Human?
Thanks to my brother I may possibly have a title, at least a working one, for my novel. He suggested the title Human? with a question mark. He chose it based on the main themes in the story and also some of the songs I used to describe what each main character is searching for. For example Tristan and Eris are each looking for love, but their primary focus is on finding themselves on a deeper level, a spiritual level. The Killers’ song Human really reflects what is going on in both of their minds. So my brother suggested my book share the title of the song. I’m not sure if its gonna stick. Especially since so much is changing in the story all the time. Well, the storyline is pretty solid, but I have added a new character, Jake “JR”…..I don’t have his last name yet. Jake wasn’t even supposed to make it past the first two chapters. But I let my brother read part of my first draft and he said Jake needs to stay since it adds another level of conflict that can be uniquely resolved.
Overall I’m excited and I plan on having all of the first draft complete by March 2009 and to have it self-published by my (perpetual 21st) birthday June 30th of ‘09.
Its a lot of work, but I’m so in love with my characters I can’t let them down. Also I intended it to just be a simple one volume story. However, even the length has changed and by the looks of it each book will be around 400-500 pages, with a total of at least 3 books. I know, I’m sick just thinking about writing it too. The sheer volume of information I have created is insane. I’ve even created an entire history that happened before the existence of any of the main characters, but is essential for their stories to take place. I’ll probably touch on this info in the first book near the end, and this will set the events of the second and third books into motion, but I’ll probably, or at least like to, write the prequel, or rather a real world text containing the history I’ve made up, which Eris and Tristan discover in their world.
There’s just a lot of loops, mythologies, and relationships that are very complex, and I’m tackling a lot of important themes like Religion, Love, Sexual Orientation, Gender Roles, Race/Other and Age, so I have a pile of food on my plate, but I’m happy to eat it…
Overall I’m excited, though you can’t tell by looking at my face, you’d probably assume exasperation.
Anyway one thing that keeps me going is finding out what my characters look like in real life. Basically I like to chose models/actors that I think embody what I have imagined. It also helps me write out their descriptions since its a little easier to write about characteristics while I look at an actual photo rather than just my head.
So Here are some of the models I’ve been using:
Tristan
Vespasien
JR
Their real names in order from top to bottom are : Buddy, Gaspard Ulliel, and Chad White. Now their better halves (the Women) were particularly difficult to find models for, and I’m still struggling. Mainly because the women are based on specific real-ife people I know personally, and I can’t post their pictures, but I also can’t find models who look like them. The men were easier because each of the male characters are based on combinations of real men I know, so there isn’t one specific face that I focused on. For example Tristan is made up of: My two best friends from my early childhood. One of them is blonde and the other has dark hair, so I just idealized their features and found a model who fit what I wanted. Eris is based on an actual girl, and I want her to look like this specific (real life not model or actress) person, she is a combination of no one, so only that one woman fits her.
I guess Hesper is the only woman I could even come close to, here she is:
Hesper (Ingrid Schram)
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