Ah, Chestnut, my beloved cinnamon roll. Chestnut was always meant to be Rex's love interest, but their relationship had dramatically changed. In the beginning I wanted to aim for a slow burn, innocent girl x angsty flirt dynamic, but I cut most of the scenes that Rex was being a jerk in and between draft 2 and draft 3, they actually had a much softer, sweeter love story. Read the book to see! They're super cute! <3 Chex stan.
Background: Chestnut has, next to Rex, the most fantasy backstory compared to the other characters. She isn't a human, but a Chipeerman (chipmunk, deer, human) I drew inspiration from Avatar with the cat like design, except I adapted that into the two selected animals. She was born on the planet Varterra, a utopia of peace and unity. Predators don't exist, and the only human like creatures are Chipeermen. They carve their homes out of redwood trees and harvest fruit and vegetables from their farms to sustain themselves. Their clothes are made of silk, as silk words are prevalent, as much as flies are for us. Their culture is tribal, but they have some level of technology literacy. Each Princess, once they turn 18, must go on a two year pilgrimage to the planet, New Earth.
Personality: In regards to Chestnut's personality, I had a mildly hard time creating her. Her character was inspired by Unikitty, who was my go-to character whenever my brother and I would play legos growing up. She started goofy, upbeat, think any adorkable disney princess. She was curious and often got in trouble trying to figure out this new world she's in. This pretty much changed immediately, when I moved the chapters from my phone notes to an actual document, I flipped Ava and Chestnut's personalities. Ava had been more of an older, cooler aunt. So when I gave this to Chestnut, it translated into Mom energy. From there Chestnut basically became the mom friend, making sure everyone was cared for. The idea of having her get poisoned came about halfway through the first draft. I needed a motivation for them to go to Lavivrus that was more than just "We're going there, because we can :D" I was bouncing off walls weeks after I came up with the idea, just playing it out in my head and giggling cause I thought it was so cool! Now, I kinda forgot Chestnut was an actual character that needed fears and motivations until the second draft. I made her less of an explorative adventurer and more of a shy freshman in college. I gave her an arc based on her becoming more courageous, finding the strength to face challenges in face of her fear.
Voice: It wasn't until halfway through draft 2 that I wondered "What if each character had a unique voice" Come to find out later as I read books on how to write that that's what you're supposed to do HAHA. I had a really fun time creating Chestnut's voice, because it's so different than the other characters. Contractions don't exactly exist on Chestnut's planets so she speaks "elequently with perfect diction, for as you know, she was raised as a perfect lady and choose not to partake in slang speech" She basically talks like she's in Pride and Pedjudice. Her chapters are heavily thoughts focused. Each character has a major focus that I try to keep in mind when writing their POV. Rex is more focussed on his feelings, emotions, what he's doing, it's more action minded and less of long winded internal monologues. Things like shaky hands, racing heart, knocking knees are all things he notices that Chestnut Ava and Jason dont. Chestnut is more focussed on her thoughts and the beauty of the world around her. Her chapters are filled with those long winded internal monologues that Rex doesn't have, neither Ava, because she is a deeply introspective introvert. She's more likely to have more poetic descriptions of places too, because she can appreciate colors and patterns and light reflection.
WOOOO! Well that wraps up Chestnut's breakdown and development! Thanks for reading and as always, Stay tuned!
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