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Now Open: Backstory Help.
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Posts: 1,156,071 Arc User
For those of you who feel.... less than confident of either your ability to write down whats in your head, or just getting a good idea of that awsome character/power/name idea that you really want to flesh out...
In either case, or if you just want someone to privately bounce ideas off of....
*sets up lemonade stand looking stand*
We're here to help
*puts up little sign on a nail "Wont throw brick at honest customers"*
:cool:
{edit:}
If you're new to the boards, or this thread, Ive seen quite a few threads asking for help lately.
There are many people in the community willing to help, and it might cut back on clutter a little if we post all the "Requests" in one place...
In either case, or if you just want someone to privately bounce ideas off of....
*sets up lemonade stand looking stand*
We're here to help
*puts up little sign on a nail "Wont throw brick at honest customers"*
:cool:{edit:}
If you're new to the boards, or this thread, Ive seen quite a few threads asking for help lately.
There are many people in the community willing to help, and it might cut back on clutter a little if we post all the "Requests" in one place...
Post edited by Archived Post on
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If I wasn't too darn stubborn, I'd come to you for help.
I may cave in the end, but for now I'm going to toil on.
But soon I may be coming to you for help.
if you just need someone to bounce ideas off of, I can do that too.. just send a PM
but that means I have time again, if anyone else wants a sounding board or some help
further... having three voices, I imgine you'll have one of the two classic triads? (good, evil, neutral / id,ego,super ego)
I would suggest that Amaya be spoken in plain white colored text (the default is a light shade of grey) it makes her stand out as being "normal but more" when she speaks.
If you have a subconscious (uninhibited) voice, use a darker than standard grey, italicized, like a voice in her head... if, rather, you have an "evil" voice... make it red italicized...
if the other is moral compass, make it pale blue italicized, if its more "good", keep the color but leave the text plain...
it really depends on how you wish to play out the conversations between your three personae, and the conversations between them and other characters....
if the other two voices are only audible to Amaya, and she in turn is the voice that everyone hears, reguardless of which "voice" is speaking... speak boldly with the positive/moral force, and italicized in the negative/uninhibited voice...
if all three speak openly... keep their coordination in all cases.
helpful?
So ya the italicized thing would definitely work and it could also show her struggling with her inner demons
bold will be, obviously, bold, strong, proud.....
use color to identify the speaker..... blue for the one, red for the other... purple for both? something intuitive along those lines.
use italics and bolds to identify tone... (when the good guy is talking in a sly, seedy tone... or when the devil is speaking out bold and righteous... we give more depth and interest to whats being said.)
This is assuming that the personalities are distinct enough from one another for this to be possible. If two of the three are "nice" then you may want to give them unique characteristics so the readers will be able to tell the two apart based solely on what's written. Or you could use the font, but again I think it's better if the personalities distinguish themselves.
If we were talking about a novelization, id be inclined to agree with you, but ive always seen this form of fan fiction as, in essence, a graffic novel without pictures. with that In mind, visual ques are common elements to convey information to your readers without haivng to explicitly state it in the body of the piece.
feel free to speak up on anything discussed here, Ammy... and if those community members who PM me are ok with it, i'll pass what they've said, or anything ive edited, added, or thought up on to you as well.
That'd be cool. Would be a nice chance to flex my creative muskles in a way that would actually help people fully realize their concepts which, if you can't order your thoughts well enough on your own, I'm sure is super frustrating. In fact, I know it is because I've had times where I just sit and stare at my computer for like an hour, stuck on a certain part of an essay or something for no good reason.
Anyway, I'm getting off track a bit. What I'm getting at is, I'd be glad to help, and will always stay open to the (for the lack of a better word) client's input, and stay true to their concept. This does, however, mean I'll have to acquaint myself with the Champions lore to be able to form more integrated ideas. :eek:
As an added note in advance to the clients, if you ever feel that I am getting too far off your concept, or you don't like the direction I'm taking, by all means tell me...this is your character after all.
PS to Ghost: Not sure if that was more in response to my post there or the PM I sent you asking if you needed help, but I did send you a PM on the topic in case you missed it.
If anyone has any questions about style for writing (like Frank did), or need some help fleshing about a backstory, or need some help comming up with a "cool" or "interesting" way that your character discovered/aquired their powers...
Or you just want to make sure someone actually reads all that stuff you bothered to write down (and you arent worried about some constructive criticism)..
Drop us a line, here.... Or send a Private Message.... We're here to help
I'm working through all the INCREDIBLE suggestions I was given.
As soon as I get through this last swamp of papers and finals, I'll be able to get to work writing down the origins for my team and characters.
If you have any questions or just need some advice, GhostHack is the one to ask.
We were able to work together (I say work together, I just described my character basically) and come up with some great back stories and such. I feel like I was really able to use them as a springboard and develop some people I had really been struggling with for a while.
Thanks again Ghost!
by the way there are a great many creative people more than willing to help all you have to do is ask someone.
Complete jump here but:
Has anyone else watched the "Magic Bullet" infomercial? It's mesmerizing, me and my roommate ended up watching the entire thing, from start to finish one morning, we missed class and didn't even notice. 2 other guys wandered into the room and they were trapped too. It's so...so...perfect. All the things it can do.
It's a good thing I don't have any money, or I would have bought one. But then I started dating a girl and she has one and it is pretty darn awesome, as is she, so double bonus! (Fruit Smoothies for the win!)
As a sidenote: There is so much talent on these boards it is ridonkulous. I'm afraid my creative writing skills have atrophied under the oppressive collar of the scientific world. That's why I wen to GhostHack for help.
That's
G-H-O-S-T and then Hack, for all your writing needs ! *thumbs up*
"No respect." ; ;
Just playing of course, I've still yet to have the opportunity to help with anything. The respect comes later.
sorry, couldn't help myself.
My lips are sealed.
I've got a character in my head I've been tinkering with, Thundress.
She's sort've a harken back to the old school heroes, but not the cheesey sivler age comics style. Think DC: The New Frontier. One of those supers who loves what she does, cares about people, will face any foe with a confident smile, that sort of thing.
Now, her powers [which hopefully I'll be able to pull off in the game] are Super Strength, Flight, Sonic Screams, and Electricity control. The problem is, I can't figure out WHERE these powers came from.
At the moment I'm tinkering with the idea of her being from the south and having a very slight southern dialect to her speech. You can get a small feel for the character from my story about her and her nemesis which is here in this forum. Just do a search for my previous posts, it's pretty easy to spot.
Anyway, what I need is to find an explanation for her powers. I'm leaning towards a magical explanation for her powers. One thought I had was she could have something like native america shamanism as a blood line in her family heritage.
I'm open to suggestions of any sort of origin so feel free to toss 'em out there!
As for your power assortment...I'd say that's one of the most realistic hopes for powers to be included in the game that I've seen yet. I'd say you have nothing to worry about, especially considering CoX had powersets for each of those.
*EDIT* PM #1 sent. Tell me what you think.
are we talking summoning lightning bolts from thin air (elec blast/support) or something more subtle... like being able to short circuit electronics...
I assume by "control" you're having the idea of her tazering an enemy or stunning them with her voice, then pulverizing them.
My best idea, off the top of my head... is that she is able to charge/control subatomic particles, and amplify that charge through the sympathetic wave phenomenon...using her voice
basically she creates static electricty with her voice... and having such a perfect control over her vocal capabilities could easily enable her to control said electricity, as well as use her voice against an enemy... shattering his eardrums, sending him unconscious, shattering internal organs, simply by reverberating sympathetic vibrations until she gets the desired effect.
her "super strength" is her bodies natural ability to withstand the forces she contains in herself (like a biologic soundproofing) making her both exceptionally dense and strong, but resistant to mind control of varying sorts.
flying is simply a matter of slowing and condensing the particles below her feet/body into a thin, invisible platform , and then supercharging the particles beneith the platform.... sort of like jet exaust.
as for "how" she has these powers... with a clearly defined (if obscure and bizzare) reason for all these things being possible, its easy enough to apply them to any origin...
she could have been born like this, she could have aquired a magical talisman of the banshee, it could be a technological machine (ala weirding modules from dune), it could be a scientific experement on vocal capabilities (trying to see if there was a way to make it so anyone could "sing like an opera singer").... it could be mystical... either through one of a number of demigods, through some atunement with nature as a whole (Shamanism meets science, as we dont control elements anymore, we control the building blocks of elements.)
thats just the first thing that popped in my head... and it might be a little loopy....
but I havent read your write up yet, so i'll drop you a PM when I have, to update, revise, or throw out this idea
Either way, I wasn't going to pursue her powers too much until she replied to my PM and provided a bit more clarification so I could narrow my train of thought a bit. :P
i just always seem to go for the most cimplicated pseudo science reason.... well, not always but if I can make it work, I try ;P
Through some cruel twist of fate, jsut minutes after I posted my request for help last night I actually thought of a potential source/origin for her powers. I'll flesh it out a bit in my head during class and share it when I get back home.
I might have to incorporate a bit of the ideas you've both given so far they're really intriguing to me. My one hesitation with science origins is that I've studied alot more about history and mythology, so I feel far more comfortable writing that realm than I do in a pseudo-science one.
to me, though.. for magic to work, it has to effect something... fire has to be burning something... it had to be caused by something, and requires things to continue...
same with "sonic" voices, same with electricity....
"Lightning GO!" bothers me... theres more to lightning than that... its alive, its nearly impossible to control... you arent simply lighting a match, you're creating a chain of positive and negative molecules in the air to channel built up energy in one location, towards an uncharged object in another location...
Certainly, everything can simply be "Explained away" by magic.... but Im not an "explained away" sort of person.... Im an "explained" sort of person... and even if the science is a little shoddy from a technical expert's point of view.. it has enough "reality" behind it to maintain some real world validity
(i.e. rather than having the power to summon lightning at will, the character has the ability to effect the charge and polarity of the molecules in the nearby air... the application of which, enables the character to summon lightning bolts, or punch their enemies with a molecularly super-charged punch thats crackling with static electricity.)
In order to type, I need to control my fingers. Even if I do consciously think "I'm going to hit the A key", I'm not telling each muscle in my fingers, wrists, and so on what to do, I merely have the intention to move my fingers and hit the A key, and my body does the rest outside of conscious effort. Otherwise we'd all have to have pretty intricate knowledge of human anatomy just to function, in order to know what muscle to move in what order and whatever. That would make life pretty freaking difficult...can you imagine having to keep track of your jaw and throat muscles while eating or drinking?
So does she mean to control all the particles and whatnot explicitly? Or just she just find out that she can control lightning without knowing the process, and uses it to help people? That question could reflect the degree of control she has over the more intricate parts of her powers, as well as her overall knowledge of lightning period. This, in turn, would leave more room for growth later on in the hero's career, learning more about how her own powers work and thus becoming more powerful through finding more applications of the first parts of the process rather then the end result "lightning".
By the same token, the "lightning" could be of magical origin, which leaves it so open-ended and up to personal creativity. It could be created out of nothing (ie: "magicked" into existence), or out of some unknown energy from some alternate dimension that you harness or something. Or it could be the manifestation of "mana", or whatever other name you have for generic magical energy, that for her, like a fingerprint due to lineage (or any other of a myriad of reasons you could come up with), just happens to resemble earthly lightning in every aspect. An example of this would be the common notion in fantasy that dragon's fire is somehow more potent then normal fire, even though technically I don't think that should make sense. Fire is fire, yet when you bring magical elements into it, it doesn't have to be earthly fire to act like it.
On the other hand, using my earlier suggestion of being the daughter of a Muse, the lightning would quite possibly be as natural for her character as moving a finger, which again could imply that she doesn't know the more intricate aspects, yet is still able to shoot lightning.
Having said all this, I don't really prefer one origin over another...I just use what's appropriate for whatever character happens to pop into my head at the time, and I try to keep those varied. They're all interesting for different reasons...science ones from the perspective of pushing mundane logic and theoretical science to it's creative limits; magic because of the unearthly qualities and sheer volume of ways you could spin it; natural abilities due to mutations, or being an alien or something is interesting from a more personal aspect of the character itself; technology/gadgets are always fun because, like science, it pushes theoretical technology to it's creative limits, and also reflects great intelligence on the part of the character if (s)he's the on making it all.
*EDIT* After all this, it occurs to me that all you really had reservations with was the ability to explain the powers, not their origin in particular. Nevertheless, I think I've helped that by providing a few general explanations for how magic could work, and not just spontaneously "Go lightning go!" people to death, even if the character themselves thinks that's all there is too it.
if the character has ALWAYS had the ability, then yes, it should be as natural to do as picking up a pencil.. but that control has nothing to do with the how its done.
there are only two possible hows (when you boil it down...everything else is cosmetic)
either the character is able to directly manipulate the world around them to cause a particular effect.(speeding up, slowing down molecules...changing polarity, destablizing molecular structure)
or there is absolutly no logical way to explain it, it is simply magic (Saying SHAZAM)
so, the first step in the process, is to determine.... "DO we care what the character is doing to make this happen?" (how the hell does storm "control" the weather?)
if the answer is "yes, I care how its possible for the character to do these things" then you have to make an explaination from a scientific viewpoint an.... cut it down to fit your origin
if the answer is "No", then simply say what she can do... and use the character's origin to "explain away" her abilities (she can do all these things because....shes a mutant/demigod/magician/rediculously awsome gadgeteer, whatever...)
If the Science, if the "pheasability" dont matter.... then anything is possible...
think Superman.... nothing in his origin *justifies* his portfolio of abilities. he simply has them, its magic (the fact that the magic has something to do with being around a different colored sun, doesnt stop it from being magic)
now look at Spiderman, granted he has a BS justification for how the accident happened (a radioactive spider, would be too dead to bite anything) but look at where its taken.... The spiderbite infects Parker with radioactive neurotoxing, that alters his genetic structure, giving him certain qualities of the spider (well, its old comics, so he got "spiders in general"... only thing that the Movie did right, imo.. super spider, much better science)
the reason, though Bogus, is scientifically sound... it isnt "magic", he has specific powers based on the events of his origin. it isnt particularly complicated (I doubt it went into the junk DNA and RNA splicing et al) because his creator just cut away everything that was bulky and unnecessary....
Since Chiro came here asking "where do all these powers come from?"
but its really up to Chiro, in the sense.... "do we care why shes able to do these things?" (i.e. do flying,sonic voice, electricity, super strength have to be related in terms of "Function".... or "theme")
All I was trying to say, in a very long-winded and ineffectively-roundabout sort of way, is that just because she's able to wield lightning doesn't imply that the character knows the finer points of how she does it (replying to your talk of particles), whether or not the author does. So if you have a reason for it in your head, it doesn't necessarily mean you have to reveal it (or at least not right away). It just means that you have to limit how your character uses their power according to the system of how it works in your head. Delving into the inner workings of it, or arguably even the origins of it, doesn't have to come right away if the author is more interested in writing adventures in which they're already an established hero, without initially revealing their origins from the get-go. Which, while it isn't always the way I'd pursue it, is an equally respectable way to do things, especially if there's a flashback arc later on or something, in which you finally get to learn about the character you've grown to love. I do enjoy those.
My main point here is that, no matter how intricately the author may know the system surrounding the character's power, if the character herself doesn't, then it would be hard to give an opportunity to really explain how it all works without being awkwardly stuck into the story.
the writer HAS to know. you cannot write what you dont know... If you want to talk about her powers in any detail (something more imaginative than "lightning cracked, badguy dies") you, the writer and the narrator have to know how this is all happening...
And this is to everyone who needs help with their writing. One simple fact that you, as a writer, must always take into account:
as a writer, you are the GOD of your story (whether there are Gods in your story or not) You know everything about everything within the world you've created. What you say, is.
If you say water freezes in the middle of the afternoon, then it DOES....reguardless of what makes logical sense to your reader.
So dont ever say that you "dont know" how something works, or how something happened.... YOU will always know... your characters may not.
Sorry, I should have elaborated a bit more that time (ironically). What I meant was, yes, you have to know what's going on and write/describe accordingly, but your character can't explain what they don't know, or intentionally use their powers in a way that they shouldn't be able to know how to do yet, according to your concept.
For example, if your concept is a kid clumsily learning about their power to manipulate fire, then it wouldn't make sense for your character, being clumsy with their powers, to intentionally burn an intricate pattern of char marks in the shape of an artistic rose.
Conversely, if your concept is a kid learning how to learn their power to manipulate fire, and they have a real talent for it, then being able to do this sort of thing with it would make much more sense.
In both cases the author knows just as much about how the power works, but since the characters themselves, as part of their concept, have differing ability levels at the this point in time, then it wouldn't make sense for them to be able to perform as well as each other.
Sorry about that...thankfully my fictional writing is better then my ability to explain myself like this. Hopefully I got my point across better this time around.
In the event that yet again I explained myself badly, just know that we're pretty much on the exact same page, and that I actually do know what I'm doing, I just can't seem to get it out well enough at the moment. lol
If I implied this at all, I so didn't mean to. :eek:
lol...I'm starting to really hope you read the links I put into that one PM before so you don't think I'm as nooby as I think I'm making myself sound right now o_O; *shakes fist at finals*
Wish I'd been here to clarify.
To be specific what I'm looking for is an origin as in 'When the powers manifested/how she got them' I'm not looking for a how she uses them. Actually on that point, I tend to side with the DC books over the Marvel books. I don't give a flying rat patotie HOW Spider-man can cling to walls. He's spider-man, he can cling to walls. That's all I care about.
Superman ha super powers as long as he's exposed to yellow sun rays. That's enough for me, I don't need to know if they super charge his molecules, or if he soaks in the UV light ala photosynthesis or anything like that. It's unimportant to me.
I may be AWARE that it is something like that, but it's not something I need to drive home more than once.
In Thundress's case, she can generate electricity. Could be an electrical aura around her body, could be a lightening bolt, could be she generates a electrical burst in her fist as she punches someone resulting in an effect similar to being shot with a taser.
Whether she does this by molecular manipulation or the lightening simply is 'there' really doesn't mean a whole lot to me. Like I said, I'm more a magic type than a science type. "Thundress can harness electricity" is all I need to understand.
Really what I'm looking more for though is not how she does all this but what caused her to be able to. Bombarded by electro-gamma radiation? Blessed by Zeus? Total mystery ability she realized she had when she was a girl? Years of training to harness her own inner will and manifest it?
That sort of deal.
I'm fairly settled on the idea that she's an Archaeologist under her civilian identity (still trying to think of a good name). Currently I'm kicking around the idea of her finding 'The Well of the elements' during an archaeological dig.
Where would she keep them? Well, maybe they magically fuse to her soul and therefore can't be stolen or lost conventionally, and their effectiveness could potentially be tied to her confidence, or emotional state.
Or, for a less wacky approach, she could just wear them as jewlery, carry them around in a pouch/bag, etc.
The beauty here is that, despite my earlier talk of greek/roman mythology, the artifacts can be theoretically be from any civilization, so if you're still holding onto your shamanism idea, you'd easily be able to incorporate that into this.
I think you either need to expand upon the "elements" she can manifest.... or say that she is specifically "electricity" (i.e. element, not elements)
either works, but she should be Lightning's Child.... or the Daughter of the Elements.... right now, she is the first, but is called the second...
As for how she would "aquire" her abilities....Archeologists are not adventurers (Indy withstanding). It seems more unique and more interesting to say that since she aquired her abilities, she has taken up Archeology as a means of "getting away from it all" (traveling all over the world, living out of a suitcase, uncovering lost pieces of history...)
and lets break from greece and Statesman's Well of the Furies model.....
I'd like to see our Thundress bewitching Indra, King of the Deva (Gods and spirits of great power in Hindu) Though she doesnt outright deny him... she hasnt said yes yet....
To show his love (Not merely ammorus intentions, Not at all!) he has given her Marut Ahmbar, a spirit of storms and lightning as a gift. The Marut embues his mistress with preternatural strength, flight, and the ability to summon terrible displays of voltaic force.
Rather than being subdued by this gift of god-like power... Thundress uses her abilities to help out her fellow humans... reveling in the power at her disposal, and the good fortune the admiration of a God can bestow...
It adds a bit of grounding for the character... she isnt a leaf in the wind, she has her life, her hero work, and her social life thats in a constant state of chaos (being Woo'ed by a God isnt easy... especially when hes taking you to hanging gardens in the middle of the night when you have work in the AM..... not to mention what he did to that cute guy from IT who bought you starbucks.... Stupid dieties... always so jealous.)
Since it's been brought up a few times now a list of Thundress' powers:
Superstrength - Complete the physique, think Powergirl's muscle tone.
Sonic powers - Screams, vibrative shock, Vertigo, etc. [The Strength and Sonics are what brings the Thunder part of her motiff.]
Flight - Can't really have a storm elemental controller without flight, now can I?
Electrical Harnessing/Control - Lightening bolts, taser punches, electircal 'armor' which would repel bullets and other metallic weaponry, and generally force melee attacks to be reconsidered.
I'm also considering the super strength might have something to do with the element of earth, which could also help explain her durability rather than the electrical armor.
As Amadeus said, I plan for her to have room to 'grow' in her range of powers, hence the 'Daughter of the Elements' title. I'm not sure what further powers she might gain but I don't want to take the option away from her.
( again this is a rushed explanation, as I'm doing this while studying.)
Again, this is if you wanted her job so connected to the origin of her powers, but in her travels she could come across different artifacts, maybe even ancient temples, in which she finds her powers. Inhabiting each artifact/temple would be an elemental spirit of X element. Each spirit would have it's own personality, so some may try to have her prove herself to them, show them she's worthy of the power; others would be more lenient and trusting, etc.
Another possible idea to help justify the spirits' cooperation could be that she's a "Chosen One" of sorts, which could actually end up coining her title "Daughter of the Elements". Her innate, natural gift/power would be the ability to locate/sense the presence of nearby artifacts/elemental spirits.
Justification for her travels: In the world they all live in, where magic is a proven fact, it wouldn't be hard to imagine that there would be experts in the field of ancient magical artifacts, rituals, temples, etc. To justify her going to all these different places, she could be an authority in this field of study, and would therefore at times be asked to accompany new, groundbreaking expeditions in the field or what have you.
I've come up with 6 ideas this afternoon and scrapped them all for various reasons.
I may have finally narrowed down what I want.
Working on a quick story of it now but to give you twoa roug hrun down in case you have any input I'm currently thinking of playing off an ancient myth of how Rain Dances started.
My current notion is she gets into a car accident which totals her vehicle as a thunderstorm hits. She is thrown clear of the accident and seeks shelter in a nearby cave till the storm passes and she can get a signal on her cell. In the cave she finds wall paintings depicting a storm and dancers. She's cold and wet and she needs to warm up. She's had training in dance as a girl, so she decides it's as good a way as any to try and warm herself up.
This invokes an ancient rite, empowering her with the spirit of earth and storms [hence being in a cave during a thunderstorm].
Alternatively roomie suggested her powers could be hereditary, passed from mother to daughter, so it could be sort of a mystic blessing on her family that allows it.
I also considered that this could actually go right along with the cave idea, the cave incident could just be what brought her powers to the surface.
Thoughts, feedback, suggestions?
then if she ends up there after a terrible accident, it feels more like fate, than coincidence.
this one's going to come down to personal aesthetics, I think... you definately seem to want her powers to be perminantly grafted onto her... i.e. more States than Green Lantern.
I like the native slant... but you've bult up Daisy Duke in your inital story, and your general discription...
that doesnt strike me as shamanistic native... not even witch doctor...
I'd be worried about trying to smash too many ideas into one character... there's plenty there for many characters... main characters my be complicated people but they're easy to understand, to relate with.... you want to be wary of making "who she is" too complex for readers to get behind...
Fair point there, I do want to avoid having her come across to heavy handed in the back story department.
I am definitely going for a permanent powers deal. Much more a fan of that than the 'items of power' concept. I am curious where the Daisy duke part comes across?
I want to get rid of that ASAP; unless of course that's just the impression gleaned simply by her manner of speech in which case I suppose I can just chalk it up to how everyone seems to assume if you've got a southern accent you're automatically a simple country type.
Gods knows it's made people under estimate me before based on my voice. On the other hand, if some part of her attitude implied that I definitely need to work on it. Part of the humor I'm wanting to work into her is to have a smart woman with that southern drawl because everyone seems to think drawl = dumb and I want to counter act that perception.
That's an easy fix though, if you turn the car accident into an accident on a camping trip. She could have gone camping on her own as a little personal retreat or something, gone kayaking and run into some rough waters in which her kayak is smashed and she's lucky enough to get out without anything broken (bumps and bruises would be a different story). On her long trek back to her car (the rough waters happened pretty far downstream from where she parked?), a storm starts up. She figures it's still a good distance away, and finds a cave along the way. She takes shelter in it and blah blah blah, you basically said the rest. Next day she makes it back to her car and all is well.
As for the Daisy Duke thing, I don't remember getting that impression, I'd have to read it again to be sure. However, assuming she did come off that way, that could end up just being a ploy on her part when confronts villains, to give them the ol' false sense of security. That would be passable since a good majority, if not the entirety of your story so far was in the presence of Vorlock and the press.
"One of those supers who loves what she does, cares about people, will face any foe with a confident smile, that sort of thing. "
combined with
"“Parhdon me, sir.” Strong reply in a soft southern drawl. “You’re interruptin’ the convention!”
and
" “I’ll take him outta here and y’all can get back to your convention. Ah do hope you won’t let this spoil your opinion of Union City, we’d certainly be pleased ta see y’all back again next year. Ai promise, next time, it won’t get interrupted by yoohoos that look like they stepped out of a Flash Gordon serial.”
nothing wit or intelligent to break the stereotype, just the sunny south and a "perky" disposition. Daisy Duke, competent, clever, gorgeous, and "Southern Belle" tattooed on her forehead.
if you want to break a stereotype, you have to really break it.
Hmm. I guess there's nothing I can do about that then. That really doesn't make me think Daisy Duke at all, so I suppose in that case it's just personal view point rather than the general writing. Thanks for the observation though, Ghost, it is something I'll want to keep in mind.
Oh, and I like that camping idea Amadaeus, thanks, I'm running with that one!
Hey there man. Just chipping in my two cents.
1.) One of my main characters is a female super-genius from the deep South. So I understand trying to have a Southern character with a respectable intellect
2.) I'm from Georgia, my girlfriend is from rural SC. I'll be graduating soon with honors with a Pre-Med degree in Public Health Science. She'll be graduating with honors with a double degree in Biological sciences and Botany. We BOTH get shunned all the time by people from up North, simply because of the way we talk. Unfortunately, the stigma of "dumb redneck" is still around today. It definitely requires an extra effort to make people see past the fact that I say things a little slower and a little more country. You're going to have to make sure she comes across as capable and throws off the stigma some people associate with the gorgeous southern accent.
If you've ever watched the original Dukes of Hazzard show, Daisy was VASTLY different from Jessica Simpson's rendition. Daisy is smart and resourceful, ever so polite, and an incredibly sweet girl, with a gifted tongue. She could sweet talk when she needed to. Jessica Simpson came across as a bimbo.
While not nearly as intense as your experience, I can't tell you how many times I was asked if I liked hockey, or especially if I spoke fluent french, just because I'm canadian and happen to have a french last name (went to high school in the states). I laughed to myself every damn time.
@ Ghost: Aha, that makes your last comment make much more sense. Admittedly I was confused because, having never watched the show or movie, I always just figured her character was the stereotype.
Still, even before all this I was struggling with it, and now I'm struggling alot more with the idea of whether I even want her to have that accent. As I think about it, it might be more fitting to have the accent be a 'slip up' sort of thing!
I mean, I don't always talk like some southern gentry, it just comes out when I get fired up about something. I could probably maintain the southern roots to her just through the phrases she uses, I wouldn't have to make her lay on the thick dialect. It could just be something that comes out when somebody really ticks her off. It could act as a warning flag of sorts, if she starts talking like Rogue or Daisy Duke it's time to get out of her way!
Also, I just thought of this while writing, but that actually creates some symmetry between her and Vorlock. In your story the reporters commented on his tendency to slip in and out of his own accent, which in turn, got him angry and made for a comedically entertaining scene.
Thundress has the accent deal as well, though her anger is the warning sign, as opposed to the result. Granted, comments on it probably wouldn't help the situation either.
Either way...neither of them would be too happy for a third party to comment on this being a similarity between them. But you didn't hear that from me.
as far as the character not coming across shamanistic .. if the powers are geneticly pased down then the girl could quite honestly be unaware of her heritage I know you are probably running with the camping trope