Brooding YA Hero Page 19

  Manga

  Also illustrated stories and equally cool. These come from Japan and have a distinctive beautiful style. (Especially when I’m a character in them. Then I’m even more beautiful than any other character.) It’s worth noting that my Brooding Awesomeness can exist in stories across the world, and each culture will give me their own unique set of tropes.

  Sometimes, I think about how nice it must be to be Broody, and simplify the world’s different cultures as all revolving around him. Am I right, reader, or am I right?

  xoxo, B

  Graphic Novels

  Illustrated stories that are much longer and sometimes more pretentious. They might not have sound effect bubbles, which is a bummer, but they’re very likely to win awards. Those are almost as good.

  Video Games

  These are like movies that the player gets to control. Wow! That means if you fail in your story, it’s not your fault or the writer’s fault. It’s whoever is playing your game and constantly failing at beating a boss/collecting enough widgets/tapping a button fast enough.

  I knew I would like video games when I found out one of the earliest ones involved saving a princess from a castle. That’s one of my all-time-favorite hobbies!

  P.S. You know who never gets saved from castles? Evil ex-girlfriends.

  Board Games

  Like a video game, except there are small pieces you can lose if you aren’t careful. Do not lose the Broody game piece. Do not pass GO. Do not collect $200.

  Merchandise

  Remember how I mentioned candles? If you’re a lucky main character, your witty words will be on everything from mugs to tote bags. That’s reason 1,417 to have quippy one-liners prepared at all times, and to deploy them as often as you can in your story. Even when you’re running for your life.

  Actually, make that especially when you’re running for your life.

  # # #

  Fandom

  Now that we’ve talked about all the money-making ventures you could star in, I’d like to take some time to talk about a subject near and dear to my heart: myself.

  Well, no.

  I mean, I’ll always talk about myself, but I wanted to specifically talk about the group of people who love to put their creative powers to use talking about me.

  I want to talk about the Fandom.

  This word is a combination of two words: Fanatic and Kingdom.

  It’s a kingdom full of people fanatical about you, and you are their king and ruler. It’s a pretty sweet gig if you can get it.

  And how do you get to have your own fan kingdom? Well, if you follow all my other advice and become a handsome, dynamic, witty main character, then you, too, might be lucky enough to be given this rare and precious gift.

  Some common aspects in the world of fandom may be a little confusing to an outsider: namely, when the fandom ignores fact. You see, the work you hail from will be known as canon. However, sometimes your fans find the canon a little boring. Maybe your Author didn’t include enough kissing or made your world about as diverse as a loaf of white bread. In these cases, the fans will step in, prepared to add their own unique twists on your world. Here are some handy terms, so you’ll be prepared:

  Fanon

  This is when your fans decide collectively on something that might not actually appear in the text. For example, there is a very nice tower in your castle. This tower is only mentioned once in passing, but your fans have decided that all young couples in your castle scurry off to the tower to make out. As the years pass by, and more fandom works depict this tower as the Tower of Loooove, it grows so commonplace, many forget it was never in your book in the first place.

  Head Canon

  This is like fanon, but for a smaller group of people, perhaps even just one person. My fan, Patrick, is quite sure my favorite drink to order at a coffee shop is a Double Syrup Peppermint White Chocolate Mocha. Patrick will argue with anyone who tries to tell him that I would rather drink black coffee.

  (Don’t tell anyone, but Patrick is right.)

  Speaking of being right, here’s the thing: I, Broody McHottiepants, always think the fans are right. No matter what their head canon tells them, I will respect their choices. Fans love the works, and love me and other characters enough to dedicate their time to making more art about us. Therefore, they should be given the utmost respect.

  Even if they give me silly nicknames like “Broodster Cuddlepants.”

  One other thing to note. Sometimes, in fandom … I appear when I wasn’t originally in the work. How could this miracle happen? Simple. A fan creator takes a character that is far, far beneath me in the original work, and morphs him into a version of me. I consider this the greatest honor, especially if they also give me leather pants.

  Fan Fiction

  This is probably the easiest for you, as a written fictional character, to understand. Fan fiction is fiction that has been written by fans. (Really, it must be exhausting being such a clueless main character. Good thing I’m here to explain everything to you.) These are stories, so they may very well use some of those same narrative tools I mentioned earlier. However, there’s much more freedom in fan fiction. Authors can do things like … skip the concept of “plot” entirely. Or they can break the fourth wall and have the characters directly talk to them! (A character, talking to Authors. How strange and novel a concept.)

  Fanfic is its own beautiful world, full of its own terminology. Every main character should consider exploring its realms, at least for a little while. Just watch out for OOC (Out of Character) moments, those moments where you find yourself acting completely unlike yourself.

  Also, beware unfinished fics—stories that have not been updated in years, leaving you perpetually in plot limbo.

  Here are some of my favorite places to stay in Fanfic Land:

  The Beach of Drabbles

  Here is a very pleasant place to pass your days. Drabbles are short snippets of lovely prose, sometimes inspired by a word, such as “teatime” or “raindrop” or “defenestration.”

  Yes, I’d definitely like to write a Broody drabble about defenestration …

  Cafe One Shot

  One shots are great for a quick visit. They’re a self-contained work of indeterminable length, and are always enjoyable to star in, since you don’t have to work as hard to keep things like plot going. Sometimes you can just lay in bed the whole story. So relaxing.

  AU (Alternate Universe) Village

  Ah yes, this village can be quite confusing on your first visit. In short, AUs are stories where the characters from your book exist, but in completely different settings and situations. One time, I was a handsome young starship captain in a thrilling sci-fi adventure, but when I visited AU Village, I was suddenly a high school sophomore in a band. Sometimes, these stories are so different I can barely recognize myself. And sometimes, they are just characters playing dress-up.

  Crossover County

  An interesting place to visit, although I think I might develop a slight inferiority complex if I lived there. In these stories, the fan Author combines your story with another one, and lets the sparks fly.

  Let’s say the fan Author loves your book and also loves that movie about wizards in space. She decides to put you into the space setting, allowing you to influence and change that story’s plot.

  Sometimes, you’ll even get to kiss a love interest from a different story. How cool is that?

  Fluff Factory

  Ah, fluff. My happy place. These fics are dedicated to feel-good feelings, which are the very best type of feelings. Adjectives and swoonworthy moments abound. There’s no need for plot in these stories, which merely set up a cute moment, and let you revel in the feels, like sinking into a bed made of cotton candy. Oftentimes, these are romantic in nature, and give a character like me a chance to woo someone I might not in the actual story. For example, Blon—No. Broody. Get ahold of yourself, man! Maybe do some push-ups, or eyebrow raises. Stop thinking that.

  S
elf-Insert Shop

  This is a place where the writer of the fic drops themselves into the fictional world. They might be self-aware, meaning they know the plot and are actively trying to change it. (This is a very useful power when you mistakenly were killed off in the original book. Because, obviously, any time you were killed off was a giant, glaring mistake.) Other times, fans pay little attention to the rules of your fictional world, running rampant through it, changing things on their own whims like power-mad demigods.

  There’s also … racy fanfic, but there’s no need to discuss those. We’ve clearly established already that I prefer to keep my activities to “rolling around on a bed made of metaphors.”

  Needless to say, fanfic is full of many more types of stories, and I encourage you to explore them all. Part of the fun of being a main character is getting to be in even more stories, right?

  Yes, yes, so lovely to be a main character, and be in even more stories than one already has on a shelf. Thanks, Broody. Rub it in.

  I wonder if Broody even realizes how much we supporting characters live for the day we have one piece of fan art, one fan fiction story? How little we have, and how much we hope for?

  Nah. He’s probably too busy writing himself fan fiction about him falling in love with his reflection. Even if I thought there were a few moments, just a few, where he might have …

  No, I’m being ridiculous. Let me just talk about fanfic for a moment instead.

  When there are no stories that reflect your character, when you have nothing but a shallow, poorly depicted version of yourself on the pages of a book, you end up living for fan fiction. At least there, you’ve got a chance you might see yourself in the narrative.

  Could I ever make Broody see that? How lucky he is to be … who he is?

  Ugh. I’m turning into a sap. I have got to stop hanging around Broody. His love of melodrama is contagious.

  xoxo, Blondie

  Fan Art

  This, my friend, is one of my favorite things in the whole, entire world. People drawing pictures of me!

  Or, uh, other main characters.

  But really, me! We haven’t talked a lot about me recently.

  Talented artists use their magical powers to capture my beautiful face, and then share it with the world. I really enjoy fan art, and not just because it’s a chance for me to stare deeply into my own sparkling gemstone eyes. It’s fun because everyone sees my beauty and captures it in their own style, so it’s almost like the artists of the world are making a Broody-filled army.

  Cosplay

  Speaking of flattery, I do love seeing fans dress up as me. This is called cosplay, and is a unique way of taking my two-dimensional beauty and recreating it “in real life,” or “IRL” as all the hip kids say. Cosplay costumes can be so casual, one would be able to attend a real coffee shop in them, or so complex they won’t fit through a doorway.

  Your Author has put a lot of time into describing your outfits (hopefully) and, therefore, these cosplay creations can be really fun to see. If you truly represent an iconic sense of fashion in your work, be prepared for people to dress like you for years to come. Why, I once tossed on a black vest over my white shirt and navy trousers, with a blaster in a holster at my side … and people still sport that fashion, decades later. That’s icon status right there.

  Dear Broody,

  I am a big fan of yours. Do you ever think it’s strange, though, how sometimes your fandom tries so hard to make your world more diverse, give supporting characters more stage time, sometimes even changing the relationships in your books? Do you think it’s because these fans are reacting to a need they may have to see themselves on the page? What do you have to say about that?

  —A huge fan who is obviously not your ex

  Hmm. How odd to get fan mail before my book is even entirely written! Ah, well, I have included it here, within the pages of this lovely work for posterity.

  Dearest fan, when you buy this book, you’ll be able to read my answer.

  And that is.

  Uh …

  I don’t know? I … I never thought of fandom as being used for that purpose. I mainly just log on and search the Internet for beautiful new drawings of me.

  Still, I suppose, fan, perhaps you could be a little right. It’s possible that sometimes these fan writers, just like fiction Authors, are writing things into the world they wish would happen or wish to understand.

  So, I suppose I am glad they can do that. And if it involves me being extra swoonworthy? Why, all the better!

  # # #

  Hopefully this chapter has shown you that there’s so much more to a main character’s life than just that very first book. Even if you never reach a sequel, you might find true happiness in fanfic or in a comic book adaptation. Sometimes, books never receive the attention they deserve, which is a very sad thing, but the squeeing of even one fan is enough to help heal a protagonist’s heart.

  Truly, fans are among the most magical of all beings.

  Oh, and if you want to draw some fan art of me? Just give me a call and I’ll happily pose for you anytime.

  THE END

  IS IT STILL AN INTERLUDE IF THERE’S NOTHING AFTER?

  “That’s how you’re going to end it?” Blondie asked Broody in disbelief.

  He blinked, baffled and full of bafflement. She’d read the book?

  He at least was not surprised that Blondie was in the room, since she’d been around a lot, bringing him coffee and helpful books on writing. Sometimes, she even volunteered to look things up in a magical book called the dictionary.

  She said there was a thesaurus, too, but that he would be certain to abuse its mystical powers, so he wasn’t allowed to have that one anywhere near him.

  Broody had been amazed by how helpful, how interesting … how fun Blondie had been.

  Had being the key word since, right now, she was glaring furiously, intensely, ragingly.

  Broody wasn’t even sure if that last one was a real word, but even if it wasn’t, it deserved real word status.

  And then, Blondie threw his just-finished book at his head.

  He caught it with the cat-like reflexes of a cat (or a werelemur, but who could tell the difference) and tilted his head. “I … What are you doing in my room?”

  “I read your whole book!”

  “Oh! Awesome. Great. Did you … like it?” He paused, trying to remember what else Authors said in these situations. Now that he was, officially, an Author, he wanted to sound professional. “If you did, you should, uh, give it a five star review!”

  She rolled her eyes. “No! I didn’t like it.”

  “Why not?” He’d heard not everyone would be a fan of an Author’s work, so he was prepared for constructive criticism, as long as it was delivered in sandwich form, between two compliments. Or with an actual sandwich.

  “Because it didn’t help me at all!” Her bright eyes flashed dangerously.

  Broody took a step back. He wasn’t retreating, no. Broody was far too manly to retreat, ever. “Help you do what?”

  “Become a main character, of course!” Blondie threw herself on the bed in her best impersonation of a main character’s dramatic sort of action. Of course, she wasn’t one, and the action only succeeded in getting her hair stuck to her lip gloss.

  Broody cautiously walked closer, and with great attention, in a tentative manner, sat by her side. “Blondie … is that why you asked me to write this book? Is that why you challenged me?”

  She nodded miserably.

  It was all starting to make sense to him. All the questions she had asked. The trips they’d taken together over the last 325 pages. Heck, even the ghosts who had haunted him. Blondie had been pushing him to think outside of his main character bubble, to change.

  And he hadn’t.

  But in that moment, he finally understood. Seeing a character who’d never been a hero, who could never become a hero, even though she’d read his book, cry made something shift in the very
depths of his soul.

  He put his hand, shyly, nervously, in a manner not at all befitting a Broody, on her shoulder. “Blondie?” It was a question, soft and gentle, that would make more sense coming from a supporting character. Not from him. He wasn’t supposed to communicate.

  Or care.

  She slowly lifted her head. There were tears in her eyes, making them appear just as full of adjectives as any protagonist’s.

  Broody suddenly realized he was having a hard time swallowing.

  Even.

  His.

  Internal narration began to stutter.

  “Blondie,” he said again. How different these past few days would have been without her. He’d become so proud of his book, of all that he’d achieved. But he would have never been able to do it without her. She had been more than a supporting character to him. She’d pushed him, challenged him.

  Why, it was almost as if she was the Broody, and he’d been the clueless love interest all along.

  Finally, he said, “You’re … you’re a main character to me.”

  She looked up at him. “Really?”

  “Absolutely,” he whispered. “You’re not just an evil ex. Not to me. Not ever again.”

  “Hey,” she said, and although she was smiling, she sounded a bit stubborn. “Hey, omniscient third person narrator? Can we get in my head for a second?”

  Ah. There. Really, it was only fair if she’d spent an entire book trying to be treated like a main character that she get to have the POV, as well.

  Had she done it though?

  Had she really surpassed the limits of narrative, and become her own person?

  She gazed at Broody, as always immune to his intense, enchanting, gemstone-colored stare, that pulled her in and …

  Ahem. Yes. Sorry. She was TOTALLY AND COMPLETELY immune to that stare, and had no feelings for him at all, whatsoever.

  Except for the way her heart did a funny little hop when he’d spoken.

  Except for the way his smile made her feel.

  “Oh no,” she said, poking his chest. “I did not spend all book trying to get out of being in the deepest of shadows as your ex-girlfriend, just to fall for you all over again.”