So… I’ve written out information about the main characters from Mind Map and Waves Through Time. To create this character information, I used Holly Lisle’s Create a Character clinic. You do need to pay, but there are other workshops included and they are worth using as a resource for writing.
First up…
BAILEY
Bailey’s goal is to help as many people as she can to recover from whatever illness they’re suffering from mentally. So far, she hasn’t had any failures, though she does know that it’s possible. Every moment of her life and training has been devoted to doing this and she’s very proud of her ability and how much it can help people.
One of the main things that motivates Bailey is the knowledge of her grandmother’s twin sister. Although she never met her great aunt, who died at quite a young age, her presence exerts quite a strong shadow over her family. Her great aunt, Daphne, suffered from a mental disorder that ultimately resulted in her killing herself. Bailey wants to stop anyone else from going through that sort of pain that her own family went through.
Bailey’s slightly arrogant due to the fact that she’s not had any kind of failures. Sometimes, it seems that she gloats about her hundred per cent success rate and because of that, she has very few true friends, even though her boss really considers her a good worker.
Despite her high success rate, it’s often difficult for Bailey to forget what she’s seen in other people’s minds. She often wakes up from nightmares and very rarely sleeps through the whole night, so she sometimes ends up napping briefly during the day.
Bailey is very strict about following the rules laid down by the organisation and when she has to work with a partner, she expects them to follow the rules as well. No short-cuts. But she’s never been put in a position where she might have to break the rules in order to help heal someone. If she ever was put in that position, there’s a good chance that she’d have to second-guess herself and make some really hard decisions.
Bailey’s pursuit of her goal has her come across as very single-minded. She’s really determined to save as many people as she can, but she also trusts the word of professionals rather than the patients themselves. There’s no room for a grey area as far as she’s concerned.
Bailey’s job is as a healer of the mind. Healing the mind is perhaps more complicated than the body, because although the world has come a long way in understanding disorders, there’s still very much about the mind that’s very dangerous and one wrong step could result in disaster.
Bailey has spent years learning the skills needed in her job. She was apprenticed under one of the senior members of the organisation, who has taught her everything she knows. But the human mind is a very scary place and it’s nearly impossible to forget the sights seen within – both good and bad.
One of the ways to drown out the memories of what she’s seen is by exercising. Whether it’s swimming, running or playing basketball, Bailey aims to tire herself out by filling up her day with all sorts of physical activity. She often exercises on her own, though there have been attempts to make sports teams in the organisation.
The worst event in Bailey’s past was when she and a group of friends were held hostage by a man stricken by the loss of his own child. The school children were held hostage at school by the man who’d been their teacher and each of them had to watch as the man began killing them one by one.
After this event, Bailey – one of the survivors – became quiet and withdrawn for a very long time. She was pulled out of school to continue learning at home and even now, she’s reluctant to make friends, since she knows how easily they can be taken away.
The event that’s been the truly defining one for Bailey is the first time she entered the mind of a person. She mentally likens it to living in a black and white world and then suddenly being thrust into a world of colour. Every time she comes back to her own world, colours seem a little less vibrant and feelings a little less intense. And each time she goes into a mind, it’s a little harder to come back out again.
Bailey is having a pretty good time of it right now. She’s helping other people get healed from their psychological ailments and even though she doesn’t have any friends, as far as she’s concerned, she doesn’t need them.
On the other hand, the more Bailey enters minds, the worse her nightmares grow. Not only that, but she’s been struck with a sense of not belonging… a potential sign that she herself might be developing a disorder.
Although Bailey has been having a lot of trouble sleeping, she has no intention of giving up her job. It gives her a purpose in life and that’s something she sorely needs.
Bailey’s true failures come from her inability to interact normally with people around her. She grew up fast, so there’s a part of her that’s still that scared little child.
Bailey believes that her future will eventually result in her being trapped within her own mind. She’s seen it happen to her colleagues and she knows that there’s a strong likelihood that it will happen to everyone who enters into others’ minds to cure them.
Bailey doesn’t have many friends – more acquaintances. There are people who have tried to get close to her, but she pushes them away more often than not.
Bailey hates anyone who preys on those weaker and smaller than themselves. This is more of a general hatred than a specific one.
The people Bailey care about are her family, though she struggles to show it at times. She doesn’t know how to show affection and if someone shows affection to her, she ends up withdrawing rather than returning it.
Bailey doesn’t fear death itself, but she fears living on as an empty shell of herself. She doesn’t want to lose her mind and has often said that if she becomes a vegetable, or mentally ill, she’d rather have someone kill her and put her out of her misery.
Although Bailey was raised in a Catholic family, she stopped believing in a God a long time ago. She believes that humanity is a disease that needs to be cured.
ART
ART has two goals that interchange through the story. His first goal starts with his job as the leader of the Resistance. He was created to predict potential outcomes for the plans the Resistance made to sabotage the paranormal leaders, but over time, he evolved to start thinking for himself.
After he’s sent back in time, ART’s main goal is two-fold. First of all, he needs to find a way back to his own time. Second of all, he needs to figure out a way of stopping Nyoka from becoming Viper.
ART doesn’t know anything before his world was put under the thumb of the paranormals. He knows that it didn’t always used to be like this, but to the best of his knowledge, there’s no one alive who knows the past. When he goes back in time, he can see that, although the world wasn’t perfect, more people were free. And that’s what he’s seeking. Freedom – for every living being.
ART’s creator was more like a father to him, though it wasn’t until the creator was assassinated that ART began to think for himself. No one in the Resistance knows he’s an android. In a way, he cheated to become their leader, though – in his opinion – it was for all the right reasons. When challenged, he accessed his predictive software to make sure he won any challenges – and the loyalty of the members of the Resistance.
The battle that ART leads at the start of the book isn’t the first time he’s tried to attack the leaders. Many good men and women in the Resistance have been killed in previously failed attempts. In many ways, ART wishes that he could no longer feel or care for people. Androids aren’t supposed to be able to dream, but when he closes his eyes, he sees the faces of all those whose lives this war has taken.
ART is a fairly well-known member of the Resistance, so he needs to stay in the base most of the time. New potential members of the Resistance are required to go through tests of their loyalty before they’re even allowed to progress to the base. In a way, ART finds it easier to move around in the past, but the technology isn’t as advanced and it’s more difficult for him to ‘recharge’.
ART has very high personal morals. He won’t allow any innocent to be harmed and he does his best to find the path that’ll end with the least amount of people dead or even injured. To him, there’s not one member of the Resistance that’s expendable.
ART’s job as a member of the Resistance means that there’s very little time for him to do anything recreational. He’s still just finding his feet with acting like a human and although other members of the Resistance know that he’s an android, it has to be kept a secret from many of the newer members.
Although he’s never gone swimming, ART has a fascination for the ocean. It’s polluted and too poisonous to swim now, but he’s still found out as much information about it as he can. Searching for information through books is something that he often finds very relaxing. There’s something that’s very satisfying about putting more work into learning something, rather than just accessing his systems.
ART also enjoys playing strategy games, though very few people will now play against him, considering he’s a computer and wins more often than he loses.
ART’s second in command is a young woman named Billy. Billy has a secret that she’s kept from everyone in the Resistance. She’s a paranormal. And ART is completely unaware of this fact. He trusts Billy explicitly and often bounces ideas off her.
Shortly after he was first created, ART was attacked by one of the paranormal leaders. Although it wasn’t Viper, she was there while he was tormented in an attempt to force him to show any kind of emotion. Although ART was rescued by his ‘father’, he’s never forgotten what happened to him… or how the paranormal leaders tormented and laughed at him. On some subconscious level, he wants revenge. On all of them.
ART has done many heroic things while part of the Resistance. His followers know that he won’t ever leave a man behind and has put himself in harm’s way more than once to save a team.
For ART, it was the death of his father that triggered everything that happened to him. It was after that he started evolving and rose up in the ranks of the Resistance. Until his father was murdered, he didn’t know death was possible.
By the start of the story, ART has succeeded in bringing a lot of disgruntled people into the Resistance. Most of the members have been trained in all kinds of combat, which is why ART believes they’re ready to take on the paranormal leaders.
Being sent back in time flies in the face of everything ART has ever known. It’s really difficult for him to see Nyoka as separate from Viper. Even though she figures out he’s an android, he refuses to trust her.
ART has kept his identity as an android from most of the people in the Resistance, knowing they’d be more likely to follow a living leader.
ART dreams of a future where every single person is free. He has trained himself in the arts of all kinds of combat and has done the same with other members of the Resistance. He himself doesn’t know what that future will be like, but he does dream of a perfect world.
ART hates the paranormal leaders. They hate him as well, but more as an ideal, since they don’t know who the leader of the Resistance is. He spends most of his time planning ways to bring them down, especially the ones who hurt him before.
ART is probably closest to Billy. She’s blunt and honest and ART finds that quite refreshing. She also has a minor crush on him, though that’s not something she would ever tell him. They met when Billy was being targeted by some soldiers and ART stepped in to save her, therefore earning her loyalty.
To ART, all life is sacred. He won’t spend any lives unnecessarily. He’s less concerned with his own mortality, though. He knows that it’s more difficult to kill him and so he takes chances with his own life that he wouldn’t let any of his people take with their lives. He’s reckless, but doesn’t consider himself to have a death wish.
ART does believe in God, but he believes a deity is only for humans and that when he dies (or is deactivated), he’ll just go to sleep and never wake up.
If you have any comments about these two characters, please feel free to make them.
Ink of Blood 