I didn't feel like looking at that anymore, so this evening I ended up working on that short story I mentioned, about Katani's parents.
Like I said, I have no idea what the plot is. I just know the general direction I want it to go in. But as so usually happens, when I sit down and write, stuff happens.
So far his mom has barely been mentioned at all. She might end up being a much smaller part of the story than I originally thought.
The main character is Rinzin, Katani's dad. He's about Katani's age right now. He just moved to the capitol province a couple weeks ago. Partially because he grew up in the mountains and always wanted to be see the ocean. But also because his family was going through some tough times, and he wants to help support them. Even if it means he's half-way across the country.
Rinzin is crazy homesick. And the city is so different from life in the mountains.
Now, when I wrote the first draft of Katani's story (or at least part of the first draft - I don't remember) it was not really. That changed later, when I wanted to explore different parts of my world than the ones I'd already written about. I had to rework most of the story to try to get the new country to fit in. And I've never stopped checking out books and stuff to help me learn more. I've been getting a constant flow of research materials from the library for the past few months. I just found some really good ones about Japan, which I've added to my References for Writers post. And I think I got a good one on Tibet too.
Anyway, I was trying to get to a point. The point is that Katani's original design didn't really fit the world that ended up growing around him.
Nor did most of the other characters. Although almost all of them changed over the course of multiple revisions. His mentor changed names multiple times, for example.
So, Katani is a blonde guy living in a place where most people have black hair (While I was first designing him, I was trying to figure out what to do for his hair. And I looked at a picture of Tamaki from Ouran High School Host Club, and basically stole Tamaki's hair and made it a bit wavier).
I didn't do what a normal sane person would - which would be changing Katani's hair to black. Instead I had him be half Telenese (basically European).
Several of my main characters have ended up as mixed-race. It's not something I plan out. It just kind of happens. Although considering how mixed my family is, I'm not surprised. I have relatives and mixed relatives from all over the world.
Anyway, continuing on. Katani is named after a family friend, who died before Katani was born. I don't think he's ever mentioned in the main book, though I've talked about him in some of my short stories.
But this guy, who I'll call Uncle Katani for clarity sake, is a character in the short story I'm writing right now. I knew he would be, but he's turning out to be a much larger presence than I originally intended. I'm glad that I'm learning more about him. He's sort of a "world es mi familia" character, since he doesn't really have a family of his own. And he ends up taking Rinzin under his wing, since Rinzin's so unsure in this new place, at this new job, away from his family.
There's another problem I'm running into for this short story. Names.
All the characters have names. I just keep screwing them up.
I keep referring to Rinzin as "Katani." I did it twice just while writing this blog post. It's not surprising. I've been writing about Katani for years. And there IS a Katani in this short story too. It's just that this is a different Katani, and he's not the main character.
When I switch between stories, I seem to get some of the names screwed up.
While I was rereading the first couple chapters of Evva's story, I noticed that I accidentally called her Ashlyn once (the girl from my grad program story).
And in Katani's story, I'll sometimes get Garrett and Tri mixed up, even if I'm just talking about them. That's kind of the point. Katani himself gets their names mixed up, which causes some problems. Garrett and Tri are supposed to be very similar. But you'd think I should know better. @_@
And when I changed Shanka's gender, I kept referring to her as "he" for months.
It always leaves me like:
Someone got mad at me for mixing up some details of their stories. And I thought, "dude, I get plenty of details in MY OWN stories screwed up. Frequently. I don't have a computer memory."
If someone tried to explain any story stuff to my parents, they'd smile and nod. And by the next day, if you told them the same exact stuff, they would think it was mostly new information.
They're not very helpful when it comes to story advice. I'll sometimes ask a simple question, just to see what they'll say or if it will trigger any ideas. But nothing ever really comes out of it XD
Though I appreciate them trying to help.
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