| KFC-Based Revelation |
[Nov. 23rd, 2009|10:00 am] |
When I first created Kacey, I saw him as timid and anti-social, a completely alienated individual who harbored violent tendencies and a longing for sunshine and wide-open fields. I pictured him living isolated with Festus at the edge of a rural town in a small run-down shack reminiscent of the coop he once occupied as a child. This Kacey was completely cut-off from human emotions and unable to understand motivations other than that of the baser instincts. In doing this I pretty much framed him as a poor, defective mute---more chicken than man, a victim in the scheme of the larger world and whose bouts of violence (that is, the ritualistic removal of hands) were a reflection of his feral up-bringing. This Kacey had no control over the things that he did. This Kacey was a powerless victim. A cookie-cutter poster-child of humanities’ cruelty. A complete and utter cliché.
The Kacey of today is a very different person. He’s good-natured and, although manic in movement, he’s pretty laid-back. This Kacey lives in the inner-city, a place where he’s surprisingly at home. Well, not too surprisingly, as it turns out. His father never did let him out of the coop to run free with the chickens. Kacey never had a taste of fresh air, never felt the grass between his toes or even the sun on his thin back. The only sunlight to speak of came from the cracks in the wooden coop and perhaps from a small opening at the top, but even then the shadow of chicken wire would have cris-crossed down on his scarred face. And the local authorities’ discovery of him would have not set him free; the city is a cage within itself, and Kacey would have felt right at home. Even the seething humanity would have not been startling to him. They’d be nothing but chickens. Kacey’s new flock. The same old pecking order. Kacey’s new handicap is no longer his upbringing but rather his inability to communicate. I feel that this newer vision of Kacey is much more empowered as he is now full responsible for his actions. Gone are the violent compulsion to mutilate (although he does retain his hand fetish...A quirk whose origins will remain largely unknown, as it is with the majority of fetishes in the real world) and the victim-complex. Although Kacey is still quite chickenesque in his actions, I think these adjustment to his character make him more, well, human. Isn’t that what every writer is really striving for?
...And now for a short and unsettling writing clip to illustrate my point:
Stepping into the living room, Kacey’s eyes were immediately drawn to the flurry of action at the foot of the couch. The movement mimic that of the Leghorn hen's back in the coop, one who had made the mistake of swallowing a monarch butterfly caterpillar. Kacey remembered clearly the pinkish foam that had spilled from her beak, and the way her legs and wings had thrashed about violently, kicking up feathers and feces. Kacey gawked, transfixed, as Jake repeated the hen’s performance; frothy foam issuing from the corner of his mouth as his body writhed and arched against the floor, a needle buried deep within his forearm. Kacey tried to call out to Shelly for help, but his voice stayed stuck in his throat, like the caterpillar’s quills in the throat of the hen. He would have to run upstairs to get her, but Kacey knew that by the time he reached Shelly’s room their friend would already be dead. |
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| Comments: |
Ooh, I'm hooked. o.o I must say, I love that you describe so much of your thought process, especially character-development-wise. Methinks I like this Kacey! | |
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