Over
the years I've had my fair share of stubborn characters. I've had characters
that were irritatingly stubborn with their peers but also characters who were
purely stubborn with me. Occasionally, most frustratingly, I have one that
refuses to cooperate with anyone, me especially. Mary from Secrets Clad in
Light was particularly stubborn with me, refusing to cooperate whatsoever, and
although she had stubborn streaks within the novel she seemed almost agreeable
there when compared to the run-around that she gave me.
It seems there's always a competition
between my characters for the one that is most difficult and stubborn to work
with and in my latest novel, Butterfly, young Zack became triumphant.
I almost don't even know where to
begin with him. It was required for him to be a little stubborn and, knowing
what I did about his background when I first started writing him, it was
perfectly understandable also. For a while it was tolerable because it served
the story in the way I had imagined but no matter how long I wrote him, or what
point in the story we were in, some way or another he was always fighting
something.
In
his defence, I would say that if anyone had any reason to fight it would be
him. Zack endured a lot in his childhood and from the beginning it is easy to
tell that, as much as he acted like things were fine and he was in control, he
was someone with turmoil in his head,
someone with shattered trust that left shards around a heart that had
endured irreparable damage. Zack was the most resilient when it came to the
changes that were forced upon him at the start of the book because he had
somewhat gotten used to the misery he was living and he had created all the
necessary defences inside himself to cope with them as much as possible. He
wasn't ready to let those defences down and he certainly knew what letting them
down meant; it would give people the chance to get close to him, hurt him, and
leave.
Zack
was not only stubborn when confronted but also when he was the one doing the
confronting. When he sensed that something was wrong with Alex and that the
person he was closest to was suffering silently he was very strong and adamant
in his approach and he would not give up. While previously his attempts were to
protect himself from further pain, this time his stubbornness was used to
protect the only person that he ever felt was worth caring for. He wasn't going
to give up on someone he loved do deeply, though never would he have accepted
the same type of response from the other either. There are a few things that
Zack finds worth protecting; those things take all his determination and
strength, especially if it means persisting the way he does with Alex.
With
me, I suppose Zack's stubbornness was also well-founded; he refused to do
things he wasn't ready to do and at times that halted what I had planned for
him. However, it made way for more interesting, sometimes heart-breaking,
moments as everyone struggled to get through to him and as Zack broke slowly
but surely...
A
small taste of Zack's resilience...
Ellis
turned him around harshly, looking him deep in his eyes. He wasn’t fine now and
he wasn’t going to be fine later. “You know that this is more than you can
handle by yourself.”
“That’s
not true.”
"You're
worried about yourself and you're worried about how you're going to take care
of Alex with this. Why are you fighting us when you know we can help with
both?” Zack held firmly onto the windowsill, his body beginning to shake from
repressed sobs. Ellis reached out and touched his back gently, "It's
alright to be scared and worried, Zack; you're human."
He
turned the boy around slowly and pulled him closer, taking small subtle steps
to close the last of the distance. "No," Zack began pushing him away,
his strength wavering, "stop."
"Zack,
it's alright to be scared."
“I’m
not scared!!” He shouted out and with that went his remaining strength; he
collapsed into Ellis’ waiting arms.
No comments:
Post a Comment