The Mansion #1

Mansion

When I was thirteen I started to write a book and I end it! I was so proud that I tried to published right away.

Thank God I didn't! The writing was awful and full of teen emotions. But the story is amazing. And in the last months I have been thinking about it.

This story - "The Mansion" - is about runaway kids (at least the first one - there are three). Kids that came from a family devastated by violence.

The problem is that I - finally - realize how important is the past. Well, it isn't a problem, it's a lesson that I learn. The past matters because it makes the characters who they are in the present: why they act the way they do; the way they were educated influences their believes and how they talk. The easiest way to see how important past is, it's to look to ourselves; our life: what we love; our best friends; the trauma gotten while kids and how we connect with people and see the world. All that make us who we are. The same happens with our characters.

And answering those blank spaces has been harder than I thought, because the answer will influence the future. For example: the main character, Alex, has two siblings younger than her (something that I never changed), and because she is the older one, she feels that she has to be responsible for Pedro and Maia (her siblings).  That's fine... But then... How old is she? 16 or 18? Maybe 16, because I want people feel that she is young, but one of the courages kids they ever met. And I shouldn't do her younger because she has a job, even though she quit school.

There are so much more questions to be answered:

She drives?

She is the main victim of her mother violence?

And her father is also violent or should I use the cliche of sexually abusive father?

I should use the names of the places where they are (and where they go) or should I hide those same names to make people feel that this story could happen anywhere?

Writing the story in first person, or have the three siblings narrating a chapter at a time to have diferentes points of view?

Is Alex or Maia the child consived out of marriage? And what could that information change the story?

And...

So many questions!!

And while I was writing the questions I had some of the answers (something good!).

I would like to write down everything that goes into my mind, but when I publish this story (and I will, no matter how long it will take) I want you to have some kind of surprise, because there will be romance in the air, drama and - I hope - a lesson in what I write.

So... Pay attention:

"The Mansion" will be on stores some day!

Ursa