BoM/TWS Message Forum

Meant to post this yesterday and forgot to so it's just been sitting here.

"Method Acting"  represents the next part but is an example of how I'm mostly winging it. Originally I'd felt that the natural next chapter would have been hanging out with Michelle's friends but I realized I didn't know the charactes all that well and aside from a few chapters where Will becomes Alexis Lachance, they don't really show up anywhere so I wasn't sure what I could get out of a scene where there's a bunch of characters who I don't really know much about. So on a lark I thought of a scenario where Will gets a little too deep into his assumed persona and comes onto Caleb and figured "what the hell" and started writing and everything seemed to come a lot more naturally.

One thing I'm hoping is that Michelle (or I suppose "Michelle") comes across fine. I don't think there's ever really been a deep dive into her character, even in branches where she's been a little more prominent. The most I've gotten is that she seems pretty loyal to her friends and probably isn't quite the pushover everyone believes her to be so I've taken that and tried running with it. I didn't want to make her too generically nice nor did I want to make her a secret bitch. Knowing that she's a new student who, for whatever reason, tried out for the squad made me think of her as something of a fallen princess.

She had a lot at her old school but does't have that here and unlike someone like Sydney McGlynn, she lacks the overwhelming charisma or glamorous, jaw dropping looks to vault her right back to the top. In her old home, she had the benefit of having lived there all her life with relationships likely forged over most of her lie, not being thrown last minute (as far as her school life is concerned) into a new environment where she has no reputation and said environment is also a nest of vipers. She's a nicer character but there's a small edge to her too, exemplified by her having a boyfriend that she'd been intimiate with. It also only made sense to me that she'd dislike the anti-Chelsea side almost as much as she dislikes Chelsea, viewing them as two sides of the same coin.

I'm still kind of winging it because while I'd originally had one point I'd wanted to work towards, there's now a few additional ones that have cropped up so I think I'll just write until I hit one of those points and am satisfied. That could be the date that Yumi's promised Will, it could be Seth or Keith or any number of characters throwing a monkey wrench into things, or it could be something else entirely.