Today was the full conference, from 7am to 3pm. Then another six hour travel adventure. But, on the flight home, I found some motivation to key into some Hunting Midnight issues.
A few years ago, when I wrote the first ministory featuring Alena and Deluxe (unfinished; my plan is to graft it into MIDNIGHT though!), I hit a roadblock in the story. To try and get around it, I interviewed Deluxe herself. Basically dialogue between me and her. It was a lot of fun, and I did get what I needed (but I never wrote the scene that the information solved.) Which is all to say: I returned to the technique on the plane.
I think I mentioned the need to flesh out characters more, either here or somewhere in my mess of ‘notes to self.’ So I did the me-talking-to-a-character thing, ended up with 2,000 words worth of material and have successfully enriched the story… in my head. Now it’s time to put it into motion. A spoiler(ish) free excerpt follows:
Me: Hey dack! Come on dowwwwwn
Dack: Hey, hello. This is weird.
Sure be. I want to interrogate you, and you’ll comply, because I made you! Sorry, that’s a little abusive re: my powers I think
Aw, nah, that’s okay. I get it.
So amicable! Did I hit on a personality trait?
I’ve the need to make people feel… like they’re in control. It’s a form of wanting to protect them from something bad that I once experienced, I think.
Hm. Does this root back to why you wanted to become a firefighter?
Absolutely. Fire is chaos. I thought about police work too… but there are too many variables. Fire is—and this might sound counterintuitive—quite predictable, as far as chaos goes. Not like people.
Interesting. I get the thing about fire… it’s physics and there are laws for that.
Right. Unlike people.
Do we know what happened in your past to instill this in you?
No, not yet. As in, I’m not ready to talk about it… not with you, at least right now.