I'm still working on my fanfiction story that has been my main focus for the last several November NaNoWriMo's, titled the Nerima All-Stars. I generally don't work on it except around NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writer's Month) time, but I want to try and finish it and get it published so that I don't have to think about it anymore. That means working on it in December as well, and probably January and February.
I haven't written much since Dec 1st, but I picked it back up this week. I was thinking: every character ought to have something they're passionate about. This was advice that I'd read recently, and it makes sense, it makes your characters more interesting and memorable. And I have this one character in my story, her name is Jin -- she's a storm controller, but she's kept her abilities a secret her whole life.
And -- what I'd written so far, she really didn't stand out. I imagined her as a kind of mousey recluse who worked from home and did most of her socializing online. But I had figured out what she was passionate about, it just didn't come through in my writing. Jin is a fan of a made-up magical girl anime series called Mahou Shoujo Stormbringer Akari. She owns figurines and drama cds and all kinds of merchandise from the show, and she even writes Akari fanfiction. I had decided that when her house gets destroyed, along with her precious collection, this would be a dramatic moment when she decides to unleash her power over storms and weather, to announce herself to the world, to "fight back" at the villain who was mostly responsible for this destruction.
The problem was, I had failed to write her as actually passionate about this anime. At first she didn't even mention it. Later I had her mention it in an off-hand manner, but this was hardly good enough. A true fan will talk about the show, compare things to the show, quote the show, say things like, "this is just like that episode where Akari did X!" When you meet her, you should learn at least this one thing about her.
Of course, it's hard to refer to a show you know nothing about. What do I know about Mahou Shoujo Stormbringer Akari? Her name is Akari. She controls weather. She's a magical girl. That's it, and that's all in the title. I knew literally nothing more.
So I decided to work on background info for my made-up anime show. Often, working on background info is a way for me to "start writing" before I actually add to the story. It's always useful in the end.
I gave Akari a full name -- Akari Harada, and I came up with two names for her best friends. I came up with the name of a local police officer, a young man she is infatuated with. Then I needed her major enemy. "The Queen of Storms", I thought. A weather-controller magical girl who battles with a weather-controller villain, why not? As for a name? I'd been picking names at random from lists of Japanese first names and surnames, but a villain required something more unusual. Like, all of the villains in Sailor Moon are named after gemstones. I needed something like that.
I decided that "Montana, Queen of Storms" sounded good. Why not name her after a U.S. state? It sounded like an anime thing to do. Her minions could be other states -- not Washington of course, and not California, that's too famous. How about Arizona, Colorado, and Dakota? I imagined they were like the three storms from Big Trouble in Little China -- Wind, Rain, Thunder. Dakota of the Wind. Yeah.
So far I had some basic details but didn't know much about the story or the background of the character. I decided, maybe she's the daughter of a storm god, and that's where her powers come from. So I did some research. Raijin is the Japanese storm god; he always appears with his brother Fujin. He's kind of a trickster god, kind of associated with death and destruction. That doesn't sound like a great father figure, although of course while storms bring death and destruction, rain also brings forth life so there are two sides to his character. But he also has a son who is a storm god as well, Raitaro.
So I figured, maybe Akari is the child of Raitaro. There's not a lot of information on him really, he's just the son of the thunder god, so Akari might be better thought of as the granddaughter of the storm god. In Japan, I think "storm god" usually just means Raijin.
There's also a storm beast called Raiju, who appears as a lightning wolf or dog but also as just about any other animal in existence. So, her magical girl guide/companion would be a cute puppy named Raiju, or a puppy who was a raiju but not necessarily the raiju.
So far so good! I wrote up a short paragraph about how Akari grew up, and how she discovered that she's really the granddaughter of the storm god (Raiju shows up and tells her of course), and she is forced to become a magical girl and battle with evil forces (who are also mostly storm based).
But there was also a paragraph about Raijin that compared him to other storm gods -- they all have similar powers and tempermants. It compared him to Leigong, Chinese god of thunder, and to Parjanya, Hindu god of rain, thunder, and lightning. It compared him to Thor (Norse god), Zeus (Greek) and Taranis (Celtic). And also to El, or YHWH, who historically was a Semitic storm deity before he evolved into the god of everything.
My first thought was: Oh, she needs to discover other daughters or granddaughters of other storm gods! That would be cool! Let's just go all in in the weather controller thing! So I came up with names: Penelope, a granddaughter of Zues; Damini, a granddaughter of Parjanya, and Keshet, who was descended from the Hebrew storm god.
And then I was like -- do I really want to declare a character the daughter or granddaughter of Yaweh? I was well familiar with the idea that Yaweh was a storm god first, and god of everything later. But did I want to treat the Christian god as just another mythological deity?
I did some research on Yaweh the storm god, and I was still debating whether to do it when I realized that I've really fallen too far down the rabbit hole. This is a side character to a fake anime that will only be mentioned in passing in my story because one fairly minor character is a fan of said anime. Like, let her be the grandchild of Yaweh, it's not going to even get mentioned in my story anyway!
I still need to come up with a few key phrases that Stormbringer Akari regularly says, some "In the name of the Moon, I shall punish you!" mojo, but for the most part I have my anime background. I realized part way through this that I can just make the rest up as I go along. Saying "This is just like that time Akari battled the demon Zograag in the Rainbow Kingdom!" does not require me or anyone to know anything about the anime episode in question, and the more outlandish the situation referenced the better. I can borrow famous scenes or battles from other anime or movies or science fiction shows or whatever, change the names, and it will sound like this magical girl has had some outlandish adventures that we will never get to know anything more about.
So... mission accomplished I guess? Now I actually need to rework actual scenes and dialogue in my actual story... you know, real writing.
