Writing: An Update What Is Going with BON and A New Character Sheet: Herbert Ringworm

Hello everyone!

Here is a quick update on what is going on with my writing. I have been editing my second book (BON,) and have gotten 19/30 chapters done. Editing has been slower than I thought as I had to make minor changes to the plot which forced me to rewrite some of the scenes and edit them for beta reader state. Getting the book just right is a lot of work, and I think I am trying too hard to get it right and rewrite the wrongs from my first book, making me overly critical and sometimes unable to let the text flow. I guess this is normal, but I would like to get out of my head and write. Luckily thinking and refining the idea and plot for my third books helps pushes me to finish this one to be able to jump and test my new vision.

Anyway, here is Herbert Ringworm. He is a bit unpolished, but he has grown as a person as I have edited the book and become more adult, as now in the character sheet he is this emo artist surrounded by an unfair world.

Herbert Ringworm

Role in Story:

Major character. The purpose is to show Ira’s influence and ramifications of it. To create tension and be a false love interest to (censored.)

Occupation:

Unemployed sculptor, a werewolf wrestler and “spy.” (More like an errant boy.)

Physical Description:

Average height, thin with lean hard muscles. Strong, able to climb anything. A hauntingly charming with tormented rock star look. Black cropped hair, roundish face.

Personality:

Introvert, creative, romantic, tormented, selfish, thinks him to be the centre of the world, intelligent. Aggressive. Picky, lazy, impulsive, sullen, adventurous, sometimes exuberant, charming, intuitive, feeling, perceiving. Scoffs when laughs.

Habits/Mannerisms:

Likes to climb everywhere, restless. Likes action more than thinking, even when he is constantly assessing him and his surroundings. Gives his fullest attention whatever he does.

Background:

Native to Necropolis. Son of two artists (a painter and a poet.) His parents were disappointed when he was kicked out of the school (for his style of sculpting and for not complying with the norms). He had a screaming match with them, accusing them always pushing the envelope and here they were! Never quite got over their reaction and resentment.

Found Ona on a social gathering, and they fell in love. He charmed her with his habit of quoting poems and with his passion for art. He spoke all evening about different art styles and their impact on Necropolis. And when he moved his arm over her shoulder, she was hooked for life.

Internal Conflicts:

Ona’s death, he hates he couldn’t stop it, and he blames (censored) for it. His unemployment and having no money. Nobody understands him (a hangup from his youth he hasn’t let go of.) The pain of existence. The pointlessness of it all.

External Conflicts:

Ira being alive, him murdering people, going after Mrs. Maybury. Being stuck with a ghoul. Not able to do as he wishes. Loss of face. Ona’s death. The voice.

Notes (mini-story:)

Herbert collapsed on his bed. His tutor had just informed he was kicked out of the school because he had acted against the rules on several counts. They had caught him on a technicality for bringing Ona up to his room and letting her stay there. It was stupid, practically everyone did that, but that wasn’t the real reason. This was about his art. They hated him being different and being brave enough to say that aloud. This was suppression and censorship. “You cannot do this!” he raised his voice high. “I have done nothing wrong,” he modulated his voice lower, but his heart was still racing.

“You know the rules. You have broken all of them, and we cannot anymore look past your actions,” the tutor said. His words hung in the air. What his tutor left out of his sentence was: “not even because of your parents.”

“That is Kraken shit, and you know it,” Herbert said and squeezed the side of his dormitory bed.

“I warned you several times. I even tried to defend you, but this was the last draw. You forced my hands. You have until the end of today day to pack and leave, or you’ll be carried out,” the tutor said and left.

Herbert laid on the bed, hearing his tutors fleeting steps. He watched the ceiling, tracing all the cracks on it. In the past, those same rifts had helped him to concentrate his thoughts. Now they looked almost violent reminders of that nothing lasted. He should have yelled at his professors for chucking out his sculpture. This was about that and not about Ona.

Ona was home with her parents. He couldn’t go there. They hated him. They thought he was the one why their daughter thought to change her major from economics to behavioral psychology. It was such a cliché, but he had nothing to do with what Ona wanted and thought. He was happy either way. But he couldn’t go home either. Not to his parents. They wouldn’t let him. He laid there until he had to move. He didn’t want to go quite yet to beg his master to take him in for this night until he could sort out this mess.

He hated Necropolis and its conventions. Why couldn’t there be light? Even whimsy with a macabre twist would do. Anything but this.

Thank you for reading!

© K.A. Ashcomb