“Something’s up with you.”
Mercy glanced over without turning his head. The fire didn’t quite reach Walsh’s face, just a red flicker against his pale eyes. “I’m lying on a big-ass rock and I haven’t showered in days. Yeah. Something’s up.”
One slow shake of Walsh’s head: not buying it. “You slipped out of dinner the other night.”
“For a smoke.”
His brows went up. “You need to be very careful, brother. If you like young ones, that’s your business–”
Mercy put a bite into his voice, one Walsh would know wasn’t bullshit. “Yeah, it is.”
“ – but Ava, that’s a whole other issue.”
Mercy glared at him.
Anyone else would have caved and looked away, but not Walsh. “I’m just saying, is all. I’m the first one to notice. But I won’t be the last.”
While I was writing Fearless, I was already envisioning stories starring the rest of the Dogs, and that definitely flavored the amount of attention I paid all the secondary characters when I wrote scenes like this one. Obviously, I didn't share everything I already knew about Walsh here, but knowing him inside and out helped me craft Mercy's perception of him. Secondary characters serve first and foremost to provide outsider perspective for a hero, but if that's the only way an author views a character, the characterization inevitably falls flat. That's how you end up with "sidekicks." With secondary characters who either throw up roadblocks for the sake of plot, or who serve as a hero's "yes man." Your main characters then feel very main charactery, and everyone else is cardboard high school play props. Conversely, fleshed-out secondary characters with their own agency and agendas increase the tension in a realistic way.
On a lighter note: the campfire scene is my favorite of Chapter Nineteen because, as was inevitable, people are starting to notice. Mercy and Ava have zero chill when it comes to one another. An outside observer who is busy, or caught up in his own thoughts all the time (*cough* Ghost *cough*) won't notice, but the quiet, thoughtful people in their sphere are definitely picking up on the vibes.
The next scene is Ava's first day back at school, and the meeting she has with Maggie, the principal, and the guidance counselor. It was important to me that we get to see Maggie's maternal ferocity on-page. Ava's still young here, and still has timid moments - at least around adult authority figures. But it's no wonder she turns out as fierce as she does as a mother given her own mother's fanged approach to dealing the school on Ava's behalf.
Mullins aimed a wagging finger at Maggie. “That attitude right there is why Ava’s having trouble getting along with her classmates.”
Maggie fired back. “That attitude is the only thing that gives my baby hope that she isn’t alone when it comes to dealing with the spoiled Mean Girls who run schools all across this damn country. You can run this place, Mullins” – she gestured to the room around them, the school – “but you can’t run my family. You keep Ainsley Millcott away from my Ava, and you and me won’t have a problem.”
This scene, and others like it, provide an interesting opportunity: in a novel in which the outlaw MC was painted as villainous, Maggie's blunt, threatening approach with Mrs. Mullins would rightfully paint Maggie as the bad guy. But my approach with Dartmoor has always been that, if I'm writing from the MC's perspective, then they don't see themselves as villains, and my characterization of them should always be intimate and sympathetic. We the audience know that Mrs. Mullins and Mr. Freeman are seeing someone who is essentially a mob wife use said mob as a threat against public school employees. But we're sitting in that chair with Ava, and we share Maggie's outrage that Ava is treated differently not just by students, but by teachers and administrators as well, because of her background. We also, like Ava and Maggie, know a faint prickling of fear that Ava will be denied opportunities, or even harmed, by a principal's prejudice.
No comments:
Post a Comment