretty much helped change my attitude toward COT.

I decided to read one of the articles on procrastination and did a self-introspection exercise to understand more deeply why I wasn't actively writing COT. My initial free writing produced some common answers such as: "I'm bored with the book. Hate seeing the same thing repeatedly. I'm lazy. Other things in life are getting in the way. Not enough time to truly write. I don't have enough discipline." I then steadily wrote things like: "I'm afraid of rejection. I'm afraid people will hate my book. I don't think I'm a great writer. I won't get anyone to represent the book. My writing isn't as great as I would want it to be." These were the real reasons why I wasn't finishing COT! In other words, I finally admitted to myself that I DIDN'T think I was a great enough writer for the book. This self-defeating thought and belief strangled my writing. I decided at that moment that I would no longer succumb to it. Taking this action breathed new life in my desire and motivation to write. I want to be a published author. I can clearly imagine myself as published author. I love the story of COT. I love the characters. They are my babies! I can't reject them just because of my own limiting thoughts.

So, I liberated myself from such negative thinking and instead embraced my capacity to write a story my heart desired.

And on the note of discipline, I realized from Personal Excellence, I didn't need discipline to write COT. Discipline is getting something you don't like doing done. I love COT so it should not feel like I'm having an uphill struggle writing it. Attitude is so important. Well, folks, that's all for now. I'll let you know how changed COT in my next post!

thanks for reading,
CSS