Alright, so I've been thinking about doing some proper explanations of my characters -- who they are, where they come from etc. etc. -- probably more for myself than for anyone else, but one of the most frequently repeated questions on the NaNo boards is 'How Do Character??' so, here's my how do.
We will start with my primary MC, Dakin.
He started, in this incarnation, as a secondary character, included only to fill a small role as 'MC's Brother'. My original intention for Dakin -- back in the days when 'Moonpath' was a weird fantasy set between the real world and an imaginary one -- was to be a sort of connection between the two worlds. Some sort of romance was to be included blah blah blah. Long story short, that didn't happen. Instead, he turned into Laurie's primary motivation for getting the hell off the island -- Dakin was a warning of what his life would be if he didn't escape now.
In all my drafts, as different as they are, the separation of the brothers has always been a vital component. I really wanted to explore a relationship between two people who have this history, and this tight bond but are still, for all intents and purposes, strangers. I realised, by the end of NaNo 2013, it was this story that I really wanted to tell and, in doing so, Dakin became my MC.
And by doing so, I had to go backwards, right back to where it all started.
Dakin starts the story on the brink of his thirteenth birthday. Life is tricky, finding the balance between surviving his father, protecting his brother and keeping his mother happy, but he has his routine and knows what to expect. Everything is predictable and simply a matter of waiting. The thread with which he is held together is very brittle and, at the beginning of the story, he is really starting to struggle not to snap. Everything is changing but no-one will talk about it, and he's afraid of asking the questions he really doesn't want to know the answers to. Life is hard, but he is scared of pushing to make things better, knowing that it could go either way -- infinitely better, or infinitely worse -- and reluctant to risk it. He would rather wait and hope that his mother makes good on her promise to take him and Laurie away, but the more time passes the more Dakin realises that the only person who will save him is himself.
Developmentally, I began Dakin's story in my comfort-zone. He is very much. at the core, an
amalgamation of all the characters I've ever really connected to. In the beginning, he is very inspired by my (ridiculously extensive) head-canons of Pre-Hogwarts Draco Malfoy. Anyone who knows me will not be surprised at this. Draco has lived in my head for the last ten years, and I've been really wracking my brains as to how to bring him out and make him my own. I knew I couldn't force it, that would be nightmarish, but he's definitely grown into himself as Dakin. I wanted to write about a ridiculously privileged boy who, on the surface, has everything he could possibly want but is struggling to battle some pretty hefty demons. As the story has unfolded, of course, he has moved away Draco and has grown into something very different, but it's important to talk about the roots of the character, and that definitely lies in Harry Potter fanfiction.
Speaking of fanfiction, there's another character that definitely needs mentioning in connection to
development. After Season Two of BBC's Sherlock aired in 2012, the character of Mycroft Holmes grabbed me like a bulldog and refused to put me down for a very long time. More specifically, the relationship between Mycroft and Sherlock.
I loved the relationship between them -- these two amazingly clever men with this bizarre brotherly bond that I had never seen before. Of course, me being me, I needed to write it, to extract all the marrow from this headcanon that was growing at unspeakable rates. I was fascinated by the way they are surrounded by all these people and yet they are isolated in their uniqueness and so reluctantly dependent on each other. I have never had any personal experience with siblings, but this was something I could connect to. I saw Mycroft as incredibly protective of Sherlock's waning innocence, and he would do anything to preserve his little brother's childishness, no matter what the personal risk. Obviously Mycroft was a very ambitious young man, and I wanted to explore the conflict of fighting his way to the top whilst at the same time needing to prioritize a boy who didn't necessarily want to accept the help but also cannot survive without it. The age difference between them (7 years) also struck me as interesting and was very influential on the path I took those headcanons down. For more info, see my fic
All We Have in the End Unfinished, but I'd love to go back to it one day.
Okay, so back to Dakin. Once everything crumbles (as of course it has to) and everything holding him together has been stripped away, he is left with only the shell of himself and a stranger who had been brought in to, effectively, keep him alive and out of the way. Dakin between the ages of 14 and 18 was really interesting to write because everything that made him him was removed. He has nothing -- no control, no freedom, no real purpose to live but even his life isn't his own anymore. The only thing giving him any sort of motivation at all is the vague hope that everything will go back to the way it was. He has forgotten why he wants that or what it would mean should it happen, but the want is deep and instinctive. He is so preoccupied with this want that it keeps him rooted in the past and prevents him from moving forward. He is static, unable to move backwards and forwards. The motivation that comes from this isn't a healthy one -- he cannot have what he wants, and brooding over it only makes it feel as though he is losing it all over again. It is only with the final realisation that everything he knew from before is gone and letting go of the scraps that he is finally able to start making forward progress and start building himself back from the beginning.
Inspiration and influence came this time from the character of Yuki Sohma from Natsuki Takaya's manga series
Fruits Basket. The isolation and the damaging effect of being alone with nothing but your own thoughts and the callous criticism of others eating away at you until there's nothing left really struck me, especially in such a young character. Being broken down mentally can have a catastrophic effect physically, and that was something I wanted to explore. How could anyone survive that, and what would happen when they came out the other side?
Another element of Yuki's story that really inspired me was his relationship with his mother. In all my stories in all the years, I have always somehow managed to avoid talking about mothers; they are always mysteriously absent for whatever reason. But, with Moonpath, I wanted to break this habit. And the relationship between Dakin and his mother, it transpires, is one of the more interesting. Dakin's love and unconditional faith in his mother and her promise to him is both what holds him together in the beginning and breaks him apart most brutally. I was surprised, in the beginning, that my beta readers despised Aurelia far more than Lysandis, and when I questioned Sarah on this, she made the simple case that 'Mothers are supposed to put their children first', and Aurelia's failure to do so make her the true villain of this story. She holds the power, she could make things better so quickly and so easily, but it is her reluctance to face up to her
mistakes and her subsequent distance from Dakin that really sets the events in motion.
When you're a child, your mother is the whole world. It doesn't matter what anyone else says, she is always right and you will be on her side unconditionally. Unfortunately, unconditional loves comes at a price when it isn't reciprocated, and that's something I really want to get to the bottom of with Dakin and Aurelia. Everything he does is, ultimately, for her and the less she acknowledges him the harder and the more desperately he tries which, unfortunately, only pushes her further away. I wanted to write about the impossible position of a guilty mother who loves her son but cannot and will not accept the mistakes she has made and the damage she has caused.
I don't necessarily agree that she's the villain - I don't really think I have a villain at all - but she certainly holds the most power and is the inciting catalyst for a great deal of what goes on, even in her absence.
Realising that his mother isn't going to save him is major turning point on two occasions, and makes him stronger at both points, giving him the incentive to fight for what he needs himself.
By the time Part 3 comes along, at which point Dakin is 19, he has managed to scrape himself together into a good place. He is as content and as happy as he ever expects to be, with a routine and work to keep him occupied and distracted. By this point, I wasn't really influenced by any outside sources, more looking at the logical route that a character with this background would take. My thoughts were: As long as he keeps still and nothing changes or deviates, everything is perfectly fine. Of course, in novelling, 'perfectly fine' is unacceptable and the boat needs to be rocked. Long story short, getting what you want comes at a hefty price and never materializes quite in the way you expect it to.
I can't really say much more without giving the ending away, but yes, this is how a character grows from seed. It takes time, a helluva lot of time, and patience and false starts, but if you spend enough time with them eventually you'll wake up one day in shock to find a three-dimensional human being taking up space in your head.
Oh, and funny story about the name *headdesk* In October 2013, I needed a name for a Final Fantasy character and Dakin sprung into my head. I had no idea where it came from, assuming it was from a book or something, but I liked it a lot! NaNo passed, and Dakin was christened Dakin and I was very pleased. Still had no idea where I'd heard it before though... Then, one day in early December 2013, I was pottering a long minding my own business, and then I remembered.
It was the bloody middle name of my bloody ex-boyfriend - someone I reeaally didn't want to pay tribute to!
But by that point it was too late. Thankfully, Dakin is completely himself and not even slightly similar to Him. Thankfully.
Art Credit:
All pics of Dakin belong to me and were drawn by the wonderful
Suzanami
And all Fruits Basket belong to Natsuki Takaya.
