Dev -- Devlin Pope in Underground Guy -- has offered up something that makes me very uncomfortable...so I'm going with it. I don't want to say, just yet, because I halfway wonder if the little shit's just testing me. But it fits in with his dark character. Can one be borderline sociopathic? Is that even a possibility, like being a little crazy? Is it something you can control, with meds or meditation or a 12-Step process?
This story's taking me into a world I don't really know -- and I'm not just talking about British law enforcement or English attitudes. Curt was a scary character to write, but that was because of his deep self-righteous anger. Traveling his road was not so much keeping up but trying to find ways to make him still understandable and sympathetic. And most reviewers say I've done that...and some even add they hate themselves for feeling anything for him.
But in the end, Curt wasn't actually intelligent enough to have any sort of self-awareness until he'd gone through hell; he just had serious street-smarts. With Dev, I'm finding his choice of name carries a lot more meaning than I'd anticipated. Maybe he's schizophrenic -- sometimes an angel, sometimes a devil. I'm thinking of making him Catholic...and he's not averse to that. It's just, I almost think it's too obvious a monicker.
Which makes me wonder about the other two main characters' names -- Reg (Reginald Thornton) and Tawfi (Tawfiq Murtada...who never mentions his last name because it's too high-ranking in his home country). They can have multiple meanings, too. Reg is the abbreviation for regular and Tawfi is pronounced toffee, which used to be British slang for a condescending member of the upper class; I don't know if it's still part of their everyday vernacular.
But then...that kind of fits Tawfi. Upper crust. Money. Member of the political class. Well-educated. Very intelligent and quite smart about the ways of the world.
Maybe it's all meant to be as it's coming into being.
This story's taking me into a world I don't really know -- and I'm not just talking about British law enforcement or English attitudes. Curt was a scary character to write, but that was because of his deep self-righteous anger. Traveling his road was not so much keeping up but trying to find ways to make him still understandable and sympathetic. And most reviewers say I've done that...and some even add they hate themselves for feeling anything for him.
But in the end, Curt wasn't actually intelligent enough to have any sort of self-awareness until he'd gone through hell; he just had serious street-smarts. With Dev, I'm finding his choice of name carries a lot more meaning than I'd anticipated. Maybe he's schizophrenic -- sometimes an angel, sometimes a devil. I'm thinking of making him Catholic...and he's not averse to that. It's just, I almost think it's too obvious a monicker.
Which makes me wonder about the other two main characters' names -- Reg (Reginald Thornton) and Tawfi (Tawfiq Murtada...who never mentions his last name because it's too high-ranking in his home country). They can have multiple meanings, too. Reg is the abbreviation for regular and Tawfi is pronounced toffee, which used to be British slang for a condescending member of the upper class; I don't know if it's still part of their everyday vernacular.
Maybe it's all meant to be as it's coming into being.
No comments:
Post a Comment