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September 2017 Character Studies: Adae of Maran

by Kellyn Roth |
September 16, 2017

CSsept17Time again for a round of questions by Morgan Dusky @ Studies in Character!
I know it’s soon after the last round, but I really need to figure one of my characters (Adae from, well, Adae) out, and the questions are here, sooo? Why wait!
This month’s theme is “the great outdoors!” If you want to do the interview, simple hop over to Morgan’s blog and grab the questions!

Part 1 Questions ~ Part 2 Questions

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About the Character:

This month I’m interview Queen Adae of Maran (I’ve already said this, like, twice, but I’m saying it again now! Hoorah!). She is the main character of Adae, my fairytale retelling WIP.

Adae has social anxiety & her family has always repressed her, so she’s pretty much a shut-in. Interviewing her about the great outdoors should be fun! 😉
Seriously, though, I’ve told Adae that these questions are being asked by the only person she trusts – and that only because he isn’t really a person – her magic mirror, Carmelli. (So keep very quiet and don’t let her know any of us are here!) (I sound like I’m talking to some three-year-olds who I’m messing with, but whatever.)

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  • Can you light a campfire?

I don’t believe I can. I’ve seen some people light an actual fire …
Carmelli: *sigh* Watching isn’t doing, your highness.

Yes, I know. But I think I could do it!
Carmelli: *disbelieving grunt*

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  • S’mores?

What are “s’mores?”
Carmelli: First you take a marshmallow …
What are those?
Carmelli: Fluffy sugar in a sort of pillow-like form.
Oh. I understand.
Carmelli: And then you put the marshmallow on a kind of cookie and put a slice of chocolate over that and roast it. Well, most people roast the mashmallow first, actually.
Sounds delicious!
Carmelli: It’s too sweet.
How would you know?
Carmelli: I know everything. *mysterious music*

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  • A bear/wolf/large-carnivorous-creature approaches your campsite. What do you do?

I probably run.
Carmelli: Silly human. It would just chase you. And maul you. If you ever do happen to be stuck in the woods and meet some large carnivorous creature, just play dead. It’ll leave you alone.
That’s easy for you to say. You can’t really be mauled by a bear.
Carmelli: Or run away.

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  • Can you read the stars?

STARS CAN BE READ?!?!?!?!?
Carmelli: Oh, glory, why did that have to be a question?! I knew the book-shortage was going to some insanity. Yes, stars can be read, but not like a book.
Are there stories?
Carmelli: Well, yes …
THEN YOU HAVE TO TELL THEM TO ME!
Carmelli: *sigh*

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  • Ever gotten poison ivy?

What’s that?
Carmelli: You really are sheltered.
Yes, I know. But what is that? It sounds pretty.
Carmelli: Um … no, your highness. It’s a plant that gives you a dreadful rash.
Oh dear!

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  • Favorite funny campfire story?

I … don’t really know any. I know some funny stories, though! My favorite is … ooh, I can’t decide ….
Carmelli: This may take a while.

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  • Favorite scary campfire story?

*still pondering over favorite funny story*

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  • You and your friend go camping/hiking and they get injured. Do you rush them to the hospital/a doctor or do you try to patch them up yourself?

I don’t really have any friends except Carmelli. And I don’t think I could fix a cracked mirror or have a doctor look at it.
Carmelli: You’d have to take me to a mirror specialist.
Do those exist?
Carmelli: I certainly hope so!

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  • You’re on a hike. How long is the hike (how many miles?) and how far will you make it? Is it a one-day hike or a long trip? Do you have the right equipment?

It’s probably very short. Perhaps a walk in the garden. Which actually sounds exhausting. So I might not make it outside.
Carmelli: To be fair, your house is rather large. Being a castle and all …
Anyway, it’s just a five-minute hike, and I don’t have an equipment unless you count a book.

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  • What do you think of politics?

I’m bad at them.
Carmelli: Oh, I don’t know, you could probably learn how to do politicky stuff …
I doubt it. I don’t really want to talk about it.

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  • Ever “camped” in your backyard and pretended you were out in the middle of nowhere?

No …

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  • The path you’re walking is littered with rocks and tree roots. How many times do you trip?

Every single time a rock or tree root shows up.

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  • What shoes are you wearing?

My slippers.
Carmelli: Are you capable of wearing anything else?
I like being cosy!

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  • Sunscreen?

Never heard of it.

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  • Bug repellant that’s very bad for your skin (that may give you cancer) or bug bites?

Bug bites. Though I don’t know what I’d do if there was actually dangerous repellant on hand …

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  • Your most embarrassing moment that happened outside.

I don’t really go outside.

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  • You’re marooned on an island. What happens?

I sit on the beach and wait for someone to come get me.

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  • You’re marooned in a desert. What happens?

I sit on the sand and wait for someone to come get me.

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  • Do you eat the raisins in trail mix? Actually, do you eat any part of the trail mix that’s not M&M’s?

I don’t know. I’ve never had trail mix. What would happen if I ate it, Carmelli?
Carmelli: You’d eat it all. Because you never think about what you eat.

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  • How tall are you?

Average. About five feet and six inches.

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And that’s all for today!
So, the question you’ve all been waiting for …

Why are the posts lame lately?

It’s not that I’m out of ideas. I’m brim-full of inspiration; I just can’t seem to find time to write all these amazing posts!
I got a part-time job – three days a week for several hours in the afternoon – working at an office as a front-desk-person, and I just started this week. Monday is taken up by band, and I never accomplish anything Sunday (I don’t know why; I just don’t!).
That just leaves one other day (it’s either Tuesday or Thursday most weeks). I’m also doing school, homeschool group activities, and other stuff. So it’s not exactly conductive to me having a life?
By the way, I totally forgot to tell y’all that I got my driver’s license a while back.
I haven’t written in forever. I haven’t done a lot of things that I’ve put on the ol’ list. (To-Do Lists, anyone? Am I alone, here?) I just … eventually things will settle down and it will get better.
In the meantime, I need to be patient with myself.
And you need to not unfollow me. Because I will track you down and deal with traitors.
(I’m not joking … okay, I am, a little ….)

au revoir,

~Kellyn Roth~

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p.s.

What do you think of Adae (book or character)? Do you have a lot on your mind now? Do you live in a constant state of bestressment? What’s your MBTI Personality Type (if you know it)? I’m either ISTP or INTJ. Like, it could seriously go either way …

What do you think of my thoughts?

40 Responses

  1. No worries, Kellyn, all of your posts are entertaining, including this one. You make Character Studies posts interesting, and they don’t confuse me. Usually when I read Character Studies I don’t care about them because I don’t know anything about the character. You gave just the right amount of information. So thumbs-up. 🙂
    I don’t know how you do all that in a week! It sounds like you have a very busy schedule. (And how could you not tell us you got your driver’s license! After all of that heartache…)
    I’ve taken the MBTI test twice, I think… and I completely forgot what random letters they gave me. So maybe when I want to waste some more time, I’ll take it again. And forget my random letters again. 😛
    CutePolarBear

    1. Can’t help but eavesdrop a little, but when you say that most Character Studies aren’t terribly interesting, is that because of the characters answering it or are my questions not terribly interesting? Because if you have any advice for how I could make my posts and questions better, I’m totally open to hearing it!

      1. I wasn’t talking particularly about you; I often laugh at your posts and your characters’ personalities. Since I don’t know much about your novel(s?) though, I barely know anything about who your characters are and their relationships to others. As for improving your posts, you could probably simply write a quick explanation of your novel in the beginning. (Yikes, I didn’t like those two consecutive adverbs)
        As for your questions, I don’t think they’re that bad. I don’t use them often, because some don’t relate to my characters. (I write historical fiction in 1930’s, so many things like s’mores aren’t included at all.) But then I don’t even know if s’mores did exist back then, so I don’t know if my characters would be clueless about it or not. The woes of historical fiction…
        So, anyway, I don’t think they’re not interesting per say, but when I don’t know the characters, it sometimes is boring. I’m biased toward Kellyn because I know more about her books and characters. 😉
        CutePolarBear

        1. Ahh, that makes sense. I do have actual pages on the blog explaining what the novels are about, but they’re…very brief. Oops. I might go more in-depth somewhere.
          Ah, true. A lot of the questions end up being more relevant to modern-day characters, heh. Most of my characters wouldn’t have any idea what s’mores are, either, so that’s kinda funny. I wonder if I tried writing some questions that were specific to different genres… *muses*
          Thanks for the feedback!

    2. Aw, thank you, Hanna! <3 I do work hard on them, and I try to share enough info that people aren't like, "Wait, who is this?!!"
      Haha, well, I sound busier than I am, I'm sure. I do get done with school by elevenish this year … and then I generally have P.E. and my two instruments and then my chores and my mom reads to us during lunch and then we might have more cleaning if I didn't do it before and like … I'm done by 1 most days! And I don't have to head to town until 3! So yeah. I technically have 2 hours there … though I usually get behind on something, so yeah … it doesn't work like that at all. 😛
      So, like, I'm mildly obsessed with the whole personality types things, so I'm like … reading them all the time and figuring them out for myself and my characters and all of these things. So yeah …

      1. I’m so jealous of your short school hours… But I suppose, since I’m barely started with school by eleven, and I take an hour or two break for lunch, I deserve not being done until five. I’m not usually doing schoolwork when five o’clock rolls around, anyway, because I want to be done. 😉
        Personality types are interesting, I agree. I’m more interested in love languages and birth order. (Have you read the love language book and given your characters love languages?)
        CutePolarBear

        1. Well, yes, if you’re going to start at eleven, you can’t really expect anything better. Me? It’s eleven here now and I’m taking a brief break before doing my last two subjects. 😛
          Yes, I started with that, but I just don’t find love languages or birth order to effect my characters much? In my family, every single one of my siblings breaks the “first kid, second kid, etc.” laws except my little brother who is SUCH a baby-of-the-family, so I never really thought it was too real. Especially as I write about big families and yeah … it’s complicated. I never finished figuring out which characters had which love language, though. I started, but it didn’t hold my attention. 😉 I did find a site the showed which personality types were most likely to have which love languages, though! 😀

          1. @Morgan: You’re welcome! 🙂
            @Kellyn: Thank you ever so much for doing that research. Maybe my next book will include ‘some mores’. 😛
            What, do you start school at 6:00 in the morning? I can’t wake up any earlier, or I’d fall sleep while reading Romeo and Juliet.
            Huh- a lot of my siblings break the laws, too, except for the fact that we’re all perfectionists in some way. My mom is an only child, and my dad is a first-born male, so it makes sense. 😉 And I’m not so much of a baby of the family as a middle child- probably because my sister, just above me, is like an only child. Oh, that website sounds cool! I wonder how accurate it is, and how often a birth order matches a love language.
            CutePolarBear

            1. Well, I get up at 7 and start at about 8:45? But mom reads to us for a while first. 😀
              Yes, birth order and love languages and personality types might coincide a little.

  2. Aaaah, great post! Adae sounds like a fascinating character. (Okay but I wasn’t totally hooked the moment you said “fairy-tale”, nope, not at all…)
    And I wouldn’t worry about not posting much. (I’m not biased in that, you know, seeing as how I have college three days a week and all that stuff… >_>)
    Once again, thanks for participating!

      1. Ivy is INFP! And Peter. *this means nothing to you* Anyway, my fellow blogger & dear friend Lana is also INFP, I think she said? And May Everly (though I don’t know if you know her). And then I have an INFP friend in real life who’s pretty cool. *nods*
        Very little of that makes sense, haha, but yeah.

    1. Thanks! (Haha, I know what you mean … I’m obsessed with Historical Romances – bad obsession, I know – so I’ll read like anything that’s clean in the genre …)
      I’m not worried so much about not posting as about not having good posts, y’know? I mean, not posting is one thing, and just throwing together something that isn’t worthwhile.

  3. This was fun. And Carmelli was so great, haha! Adae was cool too and now I’m very curious about how the story will turn out, haha. I should do this month’s Character Studies…but who to do it on?
    Bestressment! That is a great word, haha. 😀 I hope you get less bestressed soon, though I’m impressed with your dedication and getting a job and all of that! That’s impressive!
    And like I responded earlier, I’m INFP. *nods*

    1. It’s a little all over the place at the moment, though I’m trying to rope it in. I really struggle with my dialogue-to-rest-of-story balance which has been getting on my nerves a lot lately. xP
      Hmm … I don’t know? Maybe someone from Battle Song? Or … what are you working on right now? It was Battle Song, right? I suddenly can’t remember …
      Yes, a very great word. Thanks, Lana! <3

        1. Uh … mostly? xD Okay, not really … but I tried. I just have to actually sit down and finish it. I think it’s due … December 31st? But I need to edit, too.

                  1. Oh yeah! I think you have mentioned it. 🙂
                    Kind of? I’m going to be working on The Snowflake Method with Battle Song (which I just posted about), but I won’t actually be following NaNoWriMo requirements because I’m not totally planned yet.
                    I still need to figure out the best way to measure my planning progress and make a reasonable goal out of that, though.

                    1. Maybe… I’m thinking of maybe just having my goal be to have finished planning out Battle Song in Nov. and then write it in Dec. (since the outline is pretty comprehensive).

  4. Adae is super funny! It looked like she was sheltered a lot………………Maybe one day I can read it!
    Thanks Kellyn!

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