AU Characters

So some of my characters have originated in the alternate universe and others haven't made their way into the regular universe yet, but Tem was originally an AU character. It's kind of futuristic stuff.

Tem is a time-traveler and she can basically travel through time. Well, she used to be able to do that until Calanon got furious with her for trying to go back and change something in history. She allows Isaiah and Jeremiah Lewis to time-travel with her and sends them all over the place.

Isaiah and Jeremiah Lewis are actually human. None of these other characters are... anyways. They've been anywhere and everywhere in history that I can think of and that's mostly thanks to Tem. They're orphans whose parents were killed in a horrible lab accident. Isaiah's a lot more outgoing than his brother is. Jeremiah's quiet, but very knowledgeable.

Siyamak's a creep. He reminds me of the Child Catcher on Chitty Chitty Bang Bang or of Johnny Depp's version of Willy Wonka. Or really of anything I've seen Johnny Depp as... which is really only one thing, but whatever. Anyways, in his past, he did something incredibly stupid in a fit of rash decision making and he's running away from that. The only one who knows what it is is Kana.

Kana is Siyamak's own worst nightmare. She found out about what he did and she won't let him forget it... and he's holding one of her secrets. So they're constantly at one another's throats about something. She's alright for writing a girl, but she can be a little bit annoying... and a bit of a know-it-all at times. In fact, she reminds me a little bit of Callisto. Sort of.

Hal's the guy who keeps everyone together. He has no idea what Siyamak did or of what Kana's secret is, but he manages to keep Kana alive and Siyamak at least partway sane. Or as sane as one with a horribly tortured past can be. Hal actually has a halfway decent life.

I'm thinking that if I want to write a futuristic dystopian type story, these characters will be the ones to look into using. Them and the rest of the Feconi Order... and lots of other of the AU characters. I'm really not sure and right now I'm just rambling. Hopefully I'll figure out what's going on with the Christmas Eve story later so that I can write more for you guys to read tomorrow or this weekend sometime. That should be fun.

Good night.

Christmas Eve Story Background

I don't really have a lot of time to write something decent, so I'll just give a little background on the Christmas Eve story that I've been working on. Plus, we've had storms and our power at home was out all this morning and I was not necessarily here this evening or I would've blogged earlier.

Anyhow, it takes place in December of 2008, which means that the Fellowship et al have been out of high school for about a year and a half. They're all sophomores in college. Kiran Shasthri, Nate Winters and Danny Turner are all freshmen, though Kiran probably has close to sophomore credit as far as her classes go. Ellie Johnson is a senior in high school and Andy and Elizabeth Liu are juniors. Cassandra is (probably) in eighth grade, though I'm not 100% sure.

It's been twenty-five years since Sharpe was in eighth grade, making him now nearly thirty-nine years of age (he'll be thirty-nine in the middle of February 2009, as his year of birth is 1970).

In other news, this is a little bit random, but I really want to write something futuristic/dystopian with Seven and Tem and Aislynn and Kana and Siyamak and all those other characters. Well, maybe not Aislynn, but definitely Seven because he comes from an alternate universe where science and technology are basically worshipped. That has real potential to turn into something interesting. And I'd love to include Tem because she randomly pops up in the most inopportune places at the most inconvenient times. And Kana and Siyamak because they're two of Tem's original AU counterparts and they're just fun to write. Siyamak's a bit of a creep, though...

Dystopian Society Novels and Banned Books?

I'm just going to warn you in advance that this might be a little controversial. So if you don't like that, don't read on. Okay? Consider yourself warned.

As I was at a swim meet today and didn't actually have time to write much of anything as far as my own fiction goes, I'll be talking a little about books again. Some of my favorite novels have been the dystopian books, like Orwell's 1984 or Animal Farm or Lord of the Flies by Golding. Oddly enough, according to the list of banned books and authors, many authors of these novels (and other such excellent novels) either are or have been banned for some reason in some place around the USA. In fact, some of these have been required reading for school classes.

As an author, I don't necessarily invite debate into what I write, but I don't shy away from plot points just because they could be touchy subjects. Most of my characters tend not to swear too much (one of the main themes I've noticed in the "banned books" list) and I don't write past PG-13. My plot lines have elements of dystopian societies in them (or at least Once Upon an Alternate Universe will - think weird combination of influence from The Phantom Tollbooth, Animal Farm or just about any other dystopian society idea and CS Lewis - just because his writing is made of pure awesomeness and he's one of my favorite all time authors - and you'll be spot on). But I digress.

Honestly, if you don't want to read a certain book, no one is forcing you to read them. I don't think they should require such authors to always be read for school... we seemed to read an abundance of the dystopian and other weird books in high school English classes (but Edgar Allen Poe's stuff was freakier than anything like Animal Farm or Farenheit 451!)... and parents should be cautioned before letting their kids read whatever they want (except for Tetsuya Takahashi because he doesn't care what Emiko does). But books shouldn't be banned from public libraries just because of controversial issues; people just need to be aware of what they read.

Any thoughts?