WEEK TWENTY-TWO OF THE SURVEY FOR AUTHORS!QUESTIONS ARE HERE!
Today's question: Tell us about one scene between your characters that you've never written or told anyone about before! Serious or not.
Argh. I'm not a writer who does much mental writing before actually writing it down, so I don't have a whole lot to say about this, but really the only thing I am comfortable saying here is regarding a book I'm going to write later.
Once upon a time (okay, 1997) I wrote a short story called "Brady" in which the protagonist, Megan, was socially isolated and liked it that way, and when a popular boy began to pay attention to her and confessed that he hated popularity, she began to slowly ease him out of the popular crowd--but not because she actually WANTS to, or wants anything to do with Brady, really. Brady, of course, takes a liking to Megan and starts pressuring her for a relationship, and she fights that whole thing tooth and nail. When she does eventually spend time with him outside school, they have to acknowledge that they actually DON'T have a romantic connection, and Megan learns that actually guys can be your friends.
I'm planning to rewrite that short story as a novel, explicitly casting Megan as an asexual lesbian. She'll realize this in the course of the story and the whole Brady thing will happen, and she'll have other connections too as she pursues her aspirations of getting into art school and deals with some home problems while living with her emotionally abusive older sister.
One scene I planned to write but have not written (well, because I haven't written any of it) involves Megan and Brady having an argument in which Brady accuses her of immaturity because she will not open up to him. It's true (and Brady knows it's true) that because Megan was an early bloomer and started getting male attention way before she was ready, she did some very deliberate things to make herself unattractive and unapproachable, and Brady now believes she should be "getting over" and "getting past" what happened to her and believes her lack of warmth toward him as a potential boyfriend is rooted in her reactionary behavior.
Megan, for her part, is hurt over this, and she sputters something about how his demand for her to "open" suggests he views her as some kind of "closed child," and when she utters the phrase "I am not a closed child," something about it strikes both of them as funny. They start talking about how that phrase may have never been uttered before. And Brady thinks if he ever starts a band it's going to be called "Closed Child." Megan hits him playfully. Brady replies by saying it looks like she's learning to flirt.
And she's mad all over again.
Surprise!
I like these characters. :)
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