Today is Day 1 of Camp NaNoWriMo, which is the April version of NaNoWriMo. The idea of it is that you stay in virtual “cabins” and with your cabinmates, write up a storm! We’ve already got several cookouts planned, and there’s a stash of red wine beneath someone’s bunk for drinking after the counselors have gone to bed.
As for me, I’m going to write out loud again, because it was a blast last time, and a challenge, as well, to find something interesting to stay for 30 straight days. I’ll be posting the daily count and the total count, this time, rather than a long list of daily counts, to make each post more viewable.
Today, I’m going to talk about Jack, who is taking the lead in the story this time. Book three, which I’ll be working on this month, has a working title of Axminster, and is about how the boys get arrested. Yes, arrested, both of them! And while I was working on my outline, I knew I had to pick whose POV the story would be from in the first scene. I think I’d heard that the POV you begin with is your main protagonist. But oddly, I kept thinking I’d do it from Jack’s POV first and then do Oliver’s second. And I couldn’t figure out why my brain was so insistent on this.
Then I realized it. Not to give away the plot, it’s what happens to Jack that moves the story forward. Oliver has much to do in this story, but the story is about Jack. Mostly. Oliver will still be there, angsting away and looking terribly handsome, because that’s what he does. He will also, in the end, be terribly, terribly brave and do the right thing, because that’s also what he does. As for Jack, I told him I was sorry about everything, and he told me not to worry, because he can take it.
So naturally, you’ll want to know what the lads look like, as they’re going into the unknown peril that is Book 3. I some time ago came across an article about children who were arrested and sentenced to hard time for stealing handkerchiefs and the like.
And to my amazement, I found the most perfect pictures of two young criminals who fit my idea of what Jack and Oliver might look like, what they’d be wearing, even their expressions. On the left is Oliver, and on the right is Jack.
You can see that Oliver wears a very nice coat indeed, with a collar trimmed with velvet, and a little pear-headed tie pin. How he came to be arrested wearing such a nice coat with his hair so beautifully quaffed is beyond me, but he managed it just the same. I love his look of surprise, tamped down by a wariness of what’s to happen next. His hands are beautiful, aren’t they?
As for Jack, my cocky boy, he’s wearing the scarf that Oliver gave him, or rather, the one that he stole from Nolly on that winter day in Book 1. He’s a little more rough around the edges, and also, he’s more guarded than Oliver. His mouth is closed, and his gaze is steady, and with his arms crossed over his chest, no one is getting an inch too close.
I’ve looked at these pictures so often, I’ve got them memorized. Ah boys, no more stealing right? No picking pockets, no housebreaking. And above all, don’t get pinched!
Word Count 4/1/2015 – 2,049
Total for April – 2,049
It’s fun to see your mental images of your characters (or, at least, physical representations of your mental images) and compare them to my own ideas of what Jack and Oliver look like.
Yeah, these two particular boys have been hanging on my wall for quite some time, so I figured it might be fun to share them. They don’t exactly represent how Oliver and Jack look, mostly it’s the contrast, as one of them, Oliver, is quite well dressed for someone who has just been arrested, while Jack looks a bit rough around the edges, and has a scarf wrapped tightly around his neck. Oliver looks more elegant, while Jack looks less so.
And it’s perfectly fine for each reader to see them differently! That’s what makes it interesting for everybody.