Posted by Bruised at 9:50pm Aug 20 '09Let's look at some Inner Bruise characters.
Steve started when I decided I wanted a boy the age of the younger 4degreez posters to be the patient of inner-body travel in my inner-body travel story. I had liked the name Steve for years, so I picked it -- at the time he didn't even have a last name decided. When I sat down to write the beginning scene for this collaborative story, I wanted to start out with showing what it was like in Steve's normal life, before he gets the disease. His life therefore became not just normal but routine. I thought about a radio commercial for call waiting that used to be on the radio, one that asked, "What if you have a teen-age son? What if he's popular?" and then had a recording of an answering machine message saying, "Hi, Steve!" The commercial then asked, "Very popular?" and showed several teen-age callers-in to the answering machine saying, "Hi, Steve! Hi, Steve! Hi, Steve!" This became the inspiration for the cellphone messages in the opening scene. I decided that Steve would be popular. He would go to at least one party before the disease kicked in. I originally planned to make him shallow and somewhat yuppie-ish, but when I found myself writing the part where he walks by the Shrine Kneelers poster and the LeGrand poster, I thought it would create interesting conflict if I noted the fact that he wanted to vote against President LeGrand (that would also be a great way to work into the story an indication that the voting age has been lowered). With the sentence "In 2020, he had been only 8 years old, and besides, LeGrand had merely held the office of vice-president back then", I settled on Steve's exact age -- 16 -- and after he hears the plan for identity theft by the AALL card thieves, thanks to what [private] wrote, Steve's social conscience was established. He still doesn't have much to say when the group of partygoers talk about Communism in North Korea at Sharon's party, though. When I decided the early part of the story needed to be fleshed out, I had Steve's face turning red and his blood boiling at various injustices he heard about. I also decided that Steve would be a serial monogamist, having broken up with many girlfriends to show that he can't really commit to anything.
Then came his break-up with Luann, and when I thought about a reason a couple might break up, I decided that the girl was too traditionalist and family-oriented for the boy, and that became the cause of Steve and Luann's break-up. Like the metamorphosis of Ned Flanders from good neighbor to good Christian to Fundamentalist Christian, it became a short step to making the character of Luann a reactionary. When I needed a right-wing viewpoint to spice up the homosexuality discussion in my party scene, I thought of making Luann show up at the party and appear as an actual character rather than an off-stage character.
Anyway, back to Steve. Having him and Luann disagree at the party made Steve into an idealist. From what I already knew about him, I could figure out the way he dressed. Steve's brown suede jacket came from a contribution from a writer I now forget in the first scene. I decided to give Steve brown, unkempt hair, blue eyes, freckles and braces to make him look like a typical boy -- a hint of ordinariness -- and worked these elements into the story piece by piece. It is revealed that Steve wears braces when I get to the line "A box of cashews sat near the edge, and next to it there was a plate of peanut brittle. Steve hated the peanut brittle. It would always get caught in his braces. How would he look then?" Jocasta is also revealed to have a liking for boys with blue eyes. When I have Steve getting ready for his appointment with Peter, I decided what he would do in the morning and have him eating Tropo-bran and listening to an artist named Ethan Milian with a Rob-Thomas-esquely "dusty voice". Thus was born Steve's taste in breakfast cereals and music. When it came time for him to solve crimes with Peter, I wanted some conflict between the two of him so I made him the skeptical one about their ability to catch the thieves, a foil to Peter's sureness. I also decided he needed a bad habit, so I looked through the list I had made until I decided upon constantly brushing hair out of his face. That part was rather planned. When it came time for Sharon to reveal Steve's astrological sign, I decided to make him born January 23 so he could be Year of the Dragon (something special for 2012 cohorts) and still be an Aquarius.
Sharon also revealed that Steve, like Rochelle, liked In-N-out Burger and Marine World. Rochelle was a creation of [private]'s, and I developed her further this way. I decided she would be a Gemini. Her personality comes from the character [private] envisioned -- romantic, observant, lovely. [private] didn't give her a last name. In the interest of having at least one character with an Italian surname, I chose Conti, Italian and at the same time noble.
Now let's talk about Peter. The seed for Peter was planted in German class, when various kids and their "gerne" -- what they like to do -- were shown. "Peter hört gern Musik", a caption read, showing a boy listening to headphones with his eyes closed. I imagined doing a character named Peter -- of German descent even, hence his last name Stouffer -- who always had headphones on and was indulgent and poppy. This one seemed like a blonde, and in his candy-striped world, he would always be wearing red-and-white-striped T-shirts. He would have freckles too. Before I began writing about Steve's friends, a coincidence popped up. [private] wrote, when Steve overhears the AALL card thieves "mentally, one of his friends, Peter, a private detective, came to the top of his to call list". I already had a character named Peter planned; now I knew this Peter was going to be top-notch at private detective work. Thus the character of Peter was born. Peter came outa little eccentric. After Peter said "negative" for "no" as written by [private], it soon became established that he used lots of slang and jargon. When it came time for him to solve crimes with Steve, Peter would be the confident one, creating a foil distinction. We learned about his girlfriend Tenisha when Steve was discussing breaking up with Luann.
Before I wrote about any of Steve's friends, I sat down and sketched out short notes about Peter, Richie, Sharon and Ramón. Ricardo, I decided, would be Richie for short. Hos last name would be Fernandez. Him being Hispanic, I naturally gave him black hair and brown eyes. He would be like the boys pictured in the Dream Phone game, soft, suburban and in a striped polo and a jacket. One thing that was planned was that Richie was Steve's oldest friend, and that they were "friends ever since they were 5 years old and watching Cotton Candy Castle together and playing with the old Sit & Spin in the garage". I also worked out the details that Richie and Steve had gone on vacations together for many summers, and that they had stayed together throughout break-ups with seven different girlfriends, which aided in Steve's becoming a serial monogamist. Random details like his job at Harburg's built up through his phone call with Steve; another detail was that his favorite band was Bleach, which blossomed into a full-out aspect of the character once Bleach made it to the party (thank you, [private]).
I wanted a girl who was of the very "neurotypical" type to host the party, and I chose the name Sharon for her because I felt it fit the personality. In the interest of making at least one character with an Irish surname, I surnamed her Moran. I made her brown-haired and hazel-eyed because that's how I picture people named Sharon, and her clothing -- the Birkenstocks, the glitter -- came from how I would picture a party host. I made the note that "She is always there to support and encourage Steve, as she will tell him that he is a fine person who would do fine, and he will believe it" -- and that came out at the party. I also decided she would know all the kids in town and their names, and wanted to extend that so I made her a matchmaker, one who could match people by tastes in fast food and astrological sign. I figured Sharon probably wouldn't believe in astrology if she didn't fit her own sun sign, so I made her a Gemini when it came time to reveal her birthdate after her AALL card was stolen. [private] added the detail that she always has a special surprise for her party guests. Since she participates in the homosexuality conversation at the party, I had her saying ""Awwwww, I think they look cute. Seeing a couple in a tuxedo and another tuxedo, or in a gown and another gown . . .", and she developed into a liberal.
As for Ramón, he was developed chiefly by someone else. He first existed in name only: "He remembered that the first person on his short list that he had to call back that day was Ramón Alvarado". When other people carried the Inner Bruise story away in December of 2003, one of them decided that Ramón would be a relative of a deposed Cuban drug kingpin. His craving for candies, and expectations that Steve bring them to him, were developed. That was also where Ramón's snappy, irritable attitude came from. From there came Ramón's style of speech, and his pathetic craving. I decided that he would dress like a skater, but I don't really know why.
Before I wrote the party scene, I decided I wanted two new characters. I went to the notepad that had sketches for Peter, Richie, Sharon and Ramón and added sketches for two new characters named Adrian and Kevin. I decided I wanted a hard rocker for the party, someone who would listen to twelveties groups with names like Sulfur Pie and drink the party's beer, and thus was Adrian born. Since so many teen-age boys with Hungarian or Slavic surnames are into the hard rock stuff, I decided to make him Hungarian, so I chose the surname Kerekes. I thought back to a picture of a boy in a Hungarian picture dictionary and gave him brown hair, blue eyes and freckles, so he looked sort of like Steve. But I didn't want them to look like twins, so I made Adrian "a little chunkier" than Steve. I also decided on the first name Adrian, since it's in use in Hungary. After I had this figured out, I figured Adrian would be the type to wear a black T-shirt, blue jeans and plain-looking black tennis shoes. Since we had information on several of the characters' jobs, I wrote in my notes that Adrian worked at "the Open-mart, the last convenience store in the area not to have automated employees". At the party scene I developed Adrian's peculiar style of dancing, "dancing around with his limbs all tied down to the floor, in some state of Too Much Good Stuff . . . moving like a crab that had five of its legs trying to walk in one direction and the other five of its legs trying to walk the other direction" and "mov[ing] back and forth with his shoulders bent over and his arms swinging up and down, back and forth like a gorilla's". I decided that Adrian would be the one calling Steve "Steve boy" in the string of message intros at the beginning of the story, and from there came Adrian's method of addressing people: "Steve boy", "Jo girl". I decided that Jocasta would fall in love with him, since I already knew that she liked guys with blue eyes. I figured out the perfect way to do it: he would lend his headphones to Steve, and then when Steve opened his eyes to give them back to Adrian, he would see Adrian with Jocasta.
Kevin was inspired by the Tom Buchanan character who appeared at the party scenes in The Great Gatsby. Tom Buchanan was talking about a book he had read on a theory of superiority of the White race. I decided that Kevin (can't really say why I chose that name) would have political things to talk about, and would have read "an Internet treatise about how the war in China had aided the breakdown of Communism in Cuba during the eleventies". From there Kevin was inspired by our very own [private], with lines like "Now Communism has no global power, and in his refusal to speak to Ahn, LeGrand is simply being a daft buffoon who should be slapped with a fish" and "I am not casting my vote for someone so illiterate she can't even spell her own name". Sound familiar? At the same time, I wanted someone with dreadlocks who was a heroin user, a reggae artist like Brad Nowell. Kevin doesn't sing reggae, but he does have dreadlocks and I gave him the surname Flax because I wanted to make him Jamaican. This all went into my notes. Then when I got to writing the party scene in its full exposition, Kevin came off on the page. And I did make him a heroin addict.
Jocasta was first mentioned in passing in Steve's phone call with Richie: "There's going to be Jessica Bunce, Adrian Kerekes, Jocasta Lin, Greg Erikson . . . a lot of people we know are going to be there." I situated her at the party scene when I described the goings-on in the room at the beginning: "In the middle of the living room, Jocasta Lin was doing backflips for an audience". I planned for Jocasta to only be a walk-on character who helped described a gestalt scene, but [private] made her into a real character in the story. After the cliffhanger "Steve felt a tap on his left shoulder", [private] had Jocasta be the one tapping Steve on the shoulder, given her propensity for backflips. It was from her that Jocasta developed her libido and her love for grinding. A Chinese girl who has an SP flavor to her seemed to fit in KT Tunstall's clothes, so I gave her an outfit like Tunstall wears in the music video for "Suddenly I See": black halter top, black skirt, black-and-purple-striped leggings and boots. Jocasta liked boys with brown hair, blue eyes and freckles, so she fell for both Steve and Adrian -- it seemed naturally to flow out of her character that she would not be faithful to her boyfriends. Also, she would like doing things with leather and suede and listening to a band called Spandex. In [private]'s segment, she had Jocasta saying, "Oh my word", so I made Jocasta into a Christian. Therefore in debating with Luann, she says, "Read what happened in the Bible. Originally God made only Adam. Then Adam wanted a wife and convinced God to take make a woman for him. It was sinful, fallible man who wanted Eve to be made". The name Jocasta was chosen from the Greek mythological character, because I decided that Greek names would have been hot when the teens of the twelveties were being born.
Avery was created by [private]. Most of what we knew about Avery came from [private]'s characterization of him. As with Rochelle, [private] didn't originally give him a last name, so I chose Graham -- it fit with his polo-and-cargo-shorts look and sitting in the armchair. As I myself had Avery speak, the quirk of having him end his sentences with "Right?" developed. His facial expressions and movement developed from the way [private] built him.
Finally, Sandy. Sandy was created when I decided I needed one more phone call interlocutor for Steve after he speaks to Peter, Richie and Ramón. I decided to make this one a girl so we'd have a more even balance of gender among the characters. For a quirk, I decided to have her chew gum throughout her entire conversation with Steve. [private] expanded this into having Sandy chew gum all the time. Her talking about her cat came from Lisa Romero at CIWP, a client who tells everyone how adorable her cat Tabby is and tells people that they really should come see her. She generally developed into a flaky, untogether character during her phone call. Being that she looks casual, blonde and Californian, I dressed Sandy in a black tank top with blue jeans.
Steve started when I decided I wanted a boy the age of the younger 4degreez posters to be the patient of inner-body travel in my inner-body travel story. I had liked the name Steve for years, so I picked it -- at the time he didn't even have a last name decided. When I sat down to write the beginning scene for this collaborative story, I wanted to start out with showing what it was like in Steve's normal life, before he gets the disease. His life therefore became not just normal but routine. I thought about a radio commercial for call waiting that used to be on the radio, one that asked, "What if you have a teen-age son? What if he's popular?" and then had a recording of an answering machine message saying, "Hi, Steve!" The commercial then asked, "Very popular?" and showed several teen-age callers-in to the answering machine saying, "Hi, Steve! Hi, Steve! Hi, Steve!" This became the inspiration for the cellphone messages in the opening scene. I decided that Steve would be popular. He would go to at least one party before the disease kicked in. I originally planned to make him shallow and somewhat yuppie-ish, but when I found myself writing the part where he walks by the Shrine Kneelers poster and the LeGrand poster, I thought it would create interesting conflict if I noted the fact that he wanted to vote against President LeGrand (that would also be a great way to work into the story an indication that the voting age has been lowered). With the sentence "In 2020, he had been only 8 years old, and besides, LeGrand had merely held the office of vice-president back then", I settled on Steve's exact age -- 16 -- and after he hears the plan for identity theft by the AALL card thieves, thanks to what [private] wrote, Steve's social conscience was established. He still doesn't have much to say when the group of partygoers talk about Communism in North Korea at Sharon's party, though. When I decided the early part of the story needed to be fleshed out, I had Steve's face turning red and his blood boiling at various injustices he heard about. I also decided that Steve would be a serial monogamist, having broken up with many girlfriends to show that he can't really commit to anything.
Then came his break-up with Luann, and when I thought about a reason a couple might break up, I decided that the girl was too traditionalist and family-oriented for the boy, and that became the cause of Steve and Luann's break-up. Like the metamorphosis of Ned Flanders from good neighbor to good Christian to Fundamentalist Christian, it became a short step to making the character of Luann a reactionary. When I needed a right-wing viewpoint to spice up the homosexuality discussion in my party scene, I thought of making Luann show up at the party and appear as an actual character rather than an off-stage character.
Anyway, back to Steve. Having him and Luann disagree at the party made Steve into an idealist. From what I already knew about him, I could figure out the way he dressed. Steve's brown suede jacket came from a contribution from a writer I now forget in the first scene. I decided to give Steve brown, unkempt hair, blue eyes, freckles and braces to make him look like a typical boy -- a hint of ordinariness -- and worked these elements into the story piece by piece. It is revealed that Steve wears braces when I get to the line "A box of cashews sat near the edge, and next to it there was a plate of peanut brittle. Steve hated the peanut brittle. It would always get caught in his braces. How would he look then?" Jocasta is also revealed to have a liking for boys with blue eyes. When I have Steve getting ready for his appointment with Peter, I decided what he would do in the morning and have him eating Tropo-bran and listening to an artist named Ethan Milian with a Rob-Thomas-esquely "dusty voice". Thus was born Steve's taste in breakfast cereals and music. When it came time for him to solve crimes with Peter, I wanted some conflict between the two of him so I made him the skeptical one about their ability to catch the thieves, a foil to Peter's sureness. I also decided he needed a bad habit, so I looked through the list I had made until I decided upon constantly brushing hair out of his face. That part was rather planned. When it came time for Sharon to reveal Steve's astrological sign, I decided to make him born January 23 so he could be Year of the Dragon (something special for 2012 cohorts) and still be an Aquarius.
Sharon also revealed that Steve, like Rochelle, liked In-N-out Burger and Marine World. Rochelle was a creation of [private]'s, and I developed her further this way. I decided she would be a Gemini. Her personality comes from the character [private] envisioned -- romantic, observant, lovely. [private] didn't give her a last name. In the interest of having at least one character with an Italian surname, I chose Conti, Italian and at the same time noble.
Now let's talk about Peter. The seed for Peter was planted in German class, when various kids and their "gerne" -- what they like to do -- were shown. "Peter hört gern Musik", a caption read, showing a boy listening to headphones with his eyes closed. I imagined doing a character named Peter -- of German descent even, hence his last name Stouffer -- who always had headphones on and was indulgent and poppy. This one seemed like a blonde, and in his candy-striped world, he would always be wearing red-and-white-striped T-shirts. He would have freckles too. Before I began writing about Steve's friends, a coincidence popped up. [private] wrote, when Steve overhears the AALL card thieves "mentally, one of his friends, Peter, a private detective, came to the top of his to call list". I already had a character named Peter planned; now I knew this Peter was going to be top-notch at private detective work. Thus the character of Peter was born. Peter came out
Before I wrote about any of Steve's friends, I sat down and sketched out short notes about Peter, Richie, Sharon and Ramón. Ricardo, I decided, would be Richie for short. Hos last name would be Fernandez. Him being Hispanic, I naturally gave him black hair and brown eyes. He would be like the boys pictured in the Dream Phone game, soft, suburban and in a striped polo and a jacket. One thing that was planned was that Richie was Steve's oldest friend, and that they were "friends ever since they were 5 years old and watching Cotton Candy Castle together and playing with the old Sit & Spin in the garage". I also worked out the details that Richie and Steve had gone on vacations together for many summers, and that they had stayed together throughout break-ups with seven different girlfriends, which aided in Steve's becoming a serial monogamist. Random details like his job at Harburg's built up through his phone call with Steve; another detail was that his favorite band was Bleach, which blossomed into a full-out aspect of the character once Bleach made it to the party (thank you, [private]).
I wanted a girl who was of the very "neurotypical" type to host the party, and I chose the name Sharon for her because I felt it fit the personality. In the interest of making at least one character with an Irish surname, I surnamed her Moran. I made her brown-haired and hazel-eyed because that's how I picture people named Sharon, and her clothing -- the Birkenstocks, the glitter -- came from how I would picture a party host. I made the note that "She is always there to support and encourage Steve, as she will tell him that he is a fine person who would do fine, and he will believe it" -- and that came out at the party. I also decided she would know all the kids in town and their names, and wanted to extend that so I made her a matchmaker, one who could match people by tastes in fast food and astrological sign. I figured Sharon probably wouldn't believe in astrology if she didn't fit her own sun sign, so I made her a Gemini when it came time to reveal her birthdate after her AALL card was stolen. [private] added the detail that she always has a special surprise for her party guests. Since she participates in the homosexuality conversation at the party, I had her saying ""Awwwww, I think they look cute. Seeing a couple in a tuxedo and another tuxedo, or in a gown and another gown . . .", and she developed into a liberal.
As for Ramón, he was developed chiefly by someone else. He first existed in name only: "He remembered that the first person on his short list that he had to call back that day was Ramón Alvarado". When other people carried the Inner Bruise story away in December of 2003, one of them decided that Ramón would be a relative of a deposed Cuban drug kingpin. His craving for candies, and expectations that Steve bring them to him, were developed. That was also where Ramón's snappy, irritable attitude came from. From there came Ramón's style of speech, and his pathetic craving. I decided that he would dress like a skater, but I don't really know why.
Before I wrote the party scene, I decided I wanted two new characters. I went to the notepad that had sketches for Peter, Richie, Sharon and Ramón and added sketches for two new characters named Adrian and Kevin. I decided I wanted a hard rocker for the party, someone who would listen to twelveties groups with names like Sulfur Pie and drink the party's beer, and thus was Adrian born. Since so many teen-age boys with Hungarian or Slavic surnames are into the hard rock stuff, I decided to make him Hungarian, so I chose the surname Kerekes. I thought back to a picture of a boy in a Hungarian picture dictionary and gave him brown hair, blue eyes and freckles, so he looked sort of like Steve. But I didn't want them to look like twins, so I made Adrian "a little chunkier" than Steve. I also decided on the first name Adrian, since it's in use in Hungary. After I had this figured out, I figured Adrian would be the type to wear a black T-shirt, blue jeans and plain-looking black tennis shoes. Since we had information on several of the characters' jobs, I wrote in my notes that Adrian worked at "the Open-mart, the last convenience store in the area not to have automated employees". At the party scene I developed Adrian's peculiar style of dancing, "dancing around with his limbs all tied down to the floor, in some state of Too Much Good Stuff . . . moving like a crab that had five of its legs trying to walk in one direction and the other five of its legs trying to walk the other direction" and "mov[ing] back and forth with his shoulders bent over and his arms swinging up and down, back and forth like a gorilla's". I decided that Adrian would be the one calling Steve "Steve boy" in the string of message intros at the beginning of the story, and from there came Adrian's method of addressing people: "Steve boy", "Jo girl". I decided that Jocasta would fall in love with him, since I already knew that she liked guys with blue eyes. I figured out the perfect way to do it: he would lend his headphones to Steve, and then when Steve opened his eyes to give them back to Adrian, he would see Adrian with Jocasta.
Kevin was inspired by the Tom Buchanan character who appeared at the party scenes in The Great Gatsby. Tom Buchanan was talking about a book he had read on a theory of superiority of the White race. I decided that Kevin (can't really say why I chose that name) would have political things to talk about, and would have read "an Internet treatise about how the war in China had aided the breakdown of Communism in Cuba during the eleventies". From there Kevin was inspired by our very own [private], with lines like "Now Communism has no global power, and in his refusal to speak to Ahn, LeGrand is simply being a daft buffoon who should be slapped with a fish" and "I am not casting my vote for someone so illiterate she can't even spell her own name". Sound familiar? At the same time, I wanted someone with dreadlocks who was a heroin user, a reggae artist like Brad Nowell. Kevin doesn't sing reggae, but he does have dreadlocks and I gave him the surname Flax because I wanted to make him Jamaican. This all went into my notes. Then when I got to writing the party scene in its full exposition, Kevin came off on the page. And I did make him a heroin addict.
Jocasta was first mentioned in passing in Steve's phone call with Richie: "There's going to be Jessica Bunce, Adrian Kerekes, Jocasta Lin, Greg Erikson . . . a lot of people we know are going to be there." I situated her at the party scene when I described the goings-on in the room at the beginning: "In the middle of the living room, Jocasta Lin was doing backflips for an audience". I planned for Jocasta to only be a walk-on character who helped described a gestalt scene, but [private] made her into a real character in the story. After the cliffhanger "Steve felt a tap on his left shoulder", [private] had Jocasta be the one tapping Steve on the shoulder, given her propensity for backflips. It was from her that Jocasta developed her libido and her love for grinding. A Chinese girl who has an SP flavor to her seemed to fit in KT Tunstall's clothes, so I gave her an outfit like Tunstall wears in the music video for "Suddenly I See": black halter top, black skirt, black-and-purple-striped leggings and boots. Jocasta liked boys with brown hair, blue eyes and freckles, so she fell for both Steve and Adrian -- it seemed naturally to flow out of her character that she would not be faithful to her boyfriends. Also, she would like doing things with leather and suede and listening to a band called Spandex. In [private]'s segment, she had Jocasta saying, "Oh my word", so I made Jocasta into a Christian. Therefore in debating with Luann, she says, "Read what happened in the Bible. Originally God made only Adam. Then Adam wanted a wife and convinced God to take make a woman for him. It was sinful, fallible man who wanted Eve to be made". The name Jocasta was chosen from the Greek mythological character, because I decided that Greek names would have been hot when the teens of the twelveties were being born.
Avery was created by [private]. Most of what we knew about Avery came from [private]'s characterization of him. As with Rochelle, [private] didn't originally give him a last name, so I chose Graham -- it fit with his polo-and-cargo-shorts look and sitting in the armchair. As I myself had Avery speak, the quirk of having him end his sentences with "Right?" developed. His facial expressions and movement developed from the way [private] built him.
Finally, Sandy. Sandy was created when I decided I needed one more phone call interlocutor for Steve after he speaks to Peter, Richie and Ramón. I decided to make this one a girl so we'd have a more even balance of gender among the characters. For a quirk, I decided to have her chew gum throughout her entire conversation with Steve. [private] expanded this into having Sandy chew gum all the time. Her talking about her cat came from Lisa Romero at CIWP, a client who tells everyone how adorable her cat Tabby is and tells people that they really should come see her. She generally developed into a flaky, untogether character during her phone call. Being that she looks casual, blonde and Californian, I dressed Sandy in a black tank top with blue jeans.
To give an idea of how I do it - Bruised