Knitted by God's Plan: About Clara

Wednesday, March 4, 2015

About Clara

To kick off the promotion process for Water Princess, Fire Prince, I'm going to talk about the lead lady, the Water Princess herself. Clara. I've talked about her before, her relationship with Andrew, Encountered her, and had a Sleepover. Some of this information isn't in the books, but is part of the list of "twenty things you know about your character that most people will probably never find out.

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While I won't go as far as to say that she inspired the book, it was the idea of her. The idea of a girl who, while swimming, suddenly found herself under a waterfall, the prophesied Waterfall Princess, the hero who would save the people from ... I actually wasn't sure of this yet. Initially, she was me.

It wasn't until I decided to add this story to my Rizkaland universe that her character began to click into place, or that I even decided on a name for her.

I chose the name Clara because of my love for the Nutcracker. I didn't have any other characters by that name yet (I've since acquired a second, but she's a topic for another day), and it just really fit the idea of Water Princess. Her middle name, which actually isn't revealed in the book, is Lynn. Put together, her names mean "Clear Waterfall" which I thought especially fitting.

Clara is a complicated person, and not exactly the first thing you'd think of when you hear the word "Water Princess." She's an only child, however, she spends so much time with her two best friends and their siblings (one has an older brother, the other, two younger ones), they're practically siblings. Their parents co-own a fitness center of sorts, where the six hang out pretty much all day. They're homeschooled, almost unschooled, with each of the parents contributing what they can to the kids' education, both physical and mental. Some subjects, such as math and science, are done online. Clara's mother teaches fencing at the center, her dad, tae quon do.

Basically, Clara as a kid:
(And also my first-evah gif.)

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Her dad describes her as a kinetic genius. She's highly flexible, has quick reflexes, and is much stronger than she looks. She has an athletic build, but she's also rather small, a half-inch shy of five foot, slender, and mostly muscle. Even at sixteen, it is possible to mistake her for a boy. She has blond hair she keeps chin-length for swim, and almond-shaped blue eyes due to the fact that she's one-quarter Chinese (from her dad's side.)

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She hates to be idle, and if she isn't moving, she's probably reading. She's a huge fan of the classics (hence the fact that I gave her her own blog where she can review them, though I don't post there as often as I should like), not so much of modern books. She loves throwing quotes into everyday conversations, especially when she's very annoyed and not in the mood to give straight answers.

And she's a cat person. She owns a gray tabby named Cheshire.

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Like all good characters, Clara's not perfect. If you cut down to the core of her character, she's terribly afraid of failing those she loves, which is why she pushes herself to be the best. She's also very careful with who she trusts. Upon first arriving in Klarand, and learning that she's the Water Princess and that she's supposed to fight a dragon, she denies her ability to fight, not because she's scared, but because she doesn't trust this world she's been thrust into. Its not until she comes to love the people of Klarand that she fears the Dragon, because now she doesn't want to let the people down.

Like water, she adapts well to various situations, though she will protest things that don't fit with her preconceived notion of her life (such as romance at sixteen - she had planned to wait until after she competed at the Olympics for that). However, I think a storm would describe her best. She has a lot of energy, a lot of drive, and woe to those who try to get in her way.