Girl, We Need to Talk About Vincent
The first character to ever make me want to CLAW my eyes out
So like… here’s the tea. I’ve never considered myself the kind of author to say “my character isn’t cooperating!” or “my character won’t let me write today!” I thought myself above those kinds of excuses. After all, I am the God of this world and they [the characters] are merely my instruments for story, but guuyysss?? When I tell you this character ( ! ) has been whooping my ass!?
And now that I’ve finally finished his chapter, I actually have the time to complain about him in full! Yippeee! But also UGGGHHHHH!!!
Vincent; male protag/love interest/bane of my existence!
Vincent fuckin Gallagher has been giving me problems since DAY ONE of TTS&B’s production. From trying to lock down his character arc, to writing and revising, and then re-revising his chapters, I can’t seem to get a grip on this boy the way I can other characters! Like come on, I’ve written SERIAL KILLERS less elusive than him!
So what’s the deal with Gallagher?
One, his whole thing is that he has a deep fear and aversion to emotional vulnerability. Typical man, amirite? But his flavor of emotional constipation is a BIT different (since he’s written by me, a woman). His fears stem from character trauma in his backstory, betrayals, backhanded gaslighting, parental shenanigans, and the overwhelming feeling that he and his issues would be a burden to put on other people. the last thing he wants is to be the toxic man who therapizes those he cares about. Plus, being the token white guy in his friend group, he believes his problems are peanuts compared to those of his marginalized friends. That he doesn’t have the same right to pain, and that the last thing they should have to hear about are his woes.
His heart is in the right place, and ultimately he is a good person, he’s just a bit… closed up.
HOWEVER… he does WANT to be vulnerable with his friends. With their fans through music. Music, in his opinion, is the safest, least painful way to open up to people, and also would give others like him the chance to not feel so alone…
DOUBLE HOWEVER, he hasn’t written music in so long because of his emotional constipation,,, he doesn’t even know where to START! And he certainly doesn’t really feel comfortable sharing what he wrote for fear of ridicule. My man is at a CATCH 22!!!!
So… he’s complicated.
So… Fucking… Complicated.
And I’ve been trying to do this thing, like this technical writing technique, where even the audience is held at an arm’s length from him and shut out from his head… but we’re… in… his head so…
Ummmmmmm….
So that’s been a struggle. Also I want to be authentic to him and the realities of a guy like him… but he’s also the love interest of a YA novel, which means I am holding him to a certain standard of likeability that I normally wouldn’t care much about. I want my audience to like him, to root for him, and I want his relationship with my Female MC to actually be viable and healthy. SO he can’t be annoyingly broody. And the audience isn’t as likely to connect with him if they know nothing about his internal conflict. So YEAH it’s been a STRUGGLE balancing all of these factors.
And then? THEN? There were the revisions…. So many revisions. TOO MANY REVISIONS!!!!
YOU GET REVISED, AND YOU GET REVISED! EVERYONE GETS A REVISION!!!!
Trying to seriously publish a book for realsies this time around has led to a level of perfectionism that I have never dealt with in the history of ever. Especially when it comes to him.
So you remember everything I just said about why his character has been giving me a hard time? Okay, cool, keep that in your head because baby, we are about to go on one long, STUPID, journey.
Round 1:
In the first rough draft of Vinny’s early chapters, his personality was nearly perfect. He had just the right amount of bitter broodiness and secrecy, but then when something exciting happens to him (the prospect of the festival) he livens up, he’s exuberant, this is finally when things are gonna go right and he’s over the moon with joy! It’s really endearing. We see him hanging out with his friends, talking about the festival, joking around, talking about what they’re going to do to get in (send in a video of them playing from some past performance), and talking about who would write a new song for their band. Then, his closest friend voluntells Vince he’s gonna be the one to write it whether he wants to or not. He’s put off by this, but ultimately concedes and decides that actually, he needs this. Then, lo and behold, they get an email telling them they got into the festival and—
Wait a minute… did you notice that?
Yeah…. yeeeaaah…
Lots of talking. Lots of telling… Not a lot of doing. Not a lot of earning. Things are handed to Vincent at every step of the way. He doesn’t really work for anything, at least not in the audience’s eyes.
Oh let me tell ya, when I realized I had fallen for the classic “Passive Character” blunder, I nearly threw up with shame!
I HAD TO CHANGE IT.
Changes to be made: Make his band earn it. Make him a more active force behind getting his band into that damned festival!
Round 2:
Okay, so I decided to consult back with my outline. I made the scene with his situationship waaaay better (more moody, more intimate), and establishes way more about him as a character and how he feels about things. I did have to let the audience into his head a bit more, but… ah. It’s fine. We can’t have our cake and eat it too, after all, and I think I was still able to pull off that air of secrecy. Vagueness is my friend.
I kept the way he discovered the festival, and the build up to that, of course, and this time he decides to record his band playing their bar gig. However… for some reason he doesn’t tell them? Okay yeah, it sounds silly but let me explain! I was trying to do this thing where he was keeping it from them because he didn’t want them to be disappointed if they didn’t get in. Like he would be the sole bearer of the weight of bad news because he figured his friends dealt with enough and he didn’t want them to be upset. But his best friend, Nick finds out and colludes with him, and then makes them perform an old song Vincent wrote for him because “that’ll be what gets us in.” Then it becomes this whole plot point where Vincent has to come clean about the festival and it’s just…
DAMN THIS GUY IS INSUFFERABLE, FUUUUCK!
Like, it just got so broody! Overwhelmingly broody. Also I started to realize that Vince’s line of thinking was starting to give White Savior protecting the fragile feelings of black and brown people. Like I was trying to explore that dynamic and his friends’ pushback but then I was like, damn this really singles him out as an outcast within his own friend group. Like the vibes were SO off. He was just sad all the time!
What happened to his excitement? his joy? That was what made him endearing to us in the first place! How’d I fuck up that bad?
I knew what I had to do.
ROUND 3:
THE FINAL ROUND! (If you can believe it)
After realizing I’d totally screwed up Vincent’s character, I read back over the first ever draft of his chapters, and it was then I understood I had him right the first time! All I needed to do was smash the two together; the band’s action/earning their flowers, AND his joy/excitement! Hell, I even let the audience into his life a little more by showing a small interaction with his brother. I fixed the part where I had them playing a bar gig, and I plopped them into a DIY punk house to really emphasize not only their punk roots, but also to show the audience just how deep in the gutter they are and how this golden opportunity really is the best thing to happen to them. I nailed it! First try. (Totally)
Ultimately, I know a lot of writing advice stresses not editing while you write or going back and nitpicking, and typically I agree! However, there are some fringe cases, and in this particular case, it was like I was trying to build a house on sand vs. on nice, packed soil, ya feel?
But I really believe I finally chiseled out a decent foundation for his story and feel more comfortable moving forward in the book! Yaaay! Yippeeee!
Now I just… need to move forward. For so long now I’ve been chiseling at preexisting text that I’ve almost forgotten what it feels like to carve my way through fresh, blank documents.
I am both excited and nervous, but at least I’m done looking backward.
Vincent and I have been through thick and thin now! He’s my son! My meow meow, my baby girl! I adore him, and I want to strangle him! I want to swaddle him up and hold him tight… but I also want to grab him by the scruff and toss him far far away from me.
Anyway. I’ve been trapped in this man’s head for months now and… wow. Now that I’ve finally finished chapter 8, I’m… I’m FREE! I can finally write my girl’s POV! Ugh, it’s been so long!
But to celebrate this loooonnng, tenuous journey with Vincent Fuckin Gallagher… it’s YOUR turn to be in his head!
Snippet time!!!
“What do I want?” Echoed Vincent, gazing at Cassandra’s ghostly form looming over him. Her spider-like fingers were clutching a fine-tip needle, bottle of black ink, and a razor. The shadows of her room were filled by the dark croons of Robert Smith.
He knew what she meant, but as they sat there, letting the inquisitive silence stretch between them, he could stop neither the teasing grin that slowly spread on his face, nor his fingers from clutching a handful of her hip.
She shook his hand away. “Don’t get greedy. What design and where?”
Vincent smiled up at her and shrugged. “I was gonna let you pick.”
“You always let me pick, though.”
And it was better that way. Less questions… less prying.
Oh, but Cassie loves to pry.
Fine. If she was going to be pushy about it… He sucked in a long breath. “Uh… okay. If you insist…” he murmured as he allowed the current melody to wash over him and drown out the creeping sensation of her icy stare piercing into him. Hopefully it would give him some last minute inspiration to what he wanted permanently etched into his skin. He smirked.
“Do an… ankh or something,” he said with a sharp grin.
Playing along.
“An ankh. Is that your final answer, Gallagher?”
“Yep.”
“You’re impossible.”
So he’d been told.
“Fine. Ankh it is, but first I’m gonna change the music,” she announced as she dismounted from his lap and slid off the bed.
Vincent only hummed in response, turning on his side now that he was finally free. Ugh. A sharp pang ran up his side from his prior position and he stretched his arm out in an attempt at ironing out his stiffness.
“Any requests?”
A soft groan escaped him, and his dark eyes searched the shadows of her room for his shirt. Requests? A smile toyed with the corners of his lips right as he snatched his shirt up from a pile on the floor.
“You’re actually asking?” She rolled her eyes at him and gestured for him to continue. He grinned. “Midnight Madness by the Atomics.”
She scoffed. “God, you and your obsession with that shitty, noise rock.”
Shitty noise rock? That was one, reductive way of describing it… Still, Vincent hid his offense with a boyish giggle. “What? I like the lyrics.”
“You can barely make them out. How about we put on some Black Lace Riot? They never disappoint,” she said with a flattering wink.
Oh great. The last thing Vince wanted to do was sit alone in the dark of some girls' room and listen to the same two albums his band had released for the umpteenth time. “Cassie, please don’t make me into one of those douchebags who listens to his own music.”
His pleas fell on deaf ears, and with one click of a button, Vincent was greeted with a familiar bassline. So much for requests.
Cassandra grinned wickedly before climbing back into her bed and crawling her way to him. “Shhh, it’s my mission to turn you into a total monster,” she breathed as she leaned in to press her lips against his neck.
Vincent swallowed. He knew she was joking, and while the words were definitely laughable, something about it didn’t settle right in his gut. “Huh… Usually friendships are meant to make you a better person.”
Cassie paused, and he could feel her lips purse against his skin at his words of choice. Shit. Maybe he shouldn’t have said that.
“Not this one,” was all she murmured and he only nodded in response. Tried his best to ignore the twist of guilt in his heart…
“Right.”
Until next time~