final author note

AKA a short essay about writing this thing

I have always wanted to write a story that is driven by characters rather than by plot.

It wasn't as easy as I thought it would be.

Writing a story that depends on character development to move the plot forward is a challenge, especially in terms of capturing a sense of realism. I have found that while there may be drama and angst and humor, these are not components of the story that are there to be there - no drama for the sake of drama, but rather drama for the sake of the character. Writing in this way is much different than composing a plot-driven narrative. For comparison's sake, the last story I worked on (derivation) leaned so heavily on plot that the characters themselves became - to my mind - flat, with parts of them sacrificed in order to move forward. In writing supernormal, I found that the challenge was reversed, but in the best way; a story driven by characters can have the wonderful side effect of being incredibly plotty.

I'm sure you noticed that supernormal became akin to a tongue-twister in terms of how deeply interwoven the main plot, the sub-plots, and the sub-plots of the sub-plots were.

We can credit that complexity to the characterization that kick started it all.

Ella.

She was at times an insurmountably complex character - she had a mysterious backstory, a traumatic history, too much power with too few morals, and a decidedly hostile narrative. When I initially came up with Ella's exact characterization, I imagined her to be a whirlwind, a catalyst. Everything that Ella touched would, somehow, be affected. She was in many ways and at many times an unreliable narrator, which served the development of her character well; here was a character that got it wrong sometimes and because she got it wrong, she had to go back and fix it. I like to think that her character had a dynamic edge, that she changed over the course of the story without changing too much, but while also changing everything and everyone around her.

It might come as a surprise that Carlisle was the second characterization I settled on very early in planning this. Ella needed someone stable in her life, someone reliable and dependable and with enough in-story illustration to show that he was straightforward - and in making Carlisle like this, he became a vehicle to show how warped Ella's perceptions could sometimes be. Carlisle also became the cornerstone of Ella's understanding of magic. Although the scene didn't make it into the story in part 1, I did have a section where Carlisle was teaching Ella about magic and emphasizing the importance of understanding that her magic was unique and a gift and that neither she nor her magic were a mere tool; still, more than once Ella reminds herself in-story that she is not a commodity. Because of Carlisle and his influence over Ella, her character has a particular view toward the problems that inundate Charmstone; because she isn't a tool, she will fix things herself, an echo of the courage that she frequently displayed and her sense of duty to the people around her, as seen in the flashback with Jane.

The third characterization I finalized was Alice. Shocking? Maybe. But Alice's characterization was initially borne out of a need to link different plots together; Alice had to tie into the town and into Viridity; Alice had to foreshadow and serve to stoke the mystery. Making Alice the biological daughter of Carlisle was a plot twist that was meant to deepen Carlisle's characterization by creating flaws where there were none before and while also again showcasing Ella's issues. And as Alice needed a mother and a reason that she did not live with Carlisle, so came Esme and the mythos of banshees being matriarchal in this story and - neatly - a way to view Alice's relationship with her love interest, Jasper.

The next character that cemented himself in the story was - Peter. I love Peter's characterization. He served so many purposes; Peter was meant to represent the LGBT coming-of-age; the transition between human and supernatural; the dangers of dallying with the supernatural world; a beacon of truth for Ella, along with being comic relief. For me, Peter always kind of represented the reader - his thoughts, actions, and dialogue are those that the reader might have had at that point in time. Of course, Peter became so much more. He's intensely loveable as a character. Peter becoming Ella's best friend was a given from the start. I liked the contrast between her hostility and his happy-go-lucky nature. And because Peter existed, he also gave way to other characters all by himself, a cousin, along with siblings, and a love interest of his own.

Speaking of love interests, Anthony's characterization was next. It was difficult trying to nail down the type of character that would become the romantic counterpoint to Ella. She's such a thunderstorm that only a dark cloud could compliment her, and in the end that is exactly what Anthony became - a dark cloud, brooding and serious, maybe even dour at times. Someone who could meet Ella's inherent violence with some of his own. Making him a werewolf was a way to tie Ella back to the town itself because werewolves travel in packs - and since they travel in packs, they probably have large families, and so Anthony probably had siblings, maybe even extended family. By making Anthony that way, it made it possible to put more characters in the story, to add depth and make him less static. Because Anthony's siblings, Bree and Riley, seem relatively well-adjusted, don't they? And that begged the question of what happened to Anthony to make him so standoffish? Maybe Ella happened to Anthony. People do say that love and loss change us - and Anthony got both in one fell swoop.

Of course, the additions to the story springing from Anthony's character didn't just stop with werewolves. He'd lived in the town his entire life, after all, so he'd have best friends - friends who had siblings, friends who had cousins, cousins who had murdery cousins and cousins with cases of mistaken identity.

See the spiderwebbing from one character? That's pretty much how all of the plot happened in this story. Start with the main character and go from there and suddenly there are twists, turns, and time-loops. And villains. And the long-arm villain, the one that's been there from the start like a shadow that we didn't notice until he wanted to be noticed. I kind of love how devious the Merlynn-James arc was and that through creating Merlynn, Ella was able to be returned to some biological familial link (and a resolution to one of the regrets of her past through the Alec-Jane relationship), as well as a conflict in the story that was less man vs. man and more man vs. the world. And in fact, Alec's entire character was meant to be a nod to the original moral groundings that divide the way magician's use their magic; by having him so static and set in his beliefs, we were better able to see how Ella could be flexible, even to the point of self-sacrifice.

Other characters played different, though no less important, parts.

Saving Jane, for example, showed that Ella could be softer, almost nurturing in a way that we previously hadn't seen her. Jane became a bastion of tolerance for Ella and a reminder that bad things happen to good people. But in turn - interestingly - Jane's characterization shifted, too. She felt such loyalty to Ella that, in some ways, Jane mothered Ella in a way that Ella hasn't ever known.

Two other characters that came out of the blue for shifting Ella's character were Ben and Maggie - both younger, both innocent, both representing something Ella saw in her self that made her respond to their situations in ways that were unique to Ella.

Even parts of the story that I initially didn't think were related to the development of Ella's character ended up being related to the development of Ella's character - surprising even to me.

It goes without saying, of course, that all of these characters needed a place to live. The story had to happen somewhere - a place that catered to the supernatural without being so alien as to be unrelatable. The solution was to create Charmstone, which has always been a homage to both the Forbidden Forest and the Hellmouth. And Charmstone couldn't be nearly as idyllic as it first appeared, which is where we see the slow-working CPD and the self-serving of the town council. And since Charmstone was there, this obviously left me open to make the town itself a place of dynamic development; Bokhandel becomes The Magic Shop and through that, we have yet another development in Ella's character, this time her change from wanting to go to college to deciding that she doesn't really need it. And that's how the town itself became a vehicle for Ella's continued self-discovery.

And the fact that the hag pretty much grounded Ella to Charmstone for the rest of her life? Well, it gave Ella a reason to change - she couldn't run away like she had in the past.

And speaking of Ella's past…

So in the interest of full disclosure, I will admit to doing extensive research on the psychological components involved in this story. It isn't as if that's any burden, as I am a psych major, but it does mean that I feel a particular obligation to appropriately represent certain aspects about Ella's character - especially borderline personality disorder, acute stress trauma reactions, and the recovery process involved in survivors of sexual assault. To that end, the philosophy I tend to favor is humanism and holistic approaches to psychological treatment. It is my goal to provide an accurate portrayal of each of these components. However, I must stress that my knowledge is purely theoretical and that each individual experiences BPD differently, just like each survivor has a unique recovery from sexual traumas. Ella's journey is very much one that is highly nuanced, but it is also one that I do not feel is overtly accented by creative license.

It is my sincere hope that I treated Ella's psychological issues with great care, while also driving home the message of being #stigmafree.

Finally, to everyone who read and reviewed and followed and favorited, I give you my heartfelt thanks for giving this beast of a saga a chance. The whole thing was a gamble for me that, naturally, grew so much bigger than I ever dreamed. I am grateful to anyone who has come to love these characters as much as I do.

Thank you.

As always, lovelies, be brutally honest. You know I can take it.

~Rae