I’m going to say right here and now that I am not going to be updating very frequently (as if you couldn’t already tell) because I’m ghostwriting a novel at the moment. Writing a full-length novel is pretty tiring, so I don’t exactly finish my work for the day and then go, “Boy, I can’t wait to sit down and compose a blog post!” It’s more like, “Boy, I can’t wait to just lie here like a damp potato until I get hungry enough to roll out of bed and forage for food in the fridge!” Plus there’s the constant fear that this book idea won’t hold up, and then I’ll have done all these posts for nothing. You know, the usual stuff.
That being said, here’s what I know about Rath*, whose name absolutely needs to change. It was supposed to be a play on “wrath” with the inclusion of “Ra,” because he was originally supposed to be some sort of shadowy memory of the Egyptian sun god. It’s a long story, but basically the first idea of this book was that this “planet” would be occupied by ancient ideas that had lost power. Something really dumb like that. I abandoned that idea long ago, so “Rath” has to go.
My inspiration for Rath* came from a couple different sources. His look and personality is a little bit based on characters like the Prock from The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles (no picture available) and a demon from The Phantom Tollbooth known as the Terrible Trivium. Pictured here:
The running theme is we have a well-dressed, smooth-talking, third-hyphenated-descriptor type of character. Now, since I decided that we’re looking at a slave race on a prison planet, the “well dressed” bit probably has to go. But I still see Rath* as a smooth character who is a natural leader and who easily takes things in stride without showing fear or doubt. That’s why he’s the leader of the wee rebel group.
Joss throws a wrench into things for just this reason. Because she becomes like a daughter to Rath*, (I’m gonna stop putting asterisks on his name because I think you get it) she makes him start second guessing himself. Some of the rebels in their group actually see Joss as a weakness, and they resent her for turning their leader soft. They still work with her, of course, but there is underlying tension. This is one of the ways I’m going to attempt to avoid the Mary Sue cliche with Joss.
Rath and another character, Thea, have basically the same origin story. Rath is part Delliakite, and Thea is all Delliakite (You’ll see her later). They came from the same cell block, as it were. I wrote out a tentative backstory for them, but it’s too much like District 13 from The Hunger Games, so I’m reworking it. Basically they tried to rebel and it had horrible consequences so they ran away together to live off of the Overseer’s radar.
I don’t have concept art for Rath because I am really bad at drawing at the best of times, and drawing a human/alien hybrid is probably beyond my ability. I’m afraid he’ll come out too cartoony. Maybe I’ll attempt it one day, but today is not that day.
Oh, Rath has powers. Unlike Paxton, the loser. It’s unclear how much of this is just really good psychological manipulation and how much is really happening, but he has shadow powers. He can disappear into shadow and manipulate shadow so that it gets really dark in certain areas, and he can use shadows to grab people and trap their legs and stuff. He’s kind of like a phantom in that way, where he plays on people’s fears. But heart of gold blah blah blah.
At some point in the story, Rath gets captured and put in the super scary prison thing. I’ve been calling it “the tomb.” It’s basically where prisoners get a small probe on their heads that traps them in their own minds, slowly driving them crazy. They’re sealed into closet-sized rooms and left there for indeterminate periods of time. Rumor has it (in the book) that the inventor of the brain device tested it on himself, and went insane as a result.
Anyway, so Rath gets captured, and it just so happens that Paxton’s mom ended up in the same prison. So the rest of the gang has a reason to work together with Paxton. See how that works? And then Paxton’s mom can stay alive so he doesn’t have the typical superhero origin story.
Okay that’s enough for today. Next time maybe I’ll do Thea so you know what a Delliakite is. I can already tell you that ensemble casts are hard, so I’m probably going to axe a character or two. We’ll see.
Bye for now!
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