TheBoldMouse

What are some things you have learned when trying to research for a character/plot/setting you wanted to write, but knew little about its specifics? For example, you have a character who is a musician and they have a major role, but you know nothing about music.

Putting this in a journal as kind of a ramble just so I can put these thoughts somewhere, and for anyone who somehow still remembers Wally. Also, this would be better to read if you read through the WANTED trilogy because I’ll be mentioning names and not stopping to explain who they are.

Wally and Poppy were originally going to exist in their own world, but decided a few weeks ago I would make them a part of Ben’s world. Given how much more developed that setting is compared to the one I tried to create for the two weasels, I figured it would be easier to do this, as well as encourage me to flesh out a world that’s already established. Some details I originally planned for the failed novel are still true, but others have to change.

Wally is a least weasel and was born two years after Ben (2006). He has lived in Evergreen his whole life and is an aspiring journalist (one that can be trusted, unlike the “journalists” of MSM). His connection with Avery world doesn’t happen until high school, when he’s a freshman and Ben’s a junior (2020/21 school year). Their grade difference meant they didn’t cross each other’s paths often, but that changed when young Wally joined a writing club. Ben was never much into writing, but when Carla decided to join via casual interest, he followed. It was something they could do together. The group started off big at the start of spring semester, but thinned out over the next few weeks. Ben, Carla, Wally, and a few others stuck around. One of them was Poppy, another least weasel. She was a sophomore.

Just like what I originally planned for the novel, there is more backstory to Poppy than Wally, and that’s still the case. She is soft-spoken and reserved, and surprisingly, a very average student. The quiet ones are stereotyped as the smart ones, but her report cards are normally filled with Cs. What’s added to the anomaly is that her father, Walt Armel, is a well-known and accomplished man. Only forty-two and primed to run for mayor of Evergreen (he’ll win the ‘22 election, be re-elected in ‘26, and win the state’s governorship in 2030). No one expected Poppy to be average, and being in the shadow of her father makes her appear even more pathetic. This isn’t without reason though.

(The part about the crash will need a lot more fleshing out).

Over the summer of 2015, between fourth and fifth grade, she and the rest of her family were involved in a plane crash. Of the 189 people on board, she, her father, and a few other strangers survived. It occurred just after takeoff from Las Piceas International Airport. Her mother and two brothers were gone, as were 182 other souls. Medics managed to save the survivors, though they have permanent injuries. Poppy walks with a limp and her father has a bad back due to a spine injury. Concentrating on anything in school became impossible. She relived the trauma every day. The plane careening out of control, passengers screaming as their final seconds ticked away, the screeching whir of the engines that tried to give the plane more altitude, but to no avail, and worst of all, the final images she had of her mother and brothers. This led to the inability to focus, zone out, and sometimes, sudden panic outbursts from various triggers. While her father struggled with the trauma, he was able to keep those things under control better. She and Ben find common ground when a conversation ends up turning to things in the past that haunt them. There’s mutual sympathy that helps the two of them be more comfortable confronting their traumas.

Ben, James, and Dalya graduate in 2022. Poppy becomes a senior while Wally becomes a junior. The two form a friendship that blossoms into a mutual crush, and they stay in the writing club (in fact, Wally becomes president of it the following school year). Wally’s writing receives constant praise from his English teachers. His informative writing is exceptional, as is his narrative, argumentative, editorial, and poetic. He can write just about anything. Poppy? At least she’s trying (there will be a short story sometime about that). In a nutshell, the two partake in a short story contest where he excels and she crashes and burns. She feels like she can’t do anything right and is a bumbling idiot (partly because the judge chose to insult her than say anything helpful), but Wally gives her encouragement. He is tough on her story, but his feedback is infinitely better and inspires Poppy to not give up writing.

The two become married in the future and start a family. They don’t talk to the other three as much after high school, as is the nature sometimes of parting ways and following your own path.

If your characters penned autobiographies (or had biographies written of them), what would their titles be, and why? What kind of legacies do they want to leave for those who read them?

In the days following Miguel’s liberation of the town in Rid Them Out of the Hand of the Wicked, some of the mice go with him to El Reino to start new lives. Olivia Dominguez, the child whose parents were swallowed up by the wicked tyrant, is one of them, and her abuela is another. The little girl clings to Miguel, even when he offers to help her get into an orphanage. He cares about her, but is unsure it’s a good idea for him to look after her because of his lifestyle (always going on dangerous adventures). He decides to take her to the queen and see if she can find a good home for the young mouse. Small Olivia thinks the queen will be another mouse since that’s what Miguel is, so she is flabbergasted and worried to see that she is, in fact, a Scyroar. Queen Catherine stands about five feet from head to toe; she could comfortably hold four mice Olivia’s size in one paw. Given the young mouse’s parents were gobbled up by a massive creature, she is understandably terrified. She clutches Miguel and begs him not to let the big lion eat her. He persuades her that won’t happen. The queen is remarkably kind and gentle, and all the mice who live in El Reino like her. He mentions how the queen’s father long ago adopted two little mice and raised them as his own, and Ariel, the older of those two mice, is his mother. Eventually, Olivia trusts the queen, and the Scyroar scoops the tiny mouse in her paws and pledges to help her.

It doesn’t take long for Catherine to determine who to ask in regards to adopting Olivia (her abuela wants her to have parents too; she is not only getting too old to raise a child Olivia’s age, but she also wants her to have a dad). The Scyroar knows two ferrets who might be happy to adopt the child. Sascha, the husband, is her defense/military strategist (it is the mid-1860’s, so a certain major war is happening not far from them), and Yuria is his wife, and Catherine’s long-time friend. Before going into why Catherine thought of them, here’s some backstory.

Catherine was a fifteen-year old Scyleo when she met Yuria and her family (1840). They were immigrants from Japan, and Yuria was five. She offered to babysit while the parents were away for a little, causing her to form a bond with the little ferret. Despite their age difference, they had fun. She became friends with the family. Yuria wanted Catherine to come and play all the time, though it ended up being the other way around (Catherine’s place was so much bigger and more conducive to playing).

Eleven years later, Catherine is coronated as queen after her older brother forfeits the position due to horrific family drama. Over the following four years, worries mount in El Reino about the tensions in the U.S. bubbling over into war, and how it might affect them. In 1855, Catherine decides to appoint a defense strategist, a ferret named Sascha to advise her about how to protect El Reino should war encroach on their doorstep. Being on the west coast, they’d rather not get involved. They are also a very small kingdom; war would destroy them completely. Not long after, he and Yuria meet and become married.

In 1858, Catherine and Yuria discover they are not only both pregnant, but could very well give birth at the same time in months to come (This would be Catherine’s third, and Yuria’s first). They muse about their babies being born the same day. Life had different plans, as it usually does. Only weeks after their musing, Yuria woke up one night to the worst thing that could’ve happened to her.

A miscarriage.

The experience traumatizes the poor ferret and gives Catherine pseudo-survivor’s guilt. She has her third child with no problem, while Yuria has none. She becomes scared of even trying again, as much as Sascha wants to become a father. A few attempts are made over the next seven years, but nothing comes of them. Yuria is convinced the miscarriage broke her physically and she will never become a mother. They discuss adoption too, but Yuria is hesitant. Wouldn’t that just remind her of how she couldn’t become a mom the normal way? And there’s fear on her part something bad would happen to their adoptive child. Over time though, she starts to feel guilty about not giving her husband the chance to be a father.

That’s where Olivia comes in.

Catherine tells them about the poor little mouse who wants a family again, and Olivia and the ferrets meet for the first time. Any hesitance Yuria still had melted away when she beheld the tiny creature. Helpless and no one to care for her, the mom-who-failed-to-be scooped her up in her arms. She turned to her husband, hoping he was in agreement. Olivia wasn’t a ferret like them, but the child needed parents. Perhaps they could be who she needed? Sascha agrees to take the little mouse in, and the mouse accepts. Against Yuria’s fears, nothing bad happens to Olivia, and the mouse grows up with loving parents. Abuela lives the rest of her days happy to see her granddaughter nurtured.

Tangentially, the Civil War never hits El Reino. Catherine’s fears too were abated. Still, Sascha keeps his job because one never knows when things can turn for the worse.

What character of yours had the most sheltered childhood? When they grew up, did they maintain that status quo of comfort, or did they seek to live a life risk and adventure? Likewise, what character had the most challenging childhood? When they grew up, did they continue living in hardship, or did they look for a life of comfort?