Basically my friend P, will call her P for now, is awesome, like totally fucking awesome. She and I have been prompting each other on our NaNo business. We've been messaging each other about our plots, and I thought I'd share the pre-stuff before 5 Stages start. I am putting it under a "READ MORE" break because it is so long. What I am posting is a mess of character bios and story arcs. ENJOY MY LOVELIES!
Also, there are more songs to add to the playlist.
Some Nights - fun.
Die Young - Ke$ha
Teenage Dream - Katy Perry
Last Friday Night - Katy Perry
Nadia and Avery hate me for their back stories as well. Nadia got kidnapped by a serial killer and raped, and then her parents wanted nothing to do with her. Avery was going to be a world class ballerina and I broke her ankle. She lost her scholarship and her chance at making it big in dance.
Nadia dealt with it by being weird and mean and having ginormous mood swings. Avery dealt with it with lots of tears and alcohol and sex until she hit rock bottom and stuff.
Darren doesn't have a tragic back story. Pretty much the only crap he had to deal with was the weirdness with his dad when he came out, and homophobic asses from time to time. Matt is a surfer from California and generally had a pretty awesome life. Byron's only real tragic past event was his parents kicking him out when they found out he was dating a boy, even though he had already told them he was gay.
I also have yet to come up with a convincing reason to why Byron's parent would name him Byron considering his mother is a rather zealous Christian and his father pretty much only cares about what his family looks like from the outside and being the perfect epitome of the American family.
Darren has awesome brothers: Sam and Noah, both older. Sam is the oldest and he plays college football, and he isn't the smartest with the books, but he is amazing at that whole common sense and people smarts. Noah is a totally bro, and he is really good with mechanics and with his hands.
Um, so, Nadia and Byron originally came from this story I started called The Bright Part of the Sky. It was about a man, Ray Kyte, whose daughter Savannah got kidnapped by serial killer and killed. After her death, he has this sort of psychic connection with her and he and his best friend, a Detective, go after her killer and end up capturing him. The serial killer had already kidnapped Nadia, and was just about to kill her. She is taken back to her parents, but when they find out what happened to her, they don't want her anymore. Ray Kyte over compensates for the loss of his daughter, but basically adopting Nadia.
Nadia and Byron become friends; he was friends with Savannah before she died. Byron is instrumental to Nadia's growth out of being lost and hurt and effed up.
They are pretty awesome together. I've written their “we became best friends” story.
Byron goes to soccer camp the summer after his sophomore year of high school and meets the new transfer student Darren. Darren and Byron become friends. Darren tells him he's gay, and Byron doesn't really find it that big of a deal in the scheme of things. But the more he hangs out with Darren, the more he realizes he likes boys. I mean he had already figured he really didn't like girls after a drunken sojourn with Nadia and their friend Nicole. So he has this whole crisis of sexuality combined with a crisis of faith. Did I mention he grew up super religious? Well, Darren and Nadia both help him with it. He comes out to his parents. Mom is furious and Dad is disappointed and somewhat angry. Then he had Darren start dating, and things go to absolute shit. His parents give him an ultimatum, either he dumps Darren and gets cured of his disease or he isn't their son anymore.
I also find super interesting the whole Byron/Darren dynamic. When Byron is having his crisis of sexuality, he really wants to go to Darren to talk about all of it, but Darren is the guy he is totally crushing on. This is what happens when you fall in love with your best friend apparently.
Darren's parents, who are awesome, say that he can stay with them after his parents are shit. He lives with them until he graduates. There is this scene I am dying to write when Darren's dad is all like "Kid (Byron), you can stay here as long as you want, you're like one of my own now, but you are not sharing a room with my son/Darren."
Yeah, I mean at first when Darren came out he had problems with it, but then he was all I love my son, I'm an idiot.
And, Darren's mom totally knew he was gay from when he was little, and could care less.
Someone had to get awesome parents.
Well, Darren and Byron make plans to go to college in New York, but that totally doesn't work out because Byron gets accepted into a really prestigious music program at Boston University, and Darren is accepted to Columbia.
Yeah, Byron totally wants to be a music teacher.
They make it through their entire freshman year in different states, and spend breaks together and stuff. But in February of their Sophomore year that is when things blow up as in Darren breaks up with Byron through Skype.
