So this character is invincible as well? That eliminates quite a bit of suspense should this be an action-adventure story (which is what it sounds like). After all, I've always felt Batman was a much more compelling hero than Wolverine... edit: Excellent post.
Firefox crapped on me. This is an interesting look and I like it but the problem is that, the way I've already written, she kills the schoolmate when she's an 8-year-old kid herself. Would you send a kid to a mental institution? I believe they could exist but they wouldn't be like an ordinary mental institution. Also, I know that, at least in the US, psychopathic kids who murder others are being sentenced to jail for their crimes (which I'm strongly against, BTW), but in my country she, who isn't even psychopathic, would only be sent to a correctional facility, if that. No mental institution. The child would very likely be found innocent and she would not be deemed mad. And at least her mom would know she's speaking the truth and not consider her crazy, because her mom has seen her manifesting her powers (although not in a harmful way), and she knows of the legend involving the MC, so she knows of her potential abilities. Furthermore, her mom doesn't become ill until the MC is in the last year of high school. In my universe there are ways of killing her or at least severely incapacitating her. And you can always use a nuke against her in case things go awry (I've seen it done before!).
Ok, this is all a little funny to me because in your OP you seem concerned about following in the vein of Bella from Twilight. Unfortunately, from everything you've wrote you seem to be doing just that. You're giving your character special details without really earning them. Your MC has special circumstances but you don't really seem to want to make your MC fit to those circumstances. If you're making your MC kill another person at 8 (you should speak to a child development psychologist) it seems highly likely to me this would severely damage the MC's psyche even more so than if she did it at more mature age. Making your character still able to get good grades, be a 'good girl', and act all highbrow in front of her peers, especially under her circumstances, is extremely Mary Su, or at the least, Mary Sui-ish. If you don't like any of the ideas presented thus far, you shouldn't use them. But I hope you will at least seriously consider what you're trying to get from your MC and what you hope readers will see. Right now I'm seeing something even worse than Bella. At least Bella could die (I think).
Just chiming in to agree that the character should be less of a paragon. I think that I was assuming that the deaths were a flat-out accident due to emergence of her powers, rather than self defense. Like a child blaming herself for distracting a parent while the parent was driving and causing a fatal car accident. An accident would be traumatizing, but I can imagine separating the responsibility from oneself and putting it on the powers and on "I didn't mean to." But that doesn't work for the extremely traumatic self-defense incident that you describe. I think that either the incident needs to be changed, or she should show some quite severe mental issues. Sadly, huge trauma, incredibly high achieving teen despite huge trauma, huge powers, invulnerability, almost total passivity in spite of all that.... I think you've got a problem here. I think that you would do better to trim her down to closer to normal human.
The way I think of a character as strong is when you don't have to force them to do something amazing. It's not that they'll be so realistic that you never have to wonder what their personality is thinking, though. It's more like, if you were never an author and the world of your story was real, that character would still be doing amazing things without the plot even happening to him/her. I'm personally never interested in reading about an average person who stumbles into an extraordinary situation and barely manages to deal with it (unless through facing that situation they become extraordinary). There are plenty of people who get lucky. They're lottery winners. But it's the people who act (as opposed to react) that make a strong character. In your case, she's interested in the 'exotic' man and she has her own back story. I'm not interested in the whole Twilight love story, and if I were you I'd be very careful about how I worked my novel, just to make sure that that angle was never too prominent. However, it can work and even for the same audiences as Twilight so long as you show that your character isn't just a blank woman that readers could imagine as themselves. I feel that as long as readers believe that the main character would be an interesting person even without the story, that we'll go along with the plot, whatever it is, because we have faith in the characters (Isn't that why so many popular series have ridiculous amounts of fan-fiction? We can't keep away from the characters!).
I really wished this thread would die but the bug bit me. I go to regular sessions with a psychologist and psychiatrist to cure my depression. My psychologist's patients range from children to elderly people. I've talked to both about my MC and they said it's perfectly possible to have a traumatic childhood experience and become a high-achieving student. In defense of my character, I'd say I agree with them because there are a lot of people out there who keep a façade of normality while all hell is breaking loose inside their minds. I've seen it done well in fiction, too, with characters who lived through worse experiences than my MC. People wear masks all the time, and it's not like her mask is completely inappropriate for someone who has done what she did. She's high-achieving because she studies hard, and she studies because she wants to forget what happened, not realising that studying is not the adequate measure for that. Also self-healing... Is not the same as invincibility. In my story there are a lot of characters who heal fast but a really high body damage will incapacitate them to the point of rendering them inert, because the healing has to come from somewhere, if they don't have enough energy they'll stay inert. And there are other ways to kill someone than body damage in my story... I'll take a few good things from this thread, though. I'll need to adequate a few scenes in my story so that the MC has a more proactive role... This means I'll have to show off her true powers earlier than I planned and lessen the importance of the hero a bit. Also, I really liked the part about making her actively search for a cure to her mother's illness, I'll see whether I incorporate it. I agree that a strong character is one who acts, but they won't necessarily be doing amazing things outside the plot. In Star Wars for example, what if Han Solo's ship had never landed on the planet where they found Luke Skywalker? Luke would probably go on living his little life and the Empire would never have been defeated. I think you can go either way, have the MC find the plot, or the plot find the MC, both ways he'll be involved and change something.
Sure, it's possible for your character to be completely normal after murdering someone as a child. But it's highly unlikely and unbelievable and would not be a very good character in my opinion. Also, the healing powers... make your character seem overpowered, to say the least. It seems to me you have a Chosen One mary sue on your hands.
Haven't I mentioned she's not "completely normal"? I believe I have and, maybe due to being lazy (sorry for the pun), you didn't pick it up. Not in a world where everyone else and their dog has something a little bit more impressive than healing power. Go watch Blood+. Saya (the protagonist) heals superfast and is not a Sue, in fact her character's built in a similar way I planned to take mine. To make matters worse, ONLY Saya has the needed tools to kill the monsters in her world (her blood). She also has superhuman speed and no less than THREE(!) love interests. Yet it worked. I'm sorry to tell you this, but you seem to be trying too hard to sound unpleasant... You said you used to post on ImpishIdea... Well a large chunk of that site's postings seem to be just bashing popular works and it's rather ridiculous the amount of hate Eragon gets there, even if Paolini's writing and poetry is shit and is just a Star Wars ripoff... So your behaviour doesn't surprise me... I'll just leave this thread to rot.
Your character sort of reminds me of Lisbeth in The Millenium trilogy (Girl with the Dragon Tattoo etc. etc.) minus the supernatural powers. Lisbeth is highly intelligent (photographic memory), borderline genius, but she had no interest in school to the point where she doesn't have a high school diploma. She appears stupid except the exact opposite is true. This might be a more "believable" portrayal of your character. Lisbeth is semi-autistic in some senses, she doesn't get people or their emotional reactions to things. She also lives by her own moral code. I think your character has the potential to be a strong one, but you just need to find ways to complicate her a bit. Also, I think some characters (up to a certain point) need to be carried by others to move the plot, but it must end at a certain point where they must react to the events happening to them.
I completely agree with the above statements regarding your MC's psyche. After killing anyone (especially if it was an accident) there are going to be profound psychological implications. The fact that your character has this tragic history should be enough for you to build a strong personality. Stemming from this kind of event she would probably have had to deal with inner-conflicts of guilt and isolation and could have created a strong value system based on her reluctance to let something like it happen again. You also mentioned the sense of humour. Perhaps it's not an immediately obvious one, since she may not let others in so easily. The love interest would have a similar type of thing. Her journey to loving him might not be about his looks, rather his willingness to embrace the part of her that she herself could not. You've outlined infinite possibilities and the history of having killed people with her powers will actually help you avoid the 'Mary-Sueness.' It can be difficult to change your perception of your own character when you already have such a strong image in your head. If you don't want another 'Bella' then you have to be willing to actually make her troubled. Readers will see through a transparent character.
Man in the Box, Your psychologist said its possible for someone to stilll function normally after a trauma or after killing someone? Did you tell him/her the person in question has mysterious powers she cannot control and that those powers annihilated another person?
Being introverted, shy, and a pariah in high school is completely normal. As far as I can remember that is all you said about it. She's shunned for being the "smart kid." So not only can she murder with psychological and legal impunity, she can heal herself of any injury, AND she's the smartest kid around. Where are her flaws again? I am trying to help you. You made this thread to ask for help, didn't you? It seems pretty unanimous that your handling of your character's MURDER of another human being should be changed, among other things. As far as ImpishIdea goes, the site was made to criticize bad writing. Learn from other people's mistakes. Destruction is constructive. If you don't like it, don't go there. I don't even go there. I only remembered that someone had already written everything I was going to tell you so I might as well send you there. By the way, saying "well X did it in Z!" is not a reason why you should do it if you're not making it believable and compelling, which I do not think you are but of course I could be wrong, having never read your story.
OK, I think you are all being way too harsh on the OP. Firstly, nothing wrong with having a character be invincible, unless your sole source of drama is 'will he make it through or not?' (Which is probably not a good idea anyway.) Secondly, there's psychological research to suggest that most people, under the right circumstances, could kill someone. And not much evidence to suggest that it changes people, in any special sort of way. (Killing someone can cause PTSD, however.) Although I agree that 8 is weirdly young - could you scale her age up a bit? There have been bullying-induced murders committed by kids around 11-13 years old, for example. Thirdly, yes, she would be very traumatized. But that in no way rules out her being outwardly functional. You'd simply have to portray her coping strategies as being mainly the ones that aren't too disruptive to functioning, such as perfectionism and denial. Having not read the character, I don't know if she comes across as realistically traumatized, but the OP has already mentioned some traits that could be taken as trauma-related (such as her passivity). And contrary to TV psychology, most severely psychologically traumatized people don't become psycho killers or catatonic (both of those are more often caused by biological issues, actually, contrary to psychoanalytic theories). Most severely traumatized people are at least superficially functional, but have a grab-bag of issues like depression, anxiety disorders, eating disorders, difficulty handling intimacy (either avoiding or wanting too much), drug/alcohol issues, etc. The only time they come anywhere close to the level of dysfunction shown in TV portrayals is with dissociative disorders, and even then it's only under acute stress that they act that way - not constantly.
wat. And those people almost certainly end up in juvenile detention centers, mental health institutions and prisons. What they don't do is soar to the top of their class and become model students and have great lives. The effects of the bullying alone are enough to give some kids mental issues, imagine the added pressure of them being murderers.
