Friday, October 5, 2012

NaNo Prep Challenge - Protagonist Profile

For the past week now I've been participating in Writing.com's NaNo Prep Challenge, which provides a writing exercise each day in the month of October to prepare me for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) next month. The point of the exercises is to build the background for my story, characters, and environments so when November 1st hits, I'm ready to write like the wind.

Today's exercise is to sketch out some of the profile to my main protagonist. Even though I'll be writing a novella that takes place in the Black Earth universe, the characters are all brand new, making this a healthy challenge, and somewhat freeing to be able to do a story somewhat disconnected from the main Black Earth storyline.

Here's what I've sketched out for (one of) the main characters of the novella -

Stephanie Bascomb - Female - Age 34 - Doctorate Degree in Business
Stephanie's parents died years before Earth's last days. She had a brother, Victor, who was killed in a freak accident involving a city bus years prior to the beginning of this novella. A lawsuit against the city was filed and the money awarded was used to send Stephanie through college. She pursued criminal justice in memory of her brother, but then changed her major to business halfway through after finding out that her brother was actually murdered by a powerful businessman involved in the mob. Knowing she wouldn't be able to get to the man via the criminal justice system, she decided to gain a doctorate in business, changed her identity to Bethany Sanders, and infiltrated the man's corporate structure, eventually moving up to the head of his main headquarters. After gaining the man's trust through a deceitful love affair, she was eventually appointed a position high enough in the corporate structure to allow her to force the company into liquidation. Shortly after going into hiding, Stephanie secured her seat on a SilverTech shuttle bound for Anaisha.

In the beginning of Black Earth: Spectrum, Stephanie is aboard the Adengors, relieved to have finally left Earth - and her past - behind, able to start afresh on Anaisha. Or so she thinks...

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