Some notes on the characters from Single White Necromancer

Just a couple random notes about the characters in my story. I'll probably expand on this, and eventually give it its own page.

No real spoilers here.

Genevieve: I originally envisioned her as someone who would wear Ren Faire blouses and suchlike. That aspect got dropped early in the process, but the name stuck. I like it. Distinctive, but not so much as to be distracting

I like Genevieve a great deal. She shares a great number as a great number of my traits and personality flaws. Endless pedantry and the inability to avoid blurting out random trivia or wisecracks at inappropriate times, for starters. I liked writing her voice, oscillating, as it did, between lengthy exposition (the story does have a lot of Genevieve explaining things, but I hope she was engaging enough to make it entertaining) and sudden enthusiasms.

As the story went on, her condition increasingly became a metaphor for depression. I didn't set out to write an allegory, but that's what it became.

Charon: It's pronounced CARE-on, like the moon or the Boatman. I'd like to think that she's more interesting than she appears in the story, where she exists primarily as a foil for Genevieve. She's so perfect, she's boring. I do like the idea of a family of Necromancers, however. I imagine them along the lines of Ray Bradbury's Elliot family. Think of them as the Addams family, but played straight.

In the beginning of the story, they don't know to what extent they can trust each other, so they exchange fake names, "Karen" and "Jenny".  know two sets of Karens and Jens who are friends with each other, (which is to say I know a Jen and a Karen who are friends with each other, and another Jen and another Karen, who are also friends with each other) and while neither character is expressly based on any one person, their relationship was informed in part by the interaction between Jen Lyon (the Jen who so generously provided the cover photo) and Giraffe Karen.

Also, if you like the cover photo, she has plenty of others like it for sale at Fine Art America.

Another influence was the old movie, the Truth about Cats and Dogs, with Janeane Garofalo. and Uma Thurman. I could imagine Genevieve being played by Garofalo, though I don't think Thurman is right for Charon

Melinoe: The name comes from a Daughter of Hades (or possibly Zeus, who may have come to Persephone either in an Underworld aspect or wearing the guise of Hades, Mythological relationships being funny like that.

From Wikipedia: According to the hymn, she brings night terrors to mortals by manifesting in strange forms, "now plain to the eye, now shadowy, now shining in the darkness," and can drive mortals insane.

I like her. She was my favorite character to write, after Genevieve. Too smart for her own good.

At  one point, Genevieve calls her Mercredi, which is French for "Wednesday".