Character Agitation

Characters, characters, how I hate them sometimes. They never seem to cooperate when I absolutely need them to. It's irritating and to make it worse, they hide sometimes too. Talk about rude.

As you can tell, I'm having some serious character problems. Fortunately they are not my usual kind of problems. This time they are acting up in the wrong way. I have two of them in particular that's being a real pain in the butt. I'll start with the nicest of the two.

Her name is Cyrilla and she's the High Priestess for the Goddess Celency, the Goddess of War for the Dancers. The scene is right after Nyx becomes, well Nyx (she was Mia at the beginning, but nothing ever stays the same). Nyx goes into the temple as Mia, the Goddess changes her and she comes out Nyx, but it can't be official by the rules of the Order until Cyrilla, as High Priestess, swears her onto the Path of Celency. A formality in this instance, but an important one. The problem is this: The words that Cyrilla should say as her hand rests on Nyx's forehead to do the blessing just refuses to come. It sounds static, forced and frankly incomplete. Here, let me show you:

It took her a moment to smooth her face into something serious, when she did she moved to Nyx and placed her hand on top of the girls head, closing her eyes. Taking a deep breath, she held it then let it flow out of her like Renata had, "Mia, when you came to be among us, you were but one child among others. In the time you’ve been with us we have seen you grow and change," Cyrilla’s voice faltered for a second and Rena had to hide a smile, "becoming the Dancer as you were meant to be. Out of the silence a Voice has echoed, calling you to stand on these steps and take on the Trials and Faith of our Warrior Goddess Celency. This path is not for the faint of heart, but it has been laid before you. Do you willingly accept the trials, tribulations and simple joy that will be given in true faith?"

In a strong voice Mia answered, "I do."

Rena felt the air get heavier around them and could barely suppress a shudder. One look at the other ladies showed she wasn’t alone, but only Cyrilla seemed to be unaffected by it. Instead both her and Mia had a look of absolute joy as Cyrilla removed her hand from Mia’s head, "Then rise Nyx, Dancer of the Night as a Dancer of War. You will take your place among our Sisters, paying service to the Goddess Celency. Stand and be recognized."


See? See! It's infuriating to say the least, maddening to say the most. I've gone through three different versions and all of them aren't completely right. This one is the closest but something is still missing, but I'll be damned if Cyrilla isn't telling me what........

I realized in just this second that I might be sounding a bit nutty in the fact that I'm talking about Cyrilla as if she's a person instead of just a character. It happens with some characters though, they become a person instead of just someone I made up though deep down I do still acknowledge that she's my own creation and the problem isn't her, but me. Admitting that though would require that I toss away my pride and grovel at the feet of greater writers than myself for help. But I'm not admitting it, not here anyway. I'll save that kind of admittance for my prayers thank you!

So that's my problem with Cyrilla and honestly, it's the least. The other problem is Tim, who is a character in Memory Lane. His role is fairly simple, not completely straight forward until the end, but simple as he's the hostage-taker leader (that's not the technical term for his role, but today that's what I want to call him so there!). The problem is that I seemed to have lost him. He had meat to him at page 124, but apparently between then and page 133 he went on a diet. The nerve of him!

Unfortunately in this I can't blame Tim like I can blame Cyrilla, this is really my fault due to the fact that I'm trying to enrich the story. This means that I have to give the meat that unfortunately Tim never really had at page 133. The true problem is that I'm not sure what button to push to get him to go into the rage that I require. Alex is suppose to taunt him, antagonize him to the point that he remains focused on her instead of the innocents in the crowd watching. She's also hoping to get information out of the bastard too. The way it is now, without the editing done prior, his button apparently is being called a coward. This is hardly realistic because if this man is more than capable of organizing and implementing such a daring (and idiotic) plan of capturing a whole crew of a television show then clearly he doesn't need to validate his bravery quota.

So now I have to find out what his button is and how Alex is going to find it. It's either that or leave Tim paper thin....and I only kind of mean the pun. More not than do.

These two problems have left me distracted from other important things because I keep looking at both instances with a frown, a growl and probably a few head shakes though I haven't descended into the swear words yet. If it continues on for another month then I might finally give into the harsher words of the English Language.

Now, in the grand scheme of things, the big picture of life, these two problems are probably minor. I mean, if I don't get them fixed then going on with either the story about Nyx or finishing third draft of Memory Lane will take longer and that's a problem, but when you compare it against my family, school assignments, newsletter articles and my other commitments it pales. Then again, if I don't get the third draft finished, I can't get to the fourth or to a publisher so that it can make it to print, thereby supplementing our income could be a bigger problem.

But that isn't my concern. My problem is with the pair of them and damn it, I want it fixed simply out of pride than of necessity. I mean I wrote them, it shouldn't be this annoying or difficult. Cyrilla theoretically is easier to work with than Tim. At least Cyrilla is established, she has some meat to her bones. Tim is a different ball and chain that really shouldn't exist in the first place. That doesn't change the reality, but it really burns my britches......