Catherine Gardner posted one, so I figured I should, too.
For anyone new to my blog, Gardner is my Joneses. I strive to keep up with her, and I admire her work and work ethic. (I really need to update my blogroll, don't I?)
Please check out her site and buy up all of the magazines and anthologies her work has been featured in.
Now, on to the characters who have been waiting impatiently for their introduction.
Evelyn (Eva Garza)
Evelyn was invented for a role playing game, not a story. But, her story has spawned a few I've written down.
As a young girl growing up in Ybor City, Eva resented the control her parents exerted over her life. This resentment grew until one day, when she was around six or seven, she killed her mother. The authorities didn't quite know what to do with the young murderer, so she was placed in the care of an asylum. When a vampire discovered her artwork for sale at an international gallery, she was ripe for the picking.
As a vampire, Evelyn did things like kidnap nuns to use in plots she devised against her enemies and once staked herself so someone could rip out her eyes and throw her body in a dumpster as part of another plot. Surprisingly enough, she died supporting the political ideals of "the good guys" instead of as the consequences of something horrible she'd done.
Vinn
Vinn came about because of another character I made for a role playing game. When I went through a difficult breakup, writing a short story about him was good therapy. The story was published in Vol. 1 Issue 3 of Arrhythmic Souls.
Vinn is a slacker and a slob. He's overweight and has greasy hair and bad manners- not what you'd usually think of as a vampire. When he moves in with Monica and turns her, he doesn't think of the challenges that await. Soon, he realizes almost everything she does annoys him, from watching Oprah to trying to talk about her feelings. He has to figure out if having a swell piece of arm candy is worth it and, even worse, has to come to the realization that she doesn't really need him around.
Olivia
Olivia is a character in the grand WIP I've been toiling over since 2000. I've finally gotten to the point where I'm comfortable drafting the story, so I'm hoping she'll make her debut soon.
When Olivia was born, the village elders saw her as the fulfillment of a prophecy (never mind they'd made the same decision about someone else a few years earlier). Through some unfortunate events, Olivia becomes immortal and has her eyes ripped from her (for some reason this is a theme in my stories, to the point where other people have made it a plot point in game without even knowing it's a theme I'm obsessed with, ooh spooky) and has to deal with the fact that her former followers now see her as a tool of the devil.
Len
Len comes from the same WIP Olivia does. He's based off of a guy I had a crush on for at least 10 years of my life, and he comes in handy because he's a genius in a world with remnants of technology, and he's going to rebuild civilization almost single-handedly.
Len grew up in the same kind of religious cult Olivia did, but he never bought that the "people who came before us" deserved to die. While he's a supporting character, he partners with the main villain of the WIP to build up a city around a museum. He spends most of his time fiddling with old artifacts from the distant past and tries to make things work. In one of the first scenes, he fixes an old crank phonograph, which helps establish the kind of guy the main villain is. Len isn't really a villain (who is?) but he's way too curious for his own good. In fact, he sets off the chain of events that shapes the entire story.
Angel or Devil?
I'm working on my second draft of "Seeing God," a story about a blind girl (more with the eyes!) who experiences her parents dying in a car accident. She escapes the twisted metal of the crash and stumbles through the forest only to encounter a being in the woods. Some clues point to the being as an angel, some as a devil.
I really like this character because it's so ambiguous. I toy around with the myths of angels and devils a bit. I'm pretty sure that if I met a devil who could trick me into thinking it could commit miracles, I would follow it blindly. The only difference between an angel and a devil is the final outcome. This story, and possible related stories, deal with this idea that when it comes to beings outside of the human plane of existence, it can be hard to tell what side they're on. Eventually, humans have to act, have to take a side. I like that this character is a symbol of how we can't know the ultimate consequences of our decisions until after we've chosen which side we're on.
