Name: Peter Young

Age: 8, 9, 24, 39

Nationality: American

Socioeconomic Level as a child: very happy, well-liked and humorous, fairly popular, parents make decent money

Socioeconomic Level as an adult: Kind, well liked, fairly poor but charitable, very humble and quiet, reserved

Hometown: Spokane, Washington

Current Residence: Spokane Washington

Occupation: Clown/Locksmith/Medieval Rock Band Harpist

Income: 24k/year

Talents/Skills: lock picking, humor, harping,  

Salary: 20k/year

Birth order: only child

Siblings (describe relationship): none

Spouse (describe relationship): none

Children (describe relationship): none, but enjoys being around them

Grandparents (describe relationship): nonexistent

Grandchildren (describe relationship): nonexistent

Significant Others (describe relationship): Friends (other clowns and band mates) very friendly relationship but limited to concerts and shows, gets picked on somewhat by band mates, not really friendly outside of these venues

Relationship skills: below average relationship skills, fairly shy in person, but when performing attempts to cover up these aspects of his personality, lives vicariously through his on-stage persona

 

Height: 6’2”

Weight:  200

Race: Korean

Eye Color: brown

Hair Color: black

Glasses or contact lenses? none

Skin color: fairly tan

Shape of Face: thin face, sunk-in eyes, narrow jaw

Distinguishing features: slightly crooked nose, large nostrils

How does he/she dress? Bright colors when performing, fairly plain when not, sticks to earth tones, conservative, especially when around family

Mannerisms: has difficulty looking people in the eye when out of character, drinks quite heavily later in life

Habits: (smoking, drinking etc.) drinks quite often, but no smoking or recreational drugs

Health: fairly good health,

Hobbies: clowning, LARPing, and playing harp, making balloon animals

Favorite Sayings: none

Speech patterns: common English

Disabilities: none

Style (Elegant, shabby etc.): conservative style, doesn’t really dress to impress, rather to remain inconspicuous

Greatest flaw: allows people to walk all over him on occasion, is far too trusting, naïve

Best quality: very humble and has a natural talent for making people laugh, especially children, very good with kids, loving

Educational Background: high school education, spurns college, trained in lock smithy (by his father)

Intelligence Level: fairly intelligent, but primarily average

Any Mental Illnesses? Mildly deranged at first, but  

Learning Experiences: that society can be extremely cruel

Character’s short-term goals in life: be happy and bring happiness to others

Character’s long-term goals in life: settle down with a wife and have kids of his own, be a good father figure

How does Character see himself/herself?

How does Character believe he/she is perceived by others? Nice, at first, but later on people tend to avoid him and even shun him

How self-confident is the character? Not extremely self-confident, below average confidence

Does the character seem ruled by emotion or logic or some combination thereof? Yeah, likes to be center of attention, but also wishes to be loved, needs some form of affection, either physical or emotional

What would most embarrass this character? Small secrets that he tends to keep to himself, pointless things like revealing to his friends who he is dating and telling his family where he is going, even if it is simply to the grocery store

Strengths/Weaknesses: is very kind, too naïve, makes people laugh, is humble, meticulous, hard-working, enjoys life, tries too much to be masculine, is very homophobic, seems to feel the stigma of Asian stereotypes whenever it doesn’t necessarily exist

Introvert or Extrovert? Extrovert while performing, has introverted tendencies in everyday life though

How does the character deal with anger? He acts upon it, really doesn’t control it well in the latter half of the story

With sadness? Tries to rationalize it by relating it to happiness, practices avoidance when it comes up

With conflict? Hates conflict, wishes to avoid it at all costs

With change? Is subjected to it, but doesn’t quite understand it, tries to struggle against it for this reason

With loss? Doesn’t really experience loss too much

What does the character want out of life? A family and respect, mostly

What would the character like to change in his/her life? The way he is viewed by people, would love to change what society views as being important, such as money and seriousness, despises abusive people

What motivates this character? The idea that he is important amongst his peers and society in general, he wants to make a difference in the world

What frightens this character? Men larger than him, being laughed at out of costume, being a stereotypical Vietnamese boy

What makes this character happy? Making children happy, having an impact on society, wants to date a white woman

Is the character judgmental of others? Not blatantly, but subversively judges others, loves to criticize parents for how they treat their kids, feels that he could do it better

Is the character generous or stingy? Generous, money doesn’t necessarily motivate him, it just pays his bills

Is the character generally polite or rude? Polite mostly, but very confused at what it means to be polite

 

Does the character believe in God? Yes, only because he wishes to completely fit in with the American society

What are the character’s spiritual beliefs? They aren’t necessarily grounded within him, they are more for show and don’t necessarily affect his actions

Is religion or spirituality a part of this character’s life? Not really, it’s more like a cool brand of t-shirt to him

If so, what role does it play?

Character’s role in the novel (main character? hero? heroine? Romantic interest? etc.): Protagonist

Scene where character first appears: outside, helping a lady unlock her car door

Relationships with other characters: fairly shallow, very guarded relationships

1.  The guards took Uri.  They came to the cell during lights out and charged him with conspiracy to commit an act against the state.  Uri was sixteen years old.  I tried to stand up for him, I really did.  But my mouth ran out of words.  Maybe I’m just a coward.  Maybe they are breaking me.  Maybe freedom wasn’t worth it anymore.  Maybe it was perverted, like my old neighbor, Mr. Standifer, who we always thought popped Viagra so he could jerk off to some animal porn.  My buddy Mark worked part time at the local pharmacy, and he would always mention how Standifer would fill his prescription every two weeks.  Standy’s wife was dead and we never saw any ladies coming or going. 

That was before the NDAA.  Back when we had some rights.  Freedom was like an ex-girlfriend to me now.  I would love to see her and catch up, but the first 10 minutes would most likely be awkward, and chances are she would bore me anyways.  Either or, it was a pretty shitty outcome. 

 

2.  Free will died that day.  We weren’t humans anymore.  Those computers that they started putting into people’s brains were like parasites, sucking the free will out of their “users.”  Apple and Twitter were at the center of it all.  They worked with the U.S. Government to make iBrains mandatory for all citizens.  They spouted off propaganda about how they would boost memory and intelligence in every American citizen.  Then the NDAA got amended.  iBrains were programmed to automatically update the status of users, against their will. 

At first, words like terror, bomb, and warhead were flagged.  Eventually words like peace, different, and choice were targeted.  The government said that it was in the name of a more perfect world, a world free from terrorism.  They knew what was best.  The eagle would gobble up all the tiny birds as they uncontrollably tweeted their lives away.  Those of us who refused the iBrains were branded as political renegades, enemies of the state, or unmonitored ones.  They rounded us up in the name of security, telling our families that we were communicating with terrorists. 

 

3.  I was caught up.  National security, they called it.  “Apple’s iBrain is the dawn of a new age,” the commercials would say.  An uneventful outpatient surgery could net you some free painkillers and replaced every “peripheral” computing device. 

 

Peripherals are what they began to call us.  Those that stood against this fucked up guise of oppression.  The automatic tweets and status updates were their way of keep tabs on everybody.  Those of us who refused to “sign up” were called terrorists and placed in prison camps.  It was fine for me, I guess.  The beds weren’t too hard and the food was hot.  I refuse to be a fucking mouse and I could see my cage.  That’s more than all those “free” idiots running around could say.

 

Teddy was one of the standup rent-a-pigs.  We would light cigarettes and rate how hot the female guards were.  “It’s fucked up what they are doing to you guys,” he would say.  “Why don’t you let me go home then,” I’d reply.  

“Just getting my paycheck bro.”  Our conversations would always end with the paychecks.

In terms of point of view, the protagonist is basically talking and reasoning with herself.  The way Taylor uses second person point of view works well here because it acts like the protagonist’s conscious throughout the story.  This alternative voice allows the reader to see just what’s going on inside the protagonist’s head. 

 

This particular point of view works because it allows the reader to experience how the protagonist follows the calculating instructions that her emotions are giving her.  The form works well because of this as well.  This response to a husband’s actions is almost scripted, in that it seems like the most rational way to handle the anger that is boiling up inside of the protagonist.  Regardless, the protagonist seems to buck convention by partaking in the meal with her husband.  This represents a kind of twist to the recipe.

 

As far as forms go, I haven’t really thought too much about going outside the box with form.  Being that I am fairly new to writing creatively, I have been extremely preoccupied with telling an interesting narrative.  Still though, I think that I should use an alternative form to enhance the meaning of my narrative.  So… I’m thinking… perhaps a series of emails or even memos would work well in telling my story.  I do want to give that cold and calculating feel to my story, so this could be a good way to incorporate some ruthless and “businesslike” elements into my story.  It might work well with flash fiction due to the fact that these memos or emails basically try to inform recipients in the most clear-cut and time saving manner possible.  Accomplishing this in a way that doesn’t completely overrule my narrative will be extremely difficult.