Читать книгу Charged - Jay Crownover - Страница 6

She’s immature.

She’s a brat.

She’s annoying and not very nice.

Why is she getting a story?

Whenever I have a character that seems like they shouldn’t get a story or like they might not deserve some kind of happiness, they are inevitably the characters that I most want to turn it all around for. I want to know their stories more than anything, and I want to dig into why there might be more to them than we initially see. It happened with Asa, and it happened with Avett from the minute she touched the page. I always knew I wanted Brite’s daughter to get a story, but I had no clue how layered, complex, and difficult that story was going to be. She’s a hurricane all right, and watching the storm break on the shore has made for some of my most favorite writing to date. I never start out with a character determined to make the reader like them, but I do hope that by the end of the journey, the reader understands the character and maybe even sympathizes with them a little bit … and hey, if you do end up liking that character you were so sure you hated … score one for me. <3 (Looking at you, Melissa Shank!)

I think Avett is the character that speaks the most to the person I was at the same point in my life. As I was writing her I kept cringing and thinking, yep … been there and done that, and now I definitely have a story to tell about those choices and the consequences they led to. Sometimes the story is the best part of screwing up, and really, no matter who we are or where we’ve been in life, we all have a story to tell. I feel that for all my characters, but for some reason it really, really rang true with Avett and Quaid.

When I was twenty-two I made a lot of questionable choices: about men, money, school, and my future in general. I had to be rescued (by family, not a handsome fella, which was a total bummer for me!) and one would think I learned my lesson because I was sure that was as low as I was ever going to get. Flash forward to my early thirties when things once again fell apart because of my bad choices and my foolish stubbornness. There I was for the second time in my life needing to be saved with more stories to tell and harsh lessons learned. (That story involves Rule getting published and my whole life changing, so even though it starts with heartbreak, it ends with a dream come true.)

So go out there and screw up. Have experiences so that you have stories to tell, and do it without an apology.

Memories and mistakes are both beautiful and important in their own ways.

Love and Ink,

Jay