Post something about your character. The rest of us will ask you questions about them

No questions right off, but there was movie entitled Lucas that featured a geeky teen with a protective buddy a couple years older. Other than that, totally different plot, but....

 

What's James' motivation for sticking up for Lucas? Can this ever lead him to a flaw where he takes it too far? Is there conflict BETWEEN him and Lucas?

 

My character is just some normal guy, but he ends up one way or another (still haven't decided, rough rough draft) at an extremely high-end resort. He lives in what is essentially an "endless summer". He's mostly unbothered by repeating the same day at this resort because of how great that single day is. For the first time in his life, he feels like he feels like he's living a high-class lifestyle, and he doesn't want it to end. Until slowly throughout the story, he's sick of it. He's over the conceited people, and the superficiality. As for how long this timeloop lasts, I'm not sure, I haven't thought that far.

Essentially, what I'm aiming for in this story is to appeal to people who fetishise high-class lifestyles and money, and also tell a cautionary tale about the trap that wealth and high status can bring. I was thinking of unique ways to tell this story rather than the same tiresome story of random success. Instead, I wanted this idea of the timeloop because it's unexpected. My character never really dreamed of money and status, but suddenly gets it entirely by accident. I also like the timeloop approach because it's a subtle metaphor of how people with money and status get sick of their position despite having all this great wealth. My character repeats this day full of women, money, drugs and alcohol, which is what many young and aspiring people hunger for. But he gets sick of it, because it's repetitive.

I don't know if any of that makes sense, but that's just whats going on in my head.

 

Does he ever think of using the timeloop as a way to have infinite time to solve the world's most enigmatic quantum physics questions?

 

Definitely not, lmao. He spends most of his time drinking, relaxing, moving his way up the "chain" just so he can go back down to the bottom again. Knowing his body will always revert back to the perfectly healthy self he was, he goes about doing all kinds of drugs, drinking and eating whatever he wants, and just doing really stupidly dangerous stuff. He essentially lives a life with no regards to consequences, because in the end he's going to wake up and start over again.

Really, my character is meant to be start off as a genuine, normal guy. And throughout the story he slowly gets more selfish, more elitist, more conceited. He could spend his infinite time doing some great and selfless things, but instead he takes advantage of what's essentially a never-ending party.

 

Have you thought about the limitations inherent in the setting? Like what happens if he's there the day the restaurant ran out of... lobster? Or napkins? Or the power went out or his wallet got stolen the night before the loop starts? Some sort of baseline negative doesn't need to drive the whole story, but could add plausibility.

 

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I'm still not sure about this one. I think if he started in the time loop, it'd add some suspenseful confusion for the reader, and the reader would have to keep reading to figure out what the hell is happening. But I also don't want be able to clearly write his backstory, and I feel like I'd be too subtle if I went for the first approach.

 

I haven't put too much thought into that, my idea was going to be the ideal, perfect day. But you might be onto something. Adding something negative, and maybe my character would be trying to prevent it with his prior knowledge of the future, would make things a little more interesting

 

I am sorry. I fear I'll give too much if I tell too much. But thank you for taking the time to post questions to me anyways.

1. No, he has no idea. A realization of this sort would destroy him.
2. Loss, the people he loved most dear were taken from him. But this is a thing he doesn't accept (this is where the delusion comes in), and he's built a mental framework that doesn't fit in with reality.
3. Well, he runs around slapping people with giant purple dongs, so there's that.
4. Eros goal doesn't matter, as in it's nothing more than a lynchpin to his delusion. He's trying to get to a certain place, but that place keeps shifting, moving, twisting away from his grasp. It's likely he'll chase this "goal" till he dies.
And yes, he is a male. It's just how his character came about. Apologies for my vague explanations, but I'm really shy about releasing book details.

EDIT: That, and this story, is personal. Right now I don't know if I'll publish this book with my name on the cover, might pen a new one.

 

Unlike most protagonists of contemporary fiction, my character, Dave, is an upper-class racist, sexist, white male cop. He wants nothing more than to create his ideal utopia on an exoplanet settlement and retire with his dog.

 

Alright I will bight...

Well why is he such a jerk? What happened in his silver spoon life that made him to be the way he is?
I think I can grasp the reality of him living alone with his dog, he hates everybody apparently out side of wealthy white men.
Where would he build this exoplanet white supremacy utopia?

 

I'll give a bit of context. It's the 23rd century, after WW3. There is a lot of national pride and racial tension during and following the third world war, and the countries propagate it for political reasons. Dave partially inherited this nationalism and racial prejudice from his father, who served in the North American Union army during the war. The other part is just caused by him growing up and working as a peace enforcer in the post-WW3 China ghettos and seeing all the deplorable facets of life. He also believes in genetic superiority, as genetic engineering and transhumanism as a larger concept are major themes of my plot.

Dave's part of the majority of North American Union settlers who share his opinions, so he's not alone. He's actually one of the less prejudiced people in my story.

 

@PilotMobius Interesting. I have an MC that is semi-racist toward Grey aliens, in the 28th century.
While he has served with them, he finds them for the most part to be mealy mouthed and deceptive.
But he learns overtime his bias toward the 4-5 ft little silicon beings is not as generalized as he
originally thought, but more of the fact that some are like conniving little snots trying to further
their own personal agendas.
Then there is a cousin race to the Greys, and they absolutely loathe their smaller cousin species
with a passion.

 

Heh, my character remains adamant in his stance and refuses to reform. The entire plot exists because Dave gets upset over gun control laws.

 

One of my MC is a soldier on a world that never needed soldiers, fighting aliens he learned about a year ago.

 

Yugslav (May change that name), is a member of a nomadic tribe, in a 2ndry world setting that is just full of things that think that humans taste yummy. Like most young men of the tribe, he is serving his time, as a guard/warrior of the tribe. Mostly walking along the caravan as they are moving from place to place, should they be attacked. The plot of the story places him and a few other young warriors lost and stranded in the wilderness. Yugslav doesn`t necessarily agree with a lot of the more traditional facets of his people`s way of life but mostly keeps quiet about it. He doesn`t say much, mostly living in his own head. Most of his fellow warriors view him as daft.

 

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Why would he be fighting aliens they learned about a year ago?

The aliens were discovered by another country as they approached the planet. This ally-country was the victim of concentrated electrical attacks that constantly crippled power infrastructure and other electronics. An entire way of life was destroyed under the constant barrage. Thousands of elderly simply had to be left to die because life support systems were constantly scrambled or damaged, and the cost and feasibility of taking care of the weak and sick became a problem.

The aliens landed a year later in his country's largest city, and although they never really used the energy attacks to cripple the city, alien ground forces are pressing hard. Government crash-courses taught him what he knows about warfare. He knows how to discharge his weapon towards the enemy, but the military way of life is only a year old to him. No movies he watched ever showed the organized application of violence, and he'd never imagined that something like a crop-dusting aircraft could be used to kill children from beyond the horizon.

Oddly, his time spent collecting, categorizing, and planting the different types of bulbs and seeds around his farm is more valuable for life as a soldier, as rescuing stranded, trapped, and wounded civilians is much more important than trying to shoot aliens hiding within his own city.

What is his stance on war?

He hates the war. He hated the war a year ago, when the allied country was warped by the initial attacks. He'd wanted to visit their technologically marvelous cities one day when he had the money, but now the allied-country is a husk. Completely militarized. Soldiers, lobotomized-soldiers, prisoner-soldiers, children within Agoge, and a massive industrial system to maintain the defense against constant energy-wave barrages. What if that happens to his country? It's already begun, even without the energy attacks. His farm was too isolated to protect, so his old life is gone.

He hates that all the people he fights with die for no reason, and he hates that despite all they've done to his country, he's never actually seen an alien any closer than a kilometer away, through a gun-scope. He used to want to be a botanical geneticist to breed better maize bulbs to really help his community, but farming is straight sustenance now. Now the answer is soldier, war, or gun to any question. Sure, they're sort of winning, but maybe the aliens are just regrouping. Even if they saved every person in the city, which they won't, they're all victims of war now. Their memories and lives are ruined.

What is his personality like?

His friends used to say he was rude, but he just loved getting the most out of people. He'd always ask them what they wanted to be when they grew up, then challenge them to make sure that's what they really wanted. He was shy around the girls, who isn't, but he made point to comment on every poncho they worked hard to make during the planting festivals. Who cares if they thought he was a creep, he really liked the colors and styles. He obeyed his parents, although they were dorks.

Now, he's the 'mean' team leader, according to his performance assessments. He can hardly tell which buzz-head is a female or male anymore, and all the ponchos are gray or shit colored. His farm's gone, his dad was killed by a drone-strike, his mother went to the ally-city and died in Agoge, and the last shipment of troops from the ally was lobotomized-soldiers instead of prisoner-soldiers.

Getting the most out of people nowadays means deciding whether or not to send criminals or brain-dead foreigners to die. The regular foreign soldiers say he shouldn't feel guilty about sending criminals to die, and the lobotomized-soldiers are all volunteers. But he doesn't know what their crime, or reason was! You don't throw away a bulb you haven't checked yet.

Fucking aliens. Fucking war.

 

Does your character has any redeeming qualities? Things that will allow you to feel sympathetic for him.
Will he change in the story? Will his bad qualities be his downfall or will he manage to dodge all karmatic effects of his actions?

 

Dave's comically blunt and refuses to take anything seriously. He's going to become more nationalistic and racist as the story progresses, and he's going to find a way to sidestep all the karma.

 

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What are the ropes made of and how does your character biologically synthesize the ropes?