RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist<blockquote><p><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/WritersCoffeeClub" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>WritersCoffeeClub</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/WCC" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>WCC</span></a> 2025.07.10 — Describe a way you've developed a character.</p></blockquote><p>How about some character development by driving around?</p><ol><li>Started with a vanilla sense of the character's personality, their gender, their agenda, the current setting. The devil-girl wants to be left alone to earn enough coin to study her magic. She has a secret past she's run away from (it's in the title of the novel) and lives anonymously in an old eastern city. She is too young for what she's doing.</li><li>I figure out where she will be when the story ends: She will face off with the Rainy Days, the main series antagonist and world's strongest thaumaturge, so must learn to be magically and physical strong.</li><li>She's coming home from her job at a grocery when a male gang member wolf-whistles her, together with his other teenage gang members who aren't entirely impressed with his technique, especially one who acts like she might be his girlfriend. The devil-girl sticks her nose in the air and walks away.</li><li>She gauges him as he follows, verbally sexually harassing her. <em>Is he the one?</em> she thinks, <em>The one who'll help me use my special miracle?</em> </li><li>I run with this idea and realize she was only able to use the miracle once when her life was at stake. She looks over the gang member. Scrawny. Obviously showing off. She wonders about his performance in bed (considering what he saying about her "assets"). Lots of bark, little bite there. She's safe so long as he doesn't pin her. She decides to taunt him so he shows off for his cohort, and maybe acts stupider.</li><li>Goaded, he isolates himself from immediate help as she speeds up. She can handle one miscreant, she thinks, but if they all attack, she feels she might feel threatened enough to rediscover her special miracle. Taunting, using her extensive vocabulary that insults him but goes over his head, she manages to lead him and the others into another gang's territory…</li></ol><p>At this point, I've learned a lot about the devil-girl's personality. Hints of her yet to be defined past. That she's magically strong but has magical performance problems she's working to overcome. She is confident now but has nearly died once. She thinks she can fight. Her inner dialog is snarky, condescending, and uncensored, unlike the demure and measured banter she taunts her antagonists with. </p><p>I decide to write the scenes that led up to her having her life threatened, using this scene as a teaser, and write a novella full of words as she learns how to fight so she can take on the gang members at the end (and begin part 2 of the novel).</p><p>More would be spoilers.</p><p>[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]</p><p><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/BoostingIsSharing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>BoostingIsSharing</span></a></p><p><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/gender" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>gender</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/fiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>fiction</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writer" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>writer</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/author" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>author</span></a> <br><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/mystery" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>mystery</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/thriller" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>thriller</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/romance" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>romance</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sf" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>sf</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sff" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>sff</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sciencefiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>sciencefiction</span></a><br><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>writing</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writingcommunity" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>writingcommunity</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writersOfMastodon" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>writersOfMastodon</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writers" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>writers</span></a><br><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSdiscussion" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>RSdiscussion</span></a> <br><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSstory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>RSstory</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSReluctanceStory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>RSReluctanceStory</span></a></p>