I'm really glad you mentioned the abusive dad because I tend to forget the influence that has on Kalen's and Brendan's personalities and character development later. One of the characters has an abusive parent (sense a theme here? whoops) and while I think that's only mentioned once or twice in the book it's really clear to me how it's an influence on that character's personality.
Calla, Wes, and even Devin tend to talk about their pasts a lot more in my head than Kalen and Brendan do. I think it's because Kalen and Brendan have been raised by nature to be more action-oriented (even though Kalen's pretty passive throughout a lot of the book), so the stuff I get from them tends to be a lot more in the moment. Whereas the other three will be all "and that reminds of this time when blah blah blah". It's weird.
And the dad really does prefer Kalen and I think mostly limits his abuse to Brendan. I'm not sure if this is because Kalen becomes the golden boy or because Brendan willingly takes the abuse in Kalen's place but I think (a) it's a little of both and (b) Kalen basically does not appreciate this. At. All. I don't think he's even aware of what Brendan goes through because he's very absorbed in how hard it is to pretend to everyone else his whole life to be something he's not.
And all of this is depth that hasn't come out in the story yet so I'm glad we are talking about it. Because this obviously is going to add depth to their roles in the story and their relationship with each other. Also, there are times when Kalen and/or Brendan behave similarly in some ways to my other character with an abusive parent and oh, okay, I kind of get it now.
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timeasmymeasure
Re: what I liked
Date: 2013-03-13 11:59 am (UTC)Calla, Wes, and even Devin tend to talk about their pasts a lot more in my head than Kalen and Brendan do. I think it's because Kalen and Brendan have been raised by nature to be more action-oriented (even though Kalen's pretty passive throughout a lot of the book), so the stuff I get from them tends to be a lot more in the moment. Whereas the other three will be all "and that reminds of this time when blah blah blah". It's weird.
And the dad really does prefer Kalen and I think mostly limits his abuse to Brendan. I'm not sure if this is because Kalen becomes the golden boy or because Brendan willingly takes the abuse in Kalen's place but I think (a) it's a little of both and (b) Kalen basically does not appreciate this. At. All. I don't think he's even aware of what Brendan goes through because he's very absorbed in how hard it is to pretend to everyone else his whole life to be something he's not.
And all of this is depth that hasn't come out in the story yet so I'm glad we are talking about it. Because this obviously is going to add depth to their roles in the story and their relationship with each other. Also, there are times when Kalen and/or Brendan behave similarly in some ways to my other character with an abusive parent and oh, okay, I kind of get it now.