D - Derek

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D - Derek

"Your bracelet is whining."

From the moment he opened his mouth and uttered those words, Derek has both intrigued and annoyed Jen and me. On one hand, he has a very wry sense of humor and will do anything to defend his beliefs.

But when he believes that Jen is crazy and her world is weird ... well, that's when he became annoying.

Derek is Jen's adopted brother, but I can't say how, since you don't meet him until almost half-way through the book. (Chapter 12 of 25). I only just rewrote the "whining bracelet" scene on Sunday, so I'm really excited about writing with him again. I've missed him.

Derek was not one of my original characters. In fact, I didn't settle on his name until I reached chapter 12 and Jen asked for introductions. For a while, I had been considering the name Paul, mostly because I had been thinking about making him the imagination eater, and Paul is similar to the name of imagination eater. When I decided to make him and the imagination eater separate characters, he needed a different name.

I don't know what he might have been named were it not for the fact that, a few weeks before I had been babysitting the cousin who inspired Chris. This cousin had been plotting that day, and was eager to tell me all about the story he had been making up about Robin Hood's son, Derek Hood. Unfortunately, his story was ... um, shall we say, full of plot holes, which I kindly pointed out, and I haven't heard him mention Derek Hood since.

But the name stuck with me, and, when it came time for Jen's adopted brother to open his mouth and tell me his name, that was the name that came out. Frankly, I can't picture him with any other name anymore.

Derek is a skeptic. He has a hard time coming to grips with the fact that Jen has an imagination that she can make real. He doesn't know what to make of all of her fancy, girly frills and such.

Indeed he became so annoying, I was going to wipe his memory and make him forget everything about Jen's imagination and that he had ever been there.

But then ... well, I can't tell you what happens, since it's almost at the end of the book, but Derek decided to become chivalrous on me, and it completely changed the end of the book. After that point, well, he's still a skeptic, and he still finds authors annoying, but he does consider Jen his sister, and he does look out for her.

I wouldn't go back to the way I was going to end the book for the world.

 

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