Camp NaNoWriMo Update: My main character wants to kill me (with video)

I'm write on time for my 2500 words a day schedule. I'm actually at 20716 words at the moment. I only wrote 652 words today but the day is not over so I still have some times.

In this video, I explain how my main character tried to kill me. I'm trying in integrate some emotional response to my character and it ended up with me almost going into a panic attack.

Then I'm talking about the new plan for this novel and the one that follows.

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Demon Soul the making of part 6: Why is it painful for angels to cure people and not for demons?

 

Demon Soul is mainly about demons, especially one demon named Sahel who is learning about his powers.

In the book, we discover how baby demon acquire their powers over the fourth elements and how when they reach adulthood (which is a bit younger for demons than for humans) they go through a special training to obtained their fifth power, the Aether power which allow them to cure themselves, to regenerate, to cure other people, to change form (It's more difficult for the Watchers than for the Nephilim but they can manage that with a lot of training) and other things related to connection with people and the mind which are not explored in Demon Soul but in the further novels coming up. Sahel is just a beginner at using his powers and he already rocks at it.  

Here is an example  for Aether powers used from Demon Soul (chapter 13)

The little creatures that had visited him in his living room few days ago appeared in the purple smoke as the demon from his dream was going back to the end of the room.

“You see”, he said. “That is the perfect example of what you should achieve but will never be able to.”

He pointed at the little creatures who transformed into three huge demons under the incredulous eyes of everybody. A young female demon fashionably dressed was the first to get back from her surprise.

“I hope I’ll never achieve it”, she said, “I wouldn’t like to look that ugly”, she laughed making a group of demons around her laugh as well.

The old demon threw her a terrible look, probably thinking about making her pay later for daring ruin his effect.

“Well, well, well”, he said. “As you seem all to be more than willing to die for our pleasure, let’s start the festivity.”

Demons can cure people without feeling any pain or having to deal with carrying the pain of others, just you have to make them want to help which is another matter. But Isakael, the only angel of the story, does feel tremendous pain when curing other, he seems to be stealing the pain from them. Even though we saw before that demons are the descendant of the angels there abilities became very different at time passed. 

The angels are given powers by god when they are born, that's painless and they don't have to go through training to use them learning to use them is more like learning to speak and walk, it comes naturally. Therefore their powers can't evolve and are limited. They don't have the powers over the fourth elements like the demons do. However they have the Aether power enabling them to heal. When someone is sick or hurt, it belongs to God's plan. If an angel decides to interfere and to go against God's plan by curing that person, the pain is transfer to the angel to keep the balance in the world. This is the reason why they are in pain, they need to pay tribute, healing is not for free.

Here is a passage about Isakael and his relationship with his powers from Demon Soul (chapter 6)

Ayokunle was a cursed baby, every time he wished for something his dream would come true but he would have to go through a lot of pain to get it. It had already happen with his wings and had reminded Isakael of the traumatic experience he had to go through himself while his own wings were growing. He had flown the house every morning unable to bear the cries of the little boy, as his healing powers had been useless on the cursed wings.

The demons at the contrary broke their contract with God. As they are having a difficult life a part of it is to get powers that are not directly given to them but written in their genes, they come like an infantile decease difficult to survive as the idea was to limit the number of demons breeding and filling the world. So they accumulate the pain through the training they have to go through and for the survivors, the reward is to be able to use their powers without any pain. If they interfere with God's plan it doesn't matter because when breaking their contract they obtained free will.

The ebooks of Demon Soul has been updated don't forget to go grab it

Demon Soul the making of part 5: Why do the novel have a lot of little personal stories?

In Demon Soul, there is a lot of "side stories" for secondary characters. I'm building a world here. Even though the main plot is about the relationship between Brownie and the soul that was stolen by demons, I don't want to make to story only about her love story. Here is why and also the reason why I think it's really important to have well developed secondary characters.

So at the beginning of the story, Brownie is left by her lover who can't recognize her as his soul has been stolen (see relation between soul and memory here) then there were two choices left to me. 

My first choice was to send Brownie to a lonely apartment were she can cry her eyes out and grudge against fate and try to build back her life and to find a way to get the soul back. There are a lot of story like this where you get stuck with a character who has lost everything and trying to get by on his/her own. I wrote one of them with a depressed main character who end up in the middle of a mystery. (It's called Harajuku Kiss, no demon and no magic here, it's a detective story).

My second choice was to send Brownie back to a very crowded place where she has responsibilities and other problems to deal with. Isn't it what every body faces in their daily life? Even when you are going through a hard time emotionally you still have to face reality, daily work, daily cores, daily people. I wanted to give that to Brownie and that's why I ended up with so many characters including some who are here only for one or two paragraphs.

I think this book is to be taken like life. Yesterday I went to the bank, someone helped me do some money transfer, I don't remember her face or her name but I know she is still working their and might recognize her if I go back. In my book, characters are like people. Around you there are people you interact with at all time and some who just appear for few minutes. The woman who stopped by to tell me in which side of the mail box to put my letter was useful, in a novel I might have put the letter in the mail box directly, it save time and space but I think small interaction are still important and I don't thing we should deny this to our reader just to make things pretty. Life is messy, if they can take it daily, they can take it while reading. It made me smile to have someone helping me even though it was maybe not needed. Some of my characters might be forgotten after few pages but when you go back and reread the story, they'll still be funny and make you smile when you reach that part. 

Here is a "useless" part in Demon Soul's first chapter for you to enjoy:

Mchumba opened the library door abruptly “Brownie, where are you? It’s time for dinner.”

Mchumba wasn’t the most delicate boy of the house, by far.

“I’m here, I’m coming” Brownie said from the second floor. 
Mchumba ran up the stairs to join her, and grabbed her arm 
“Hurry, we’re having spaghetti. What are you doing with all those books anyway?”

She made her list disappear quickly in her trousers pocket. 
“Nothing really, I’m almost finished. You can go first.”

“No, I’ll help”, Mchumba took the book in her hand and put it on the shelves. “See all done, let’s go.”

“You can’t just put books like that anywhere, or they’ll be lost”, Brownie answered taking the book back and looking for its real place.

“Well it’ll still be in the room so that’s not a problem.” Mchumba laughed.

Brownie shook her head, “That’s not what I mean; you need to place them in alphabetical order, see here.” She placed the book carefully on the shelf “or you won’t be able to find it easily next time you’ll be looking for it.”

Mchumba sighed.
Books are so boring anyway and I’m hungry.”

Brownie laughed.
“You didn’t say that when you were little.”

“I wasn’t the king of hip hop when I was little. You want to see my new move?”

His eyes suddenly brightened and he started to dance in front of her without waiting for her answer. She watched him do tenderly.

“So, do you like it?” he said at the end.

“I love it. Now let’s go for dinner before they eat all the spaghettis.” She said smiling.

Mchumba always needed to show her anything new he learnt and she was good audience.

I think it's important to have well developed secondary characters. Even if you meet them for a very short time it is nice to have information about them and to know how they interact with the main character now or in the past before the story even begin. It has the advantages to make the main character seem more lively and real and creates a background for the main character as well. It also helps the reader understand the main character's reactions and purposes. It also gives you a lot of options some that you can use, some that are left open.
One of my reader's favorite character is Yobi. Yobi could be consider as a useless character. He doesn't help the plot to progress, he doesn't help Brownie in anyway. He is just making a huge mess in the house but he is apparently entertaining enough for someone to chose him as his favorite character and laugh while telling me that while thinking about the story. It might not be the main purpose of the book. I totally wanna yell at everyone who doesn't tell me that Sahel is the best character ever or Dylan, or Viorel or... nah just kidding. But I totally consider that a Writer Win ! I made someone laugh with my novel, I mean: Isn't that the best reward for a writer?

 

Demon Soul the making of part 5: Why is memory linked with the Soul ?

Everybody knows that memory is linked with the brain, we can't recall thing memorized at school if we don't put them in your head no matter the method, either copying or repeating or using a SRS. As they say in English "Do you know his phone number off the top of your head?" meaning that you know it so well that you don't need to think about it for too long to spit it out. 

There are also mnemotechnic to help people recall vocabulary, places, names, phone numbers and so on and so forth... which are tricks that you implement consciously to help yourself memorizing things. 

Other stories talk about people having the memories of their heart -or other organs- transplant donors see for example the Korean drama "Summer scent" or the story of Claire Sylvia. In French we say "learning by heart", meaning about the same as the English "off the top of your head" or "knowing by heart".

Recent research showed as well that memories can be found in the blood and in a lot of different body cells. (I don' remember where I read that.)  

The concept I used in Demon Soul was that the memories were attached to the Soul. The Soul being the carrier of emotions and personality is one of the representation of what makes a human being (or in the present case a demon). Our Soul is our spiritual energy. If we were to loose all our memories, our spiritual energy would somehow be reseted. So taking the opposite configuration, removing the Soul from someone's body would take away the memories. 

I used a second concept which is that once your Soul is torn away from your body, you don't instantaneously loose all your memories. As your Soul is still attached to your consciousness you are still able to recall who you are and what is your surrounding. But you start loosing your newly formed habits and relationships first. As the bounding becomes weaker and weaker however, as the Soul is tortured, the memories fade away more and more quickly with time. This process is the same as when loosing your memories from your past life. The Soul you are carrying and taking care of protect your current life from what happened to you before but in exchange, your body gives energy to your Soul and feed it with the experience and emotion drawn by your surrounding. 

Deprived of its Soul, the body becomes and empty shell. Deprived of the sensations given by the body, the Soul becomes pure spiritual energy waiting for another carrier.

So don't forget to take good care of your Soul.

Demon Soul the making of part 4 : Why do demons' wings change color?

In the last part of the Making of,  I introduced the surprise characters, now I want to introduce more specific details about the characters and their special characteristics. I will be discussion particularities about demons especially as Demon Soul is obviously a story about demons.

If you have already seen the post about Watchers, Nephilim and Hunters for the A-to-Z Challenge, you know by now that in the world I created, the demons are all descendant of angels having lost their glorious white wings but this doesn't meant that demons don't have wings. They have wings looking more like bat wings where you can see the articulations and bones as the wings are now deprived of their white feathers. The wings of the demons are at the top of their back, somewhere on the scapula bones. Just at the junction between the wings and the rest of the body we can find one of the demons' nervous system center. This part of their body is extremely sensitive and one of the highest punishment is to have your wings cut their, obviously without anesthesia, this is the same for the angels. But because this nervous system is at equal distance between the heart and the brain, the blood flow and nerves carry the thoughts and emotions of the demon allowing there wings to change color.

Human being are known to blush is different situation. The demons' wings changing color is about the same principle. However, as demons are able to do magick following the four elements, water, fire, air, and earth, their wings have a broader range of color than a human face. The darker the color the stronger the emotion is. For example having light blue wings mean that the demon is at peace and calm, if the wings turn dark blue, the demon is becoming happier and getting excited. The color for happiness is pink but most of the time it always occurs in flashes.

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