I must say. You made me think about it and she really is strange. I mean not for what is listed above but for other stuff too. Like she has a cell phone but she never takes it home she always leaves it in a storage that rented under a fake name. She considers the idea of it at her home a security risk. She likes classical literature but again considers keeping even one book at home a breech of security protocol. She does keep 1 book at home though. She makes up for having it by hiding it in the wall when she isn't reading it. I make em strange Dont I?
My gosh. She is totally paranoid. Is this a mental condition for her, or is there a logical reason behind it? Are people actually out to get her? Either way, it sounds like an interesting tale. You could do worse than start with some evidence of her paranoia. Maybe let the reader wonder whether it's justified or not?
You make a good point. That would be interesting. In her case it was taught. Her mom and dad taught her these behaviors. As they said. "Unless you are at the family home it is a bad habit to have anything personal in your home" So yeah. She wouldn't have a photo or anything like that. Her closet is even rigged with a bomb if it isn't opened correctly. She wouldn't want someone so much as learning her pants size if she can avoid it. She just has to be sounding weirder by the second. As for justification. No in her case no one is really looking for her. Her brother though. People tried to kill him everyday this same teachings saved him. Well for a while. He is dead at the opening of this story. I will definitely try to revise the opening. Funny enough the strangest or maybe the strangest aspect to her I didn't mention. Not sure if it is appropriate to do in this thread. If you are curious I could pm you. Does she seem like a character you find interesting?
Well, I don't know yet if she's an interesting character, because I haven't seen how you've written her, but her situation certainly has me interested. Of course you can PM me if you like. Sounds to me as if her paranoia is justified, if what happened to her brother is anything to go by.
Fair enough. Funny enough their father tried to kill her brother but the very things he taught him saved him. There is a joke there I think.
In addition to what Jannert said, it's not that a character's entire life all ties into one plot. The parts that you tell tie into one plot. If you're telling a story to friends at dinner, you don't say, "Let me tell you what happened at work today--but I'll start with telling you about buying this bagel six months ago." If you go on about the bagel for ten minutes, people are going to expect it to be related to the story about work. If it's not related, it's not that it didn't happen, but it's not part of that story.
Yeah. I got on board a bit ago with it. Thinking about what your last post said. I had an idea. Since she kills people in the first scene I can have the second scenes main antagonist be a relative of one of her victims. Which gives him motto, which I was still working on and ties the two concepts together rather nearly. Right?
Yep, that makes the prologue part much more a part of the same novel. I meant to say a while ago that a brief scene--a page or two--where she gets angry at someone and strikes out, could be just fine if it doesn't fit in. It's the 7K that seems like overkill if it doesn't tie to the plot.
Glad to hear you've added a layer to the story and glad to be of help I think the thing is, it's not bad to establish the character. It's only bad when the scene, especially a long one, is unrelated to the main plot. Unrelated to the main plot being the key thing here - the reason why so many of us is saying it might be a bad idea. It's also a matter of is it really the best use of space to spend 7k words on just establishing a character when you could do it in a far more succinct way. You may also want to think of the genre you're writing in - given your description of the rampage and the kinda character Jackie seems to be, I shall assume it's not literary fiction. A slower pace is more acceptable in certain genres, but in others it's an extremely bad idea because that's the kind of audience you're dealing with. You may want to take this into account.
You do make a point. My original question was if 7K was too long for that. Literary fiction? To be more exact. Jackie is a highly trained assassin. The original concept of this Eric premise was me answering a question. "Normally she does work for money. But what if someone just made her mad? What would make her that mad?" So yeah rampage is her putting her skills to there normal use but for a different reason. Funny enough I think the connection to the too plots adds something. Not sure what to call it. Since the big bad motive is her killing someone in the opening scene which causes him to retaliate and kill a child related to her in return. I think there is sort of "Careful what you do" message in there. Would you agree? I think since she fails to defeat him originally because she is blinded by rage adds to that message. Maybe I am over thinking that. I tend to do so occasionally. lol
