tuesday.

[sunfright]

Since I watched Takarazuka's In the Amber-Hued Rain (post over here), I've had a horrible, nagging urge to play Sharon. However, as I don't have the actual translation of the play nor the Japanese skills to replicate lines, I can't actually... do that. So I decided to quell the urge by simply making an OC who would take the traits I did know and like from her character and adapt them into something entirely my own. 'Lo and behold! Amber Fournier was born. British actress working in Paris at the very end of the French Belle Époque, that's to say right up to the first World War.

The funny thing is, when I was originally going to tell her story, I was going to do it from her girlfriend's PoV, Léonie. She's much more my usual type of character, a bit meek, quiet and innocent, pure in a way, but as I sat down and was going to make a journal for her, I remembered something a friend of mine said to me once. I had been explaining about a story I wanted to write to her, it was about two women, one who I was intending on making my narrator and the other a very colourful character. After she'd listened to me for half an hour, because she has the patience of a saint, she says to me, quite frankly: the idea is okay, but it'd be better if you told it from the other girl's perspective. I looked at her, saying, a bit hurt: but this one is the one I'm most comfortable with... and she said these wise words that I will never forget.

Maybe you're not supposed to only write characters you're comfortable with.

My jaw dropped.

I've tried to live by that advice ever since. And that was how Amber was born. She was originally the love interest of my other narrator, but now I can see that Amber's story is really the primary tale of the whole set-up and not telling it from her perspective, just because she intimidates me a bit? That would be such a shame. It's the same way I decided whose PoV to write from in Humility.

I've really learned from it and it has given me some great writing experiences. I hope this will be another one. So far, you can read an outline of Amber's story here (it's just an RP introduction, nothing fancily written) and I hope to be able to get started on her story over the holidays. Just need to rewatch In the Amber-Hued Rain one more time...

Any excuse to watch Zuka is a good excuse to watch Zuka.