avery merritt
You know a while I ago I had that post about where all of my characters came from? I wasn't that sure about the beginnings of Adele aside from the fact she was a robot in the original draft of Timeless. Well. I was just rifling through my old stuff and hey look, I found myself Avery Merritt. I wonder if he could be connected.
The story centres on Avery and his roommate, the Swedish Bo Inge, who are students at a university in some invented dump-town in the north of England called Lintshire. (If I remember correctly, I based the place on Grimsby.) He is a repressed, neurotic, angry boy (sound familliar?) with lots of sarcasm, cynicism, et al. He basically looks like a male Adele but without the lipstick. Avery is unpopular and appears to enjoy it. Bo is absolutely loveable yet has terrible luck with girls. A competition begins between the two roommates to see who can get a girlfriend first-- whoever does gets to choose the name of the plastic cactus they have in their room which they constantly argue about.
Um. Right.
It's kind of entertaining in an "I can't believe I used to write like this" way and it's the supporting characters that I really like. Bo's obnoxious sister Asta has lots of Pia in her and the rest of them are... well, they're interesting. Anyway, an extract of male!Adele, mark one.
Bo arrived a little bit after him, and didn’t appear to spot him. Avery lowered his head so that he was hiding amongst the bottles abandoned on the counter-top, hoping not to be spotted. In half-amusement, half-wonderment, he heard Bo ordering in the quiet little voice that he had when he wasn’t around people that he knew. It’s a strange world.
It was something that you learned quickly around Bo; for a lot of the time he was a loud, annoying, Swedish berk. But he was occasionally shy. When not around others, his self-confidence seemed to drain down from the top of his head and out through the soles of his shoes, into the disgustingly dirty lino below. Avery didn’t like the lino; it was so sticky, it was easy to lose a shoe or two when walking across them. On bad days, he had to practically wrench his feet from them.
Suddenly, Bo’s eyes landed on him-gah, he hadn’t ducked low enough. His face was inches away from the bar, though, and he was not willing to get any closer for hygienic reasons.
“What are you looking for?” Bo asked, hopping onto the seat next to him.
“Go get your hair cut, Inge,” Avery muttered, sitting up again and shooting Bo his usual half-scowl. Bo grinned at him in response; Avery found himself near blinded by their whiteness. Bo’s teeth weren’t perfect, almost horsey, but they certainly were white. “And have you had your teeth whitened? They’re almost as blinding as your outfit.” Ah, Bo-with his usual subtlety, he was dressed in toxic green trousers and a neon yellow shirt that could stop the traffic in Glasgow.
That's my girl.
Next time: Vivian Quincy!
The story centres on Avery and his roommate, the Swedish Bo Inge, who are students at a university in some invented dump-town in the north of England called Lintshire. (If I remember correctly, I based the place on Grimsby.) He is a repressed, neurotic, angry boy (sound familliar?) with lots of sarcasm, cynicism, et al. He basically looks like a male Adele but without the lipstick. Avery is unpopular and appears to enjoy it. Bo is absolutely loveable yet has terrible luck with girls. A competition begins between the two roommates to see who can get a girlfriend first-- whoever does gets to choose the name of the plastic cactus they have in their room which they constantly argue about.
Um. Right.
It's kind of entertaining in an "I can't believe I used to write like this" way and it's the supporting characters that I really like. Bo's obnoxious sister Asta has lots of Pia in her and the rest of them are... well, they're interesting. Anyway, an extract of male!Adele, mark one.
Bo arrived a little bit after him, and didn’t appear to spot him. Avery lowered his head so that he was hiding amongst the bottles abandoned on the counter-top, hoping not to be spotted. In half-amusement, half-wonderment, he heard Bo ordering in the quiet little voice that he had when he wasn’t around people that he knew. It’s a strange world.
It was something that you learned quickly around Bo; for a lot of the time he was a loud, annoying, Swedish berk. But he was occasionally shy. When not around others, his self-confidence seemed to drain down from the top of his head and out through the soles of his shoes, into the disgustingly dirty lino below. Avery didn’t like the lino; it was so sticky, it was easy to lose a shoe or two when walking across them. On bad days, he had to practically wrench his feet from them.
Suddenly, Bo’s eyes landed on him-gah, he hadn’t ducked low enough. His face was inches away from the bar, though, and he was not willing to get any closer for hygienic reasons.
“What are you looking for?” Bo asked, hopping onto the seat next to him.
“Go get your hair cut, Inge,” Avery muttered, sitting up again and shooting Bo his usual half-scowl. Bo grinned at him in response; Avery found himself near blinded by their whiteness. Bo’s teeth weren’t perfect, almost horsey, but they certainly were white. “And have you had your teeth whitened? They’re almost as blinding as your outfit.” Ah, Bo-with his usual subtlety, he was dressed in toxic green trousers and a neon yellow shirt that could stop the traffic in Glasgow.
That's my girl.
Next time: Vivian Quincy!