Letting Everyone Play

[ithildin]

When I write Highlander fic, you can pretty much guarantee it will be Methos-centric, and if it's Forever Knight, LaCroix. But every so often, some of the characters I don't normally include to a large extent will want to come play too. For example, in Shattered, Nick Knight showed up on the doorstep, and he ended up playing a major role. And that surprised me. I even came away from the experience having a bit more appreciation for the character. Shocking, I know [g] And LaCroix only showed up via flashback, along with Divia. But Nick got to be front and center in the present day story. It had been ten odd years since I'd included Nick as the main character in fic. And in the sequel that I still pan to write 'one of these days', he'll have a major role as well.

What got me thinking about all this? I was rereading Live To Tell last night, and realized it's probably one of my favourites of the stories I've written recently. And no Methos at all! It's just Duncan. Then I realized that Duncan has been more of a presence in my more recent fic. Initially, I tried including him more becuase I have such good friends who love the guy. But the more I used him, the more comfortable I felt writing him. I'd never really felt I wrote a good Duncan, probably because, like Nick, he isn't a character I've always liked all that well at times, and I didn't want my personal feelings to colour them unfairly. But I think I have more of an appreciation for him as well now. Writing a character is kind of like getting to know a new person in RL, I think. You start spending more time together as you get to know each other and develop a relationship. And it's always good to have more people in your life, whether they're real or fictional!

Anyone else have characters they never really paid a lot of attention to that you now find yourself taking a second look at?

Comments

[dejla.livejournal.com]

Well, Duncan, because I have two stories planned that have him, as you say, front and center. And Cassandra, because I started rewriting the idea that became Kindness of Ravens, and never knew until then just how important she was going to be to that.

[ithildyn.livejournal.com]

I'd be very interested in seeing your take on Duncan. Looking forward to it!

As for Cassandra, yeah, I had that experience the one time I wrote a story with her in it. she became much more involved in the story than I'd anticipated.

[adabsolutely.livejournal.com]

Amanda! I try hard to hear her voice, but still she won't speak to me...

[ithildyn.livejournal.com]

You know, I used to have the same problem with Amanda. She was very cagey [g] Then out of the blue, she started talking. Maybe you need to dangle bright shinies to lure her in.

[amand-r.livejournal.com]

I think we never gave enough love to Stick Boy.

[ithildyn.livejournal.com]

It took me a second to realize you weren't talking about JAG [g] Stick Boy was what we called Harm too.