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The Bromley Saga - Part Two of Two
Tuesday, 18 October 2005 05:33 pmPreviously on the Bromley Saga, I disclosed the origins of my OFC Brynhild Bromley and uncovered her previous existence as a Mary Sue. By the end of my exposé, I had her appearance fixed, but she had yet to take her first steps into the world of prose.
Why did it take her so long to get there? The answer is very simply that I was afraid of how she might behave in writing. I was in the thralls of Original Character Anxiety, something I had never experienced with any of my other ‘concoctions’. Even after Bromelia was made over into Brynhild, I didn’t trust myself with her. And, to be quite frank, I wasn’t sure I had a story to tell in which I could justify her presence.
But the thing is that Brynhild wouldn’t go away - to use a hackneyed phrase that has been called upon to justify all, from silly characters to idiotic plot bunnies. She languished in my head until I knew all sorts of things about her: that her father was an ex-Quidditch player now into broomstick manufacturing; that she spent her childhood in Yorkshire and now lived in London; what her eating habits were and that she couldn’t cook; how she dressed; what shoes she wore; which books she read; what pets she kept; what she watched on television; how the inside of her house looked. I even knew perfectly well how she felt about Snape and what their friendship was like. I imagined she was there in the background, and that rather than staying for dinner at Grimmauld Place during the action in Order of the Phoenix, it was at her house that Snape had his meals. (He had to do the cooking himself, of course, except when they had fish and chips or went out.) I suppose I would have alluded to these things if they had somehow come up in my genfic stories, but they never did.
I did draw Brynhild and Snape together, occasionally; but I never finished those sketches into inked drawings because they always turned out fluffy. For some reason, Snape would always insist on smiling, and how unnatural is that?
( Pictorial Fluff Warning )
Why did it take her so long to get there? The answer is very simply that I was afraid of how she might behave in writing. I was in the thralls of Original Character Anxiety, something I had never experienced with any of my other ‘concoctions’. Even after Bromelia was made over into Brynhild, I didn’t trust myself with her. And, to be quite frank, I wasn’t sure I had a story to tell in which I could justify her presence.
But the thing is that Brynhild wouldn’t go away - to use a hackneyed phrase that has been called upon to justify all, from silly characters to idiotic plot bunnies. She languished in my head until I knew all sorts of things about her: that her father was an ex-Quidditch player now into broomstick manufacturing; that she spent her childhood in Yorkshire and now lived in London; what her eating habits were and that she couldn’t cook; how she dressed; what shoes she wore; which books she read; what pets she kept; what she watched on television; how the inside of her house looked. I even knew perfectly well how she felt about Snape and what their friendship was like. I imagined she was there in the background, and that rather than staying for dinner at Grimmauld Place during the action in Order of the Phoenix, it was at her house that Snape had his meals. (He had to do the cooking himself, of course, except when they had fish and chips or went out.) I suppose I would have alluded to these things if they had somehow come up in my genfic stories, but they never did.
I did draw Brynhild and Snape together, occasionally; but I never finished those sketches into inked drawings because they always turned out fluffy. For some reason, Snape would always insist on smiling, and how unnatural is that?
( Pictorial Fluff Warning )
