BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE #TWO: August...

What is Beautiful People? 

Beautiful People is for writers. Every month, they post a list of 10 questions for you to answer about your characters. It’s designed to help you get to know your characters – their quirks, their personality, their flaws, and who they are.

It is hosted by Cait at PAPER FURY, and Skye at  FURTHER UP AND FURTHER. You can find out all about joining up, HERE.

FRIENDSHIP

All of my BP posts are about Saffron, the ten year old  MC in Hidden Magic: The Adventures of Saffron Browne, which I am soon to serialize on Wattpad. It is a story I started writing many years ago to entertain my son in-between Harry Potter books. 

HOW LONG HAVE THEY KNOWN EACH OTHER?
Saffron and Fig have known each other about four years.

WHAT IS THEIR EARLIEST MEMORY OF BEING BEST FRIENDS.
Fig teaching Saffron to play chess in the attic using the same chess set it taught her mother with as a child.

DO THEY FIGHT? HOW LONG DO THEY TYPICALLY FIGHT FOR?
Not really. Saffron sometimes scolds Fig for its monthly midnight moaning sessions, or for scaring her little brother, but it apologizes and everything is fine, until the next time. Saffron always tells Fig saying sorry also means you will try your best not to repeat the offense, but it doesn't seem to sink in.

ARE THEIR PERSONALITIES SIMILAR, OR DO THEY COMPLIMENT EACH OTHER?
Hmm... good question. I have never really thought about it. I don't think it is either. Does that make sense? Symbiotic mutualism, maybe?


WHO IS THE LEADER OF THEIR FRIENDSHIP?
I think they take turns. If Saffron is showing Fig how to do something, she is the leader, and vice versa. Also, Fig pretty much dictates their reading materials and Saffron the games they play.

DO THEY HAVE ANY SECRETS FROM EACH OTHER?
Not intentionally. 

HOW WELL DO THEY KNOW EACH OTHER'S QUIRKS AND HABITS?
Really well. Of course everyone at Belfry Manor knows about Fig's monthly midnight moanings, but  only Saffron knows the reason behind them. She knows what Fig's changes in color and density mean. Fig knows Saffron doesn't like to read mysteries, adores cold pizza for breakfast, that pears are her favorite fruit, and yellow cake with chocolate frosting is her favorite dessert. It knows that she chews the end of her left braided pigtail when she is anxious about something, and twirls the right one around her fingers when she is deep in thought.

WHAT SORT OF THINGS DO THEY LIKE TO DO TOGETHER?
They like to read to each other and play chess. Also, even though Fig thinks it is beneath its intelligence, every once in a while Saffron can convince it to play Monopoly, or The Game of Life. Once they played an old board game called Mystery Date that Saffron found in a stack near the attic stairs.

  Saffron ended up laughing so hard she cried. They also like decorating the attic with things Saffron cuts from paper, and listening to old records on a beat up crank Victrola.


DESCRIBE EACH CHARACTER'S FASHION STYLE.
Well... that is going to be difficult for Fig because Saffron once described it as, '...a shapeless cross between fog and a giant dust bunny, watched on a snowy black and white television.'

 Saffron is on the tomboyish side: jeans and punk band t-shirts with converse high tops, or bare feet. She does like to play dress-up in some of the vintage clothing she finds in old trunks in the attic. And then she twirls.



HOW WOULD THEIR LIVES BE DIFFERENT WITHOUT EACH OTHER?
Saffron would have no one to confide in on a regular basis. Her grandmother is kind, but too straitlaced to be sufficiently nurturing, and her grandpapa is traveling the world ten months of the year; basically only being around the manor during holidays. Gi Gi, her grandmother's best friend, had been a wonderful confidant, but now that she is also one of the Belfry Academy's teachers, Saffron feels strange curling up in a big chair with her and  talking about her feelings. With her mother all but estranged, she is in desperate need of a mother figure. She also feels closer to her absentee mother when Fig tells her stories about when her mother was a child and teenager. There is also a negative side to their relationship. Spending so much of her free time with Fig keeps her from developing friendships with younger people. Emphasis on people. Their friendship also doesn't leave her the need to try and get closer to her grandmother.

Fig had all but faded away into nothingness by the time Saffron had built up the courage to venture into the attic, after her mother had told her about her dearest childhood friend, Figment, who resided there. Fig needs to interact with the living in order to remember to be. Saffron sometimes considers Fig loving, but knows the spirit has long since forgotten what that emotion really is. The negative for Fig, in this friendship, is that maybe if it did disperse into nothing, it would go on to a place where it would actually remember who and what it was.