#lets start drawing tori with her autism

[rurupilled]

Tori sketches this turned out really bad I need to learn to draw lesbians better

[chasingnewdawn]

Writing “Chasing New Dawn” - Characterization and echoes of Fanfictional Roots

A month ago, a facilitator of one of the writing groups I’m part of asked an interesting question. You see, she doesn’t write fiction. Like, at all. And she wondered, with a certain sense of wonder, how those of us who do write fiction make stuff up.

It’s a question that becomes a lot more interesting in my case - seeing as how I’m not exactly starting from scratch.

For the most of you who don’t know it, Chasing New Dawn owns its entire existence to “What Did Zoey Say?.” I wasn’t that big of a fan of Zoey 101 back when it actually aired, but I watched enough episodes that the reunion short film thingy resonated. . And after I finished watching it, the old theme song, the bloody theme song, got stuck in my head. And it wouldn’t leave. For days. Like, I literaly spent two days with the song playing in my head over and over and over... ... Until I had the vision of a power armor snapping into place around Zoey, Iron Man style. 

That was enough to kick the song right out of my head. But the image intrigued me. 

From the get-go, the story itself wasn’t going to be a fanfic. I mean, I could have done a Super Sentai style Zoey 101 AU, but so long as I was going that far off canon, I figured I might as well make it original.

When it comes to characters, doing something original is actually kind of liberating. You don’t have to keep the characters consistent with the source. If anything, the less true to the source you are, the further you get away from the fanfic territory.

As I’ve written before, in the original show, an argument could be made that Quinn was autistic, but it was far from sure thing. But since Riley was an original character, I could run with it. And, because I decided to base her high-functioning autism on my high-functioning autism, I wound up giving her some of my interests (dance music!) and quirks (dealing with stress by pushing my fingernails into the sides of my fingers, the way she isn’t entirely sure what to do with her hands, the aversion to shopping malls). And her backstory was actually inspired by a conversation I had on the train with a guy who grew up in rural Appalachia. 

One thing to keep in mind is that, like I said, I was more of a casual fan of the original show. When I went back to look at the character bios, I realized that there is some important stuff that I just plain forgot - like how Zoey had a younger brother who was on the freaking show. Which, again, is where writing something original comes in handy, because you don’t have to follow any of those things. 

It has been an interesting process. Maddie is clearly inspired by Zoey, but I also kept in mind that I was writing a leader of a senshi team, so she is more strategic, and understands people better than Zoey ever did. And the fact that, unlike Zoey, she grew up in a posh and not very happy family made a difference. Nicole was fiercely loyal to her friends and “boy-crazy” (in a kid-TV friendly way). With Liamhain, I could push that “boy-crazy” part in the way the original show never could - but overall, a lot of her personality was actually based on a sketch I drew while brainstorming. The fact that I wound up drawing a curvier woman with a lot of curly hair, a huge smile and lots of flowing fabric and big artisan jewelry shaped how I developed the rest of the character. Including the fact that she was named “Liamhain” (Originally, I had a placeholder name “Connie,” but it sounded too much like “Corey,” and, once I had a better idea of what her character was like, I decided that she needed an old-school Irish name that would trip up people trying to pronounce it). 

Corey wound up being the closest to his Zoey 101 inspiration. Like Chase, he is a caring, overall decent and quietly supportive person who harbors not-so-subtle feelings for a female lead. I just amped up his idealism and made him more of a rule-follower... And, more fundamentally, I tried to think of the ways his positive qualities, including his devotion to Zoey, could actually work against him. I sort of set a challenge for myself - how could I take the character I was usually inclined to like and make him less likable, while still preserving the fundamentals. 

Tony feels a similar niche as Michael, in that he’s a best friend of female lead’s love interest, and a generally cool and supportive, but... Well, that would be spoilers.

With others, I went further away from their inspirations. Like Logan, Daisuke started out as a rich guy who hit on everything that moved, but, to be honest, I was more thinking of a classic “bad boy love interest” archetype than Logan. And, just as I tried to find something negative about a nice and caring guy, I tried to find some positive traits in a bad boy. And tried to better justify some of the brooding characters like this often do. 

Raveena’s calm and collected, deadpan and generally responsible perfectionist who acts she way she does in response to her upbringing doesn’t have much in common with Lola other than some fashion choices and the fact that she joined the cast later. And while there are some elements of her backstory that Victorious fans would recognize, she’s no Tori Vega, either. And Shelby owes more to, well, Shelby Woo than she ever did to Dana. 

Of course, the fact that in the story’s present, Chasing New Dawn characters are 10 years older, and somewhat wiser, makes a difference, too. It lets me put in more character development, and allows them to evolve a little. 

Like I said, it is kind of weird creative state to be in, because I do sometimes pull elements from the original show. Like, while I was writing what would become the first few chapters, I completely forgot Logan and Quinn dated. I decided that this was an interesting element to bring in... but because, by that point, the characters diverged enough from their inspirations that I had to make up the whole new justification for why they would ever be interested in each other. And Daisuke and Riley wound up having a supportive friendship in their backstory that Logan and Quinn most definitely didn’t have. 

It’s a murky territory - and an interesting creative place to be in. Especially in the age when a Twilight AU got turned into a best-selling book and movie trilogy, and a One Direction RPF fic got turned into a book and a movie while changing literally nothing but names.