Defense of the People Afterword -

Anyone who writes a story not entirely event-driven will have trouble with his or her characters at one point or another. Or at least that's what I think, because my characters give me more grief than anything else does. They're all a bunch of finicky, balky prima donnas that slow down my writing to a crawl when they want to (or more specifically, when they don't want to be doing what I want them to). Jerks.

It's a love / hate relationship, though. Even as ornery characters can impede progress, they're also pretty darn helpful when it comes to getting past a complete writer's block. Whenever it gets to the point where I end up staring at my last week's worth of work and realize that it's a wandering mess with no direction or plot development, I do the obvious thing. All I have to do is sit down and talk with them, because they usually have a solution that'll get the story going again. Granted, any given character's suggestion is probably one that'll work out best for them, but they're still the perfect advisors - always on hand, and they can't tell anyone anything. If this sounds a little schizophrenic, it is. Every author who writes a character-driven story has to be at least a little crazy.

The end of any story is, therefore, a great relief and sense of accomplishment. One thing that I enjoy doing after any story is sitting down with every character in the story - all at once - and writing down everything that we talk about as a sort of afterword or epilog. It's by no means a part of any story or the universe, but if you ever wondered what the heck some of the characters were thinking at one point or another, or how they really feel about eachother, or me, I think you'll find this type of mini-interview entertaining.

And no, I'm not crazy. Probably.

Character Interview:

(With Vincent Terrell, Miles Arathch, Kyaruin Arathch, Eaghera Arathch, Huri Riehs, Vher, Raiira, Aaron Sykes, and Naia Khas'schti.)

Terrell: We're finally done. God, what a trial. It feels weird now that I'm not nagging myself to log some more hours on the word processor.

Aaron: Oh no you don't, you've still got to finish Blurred Lines. In fact, why aren't you working on it now?

Kyaruin: Shut up, Ahrn. You just want him to work on BL because it's written from your perspective.

Terrell: Actually, I was originally going to do it from third person, but after I drafted the first ten pages or so I realized I couldn't do it. It's just too big of a story for me to take on from the god-perspective. I suck too much as a writer to do that.

Raiira: Yeah, you do suck. Why the hell did you have Vher kill me? I thought that was kind of uncalled for.

Terrell: Well, it was the obvious conclusion. I got all the way to the elevator scene without having found a point of conflict or a 'bad guy', besides Aaron and Naia -

Naia: Hey! Aaron's the good guy, and after the story finished, I was too.

Miles: No, in this story the Hrasi are the protagonists. That makes Aaron the enemy and you a traitor to the 'dark side'.

Terrell: Exactly. Anyway, when I asked you what to do you volunteered to be the antagonist to shake things up for me -

Kyaruin: Hey, no, let's get this straight. She volunteered to knock me around and feel me up.

Raiira: Did not! It was completely out of the goodness of my heart. Vincent is the one that made me the maniacal lesbian bondage chick. I'll have you know that I was a perfectly average Hrasi until that elevator scene.

Terrell: Well that's what got you killed. Think about it: I couldn't do anything else with you. I'd already wiped two people, and you couldn't leave with Aaron because BL doesn't need any more women.

Naia: No kidding. So far the ratio of men to women over there is what? 2:6? And Aaron is about to kill the other guy, so really the cast of BL is Aaron and 6 women. What's with that?

Vher: Huh. Good point. And Defense of the People is just as bad. We had two guys - Kej didn't count because he was an annoying blowhard - and seven girls.

Huri: Not to mention that ALL of the women were in love with one or both of them. You know, Terrell, as a qualified breeder of the human race I can tell you that you don't have the emotional experience to be writing about entangled relationships. This story we just finished reads like cheap smut.

Naia: That's kind of mean…

Terrell: At least one of you will stand up for me.

Eaghera: Hey, I haven't gotten to talk yet. Can we discuss something that everybody knows about, like, say, advanced biology? Comparative dermal biology? Sub-molecular chemistry? Or maybe, oh, THE STORY?!

Kyaruin: Why don't we ask Vincent about all the glaring errors and inconsistencies in Defense's plot?

Miles: Yet another great idea from the superior Hrasi mind.

Aaron: Are you trying to provoke me, or are you just stupid?

Vher: Gentlemen, please. Hrnnn… Hey, why is Ahrn's last name Sykes if his mother's name is Sykes?

Naia: Easy. Rachel - Aaron's mom - married a man whose last name was Sykes. It's a human thing.

Vher: …Okay, then how is it that Aaron could take down dozens of guards after just being tortured half to death when he couldn't kill a single soldier at the beginning of BL? And how is it that he shot me at the end of the story when I'm an elite bodyguard and he's a pilot?

Aaron: Because I'm the hero and I can't die. That would stop BL dead in its tracks.

Terrell: More than that. The way I've been writing BL, other people have been solving your problems. I'm on part 5 of BL and you haven't actually done anything yet. Now, I'm thinking these two days take place somewhere around parts 8 or 9, but I'm not sure. In any case, this other-people-fixing-your-life crap is going to have to stop, because it's childish and dumb. I'm going to force myself to make you take action or suffer the consequences of not acting.

Aaron: Awww….

Huri: How about this: what happened to everybody at the end of the story?

Terrell: Well, Aaron and Naia obviously got away, but past that it all depends on how you want to look at the last scene, and as you all know my opinions aren't worth a whole lot. The way I saw it, Raiira died when she was shot. Riehs went to jail on treason charges when the government discovered that her key had unlocked Aaron's getaway ship. Knowing she would be indicted, Riehs promoted Eaghera to replace her as head of the Genetic Engineering Project to continue the selective breeding program. Kyaruin replaced treacherous Raiira as Miles' secretary, and became bond-partner to Eaghera because they were both indentured to Miles. Having both been wrenched from their college studies into sexual enslavement as young women they could not reasonably expect to be accepted back into their families, so they asked Miles to adopt them. This was great for him because both of his new 'daughters' could reproduce, which would restore and enlarge the Arathch family that Matron entrusted to him by giving him her last name. Miles went back to his job designing missile defense systems and finally admitted her interest in Vher, who moved in with him. Likely she quit her job spying on him out of guilt, but it never seemed to bother him, and apparently was a fairly lucrative job, so we can't be sure.

Vher: You talk too much. Nobody needed to know that.

Raiira: How is it that we form all these complex relationships and love triangles in two days?

Eaghera: Because we're all really sexually repressed?

Terrell: Because I suck with time. In BL there's a whole lot more of that. Amara takes about five minutes to go from hostile to worshipful of Aaron, ditto with Maura, ditto with all the female Hrasi pilots on the carrier… I'm working on it, okay?

Aaron: I don't understand this 'clan' thing. How does the Hrasi social structure work?

Miles: It's easy, brother. From early childhood every Hrasi has a single 'bond-partner' of the same sex that they sleep with unless they're deep in mourning or ill with a contagious disease. These people are equivalent to best friends, but not lovers. When they come of age, they break from their partners to marry like humans do. Children live with their parents and bond-partners. Unmarried adult Hrasi live with other bond-partners and married couples live alone or with the parents of their children's bond partners. Families do not extend into politics or economics as with Cherryh's felines or Otrstf's Diyim'yi, but exist more closely than human families. They look out for eachother.

Eaghera: Right. Miles looks out for us, especially because we're bonded to him; that is, we owe him our freedom, so he's responsible for us. It's give and take: he's there for us, and we're there for him. It works.

Raiira: It works poorly. But who cares? Hrasi society is a mess, and it's all Terrell's fault because he can't write. And that's not him talking, either. I really do think you're quite the incompetent, Terrell.

Terrell: Thanks. Just… Thanks.

Kyaruin: So, are any of us going to be in any further stories?

Terrell: Well, I don't know. It'd be hard to put Huri or Raiira in anything else, because they're both out of the picture. On the other hand, Aaron and Naia still have a lot of trouble up ahead of them in BL. The rest of you, though… Well, I'd be happy to write you in if you want me to. How about it?

Miles: No way. I almost died as a main protagonist; if I go in as a minor antagonist I won't stand a chance.

Kyaruin: I'd like to see more of Ahrn and Naia… They seemed pretty companionable, even when we were trying to kill them.

Eaghera: Sounds like Kyaruin's the only one who wants more page time. The rest of us are afraid to die.

Terrell: Well, there you have it. Anything else?

Raiira: I hate you.

Terrell: Thanks. Anyone have any other comments? No?

Aaron: I think that's about it. Now, will you get back to writing Blurred Lines?