Okay. When I posted earlier about the female characters in The Monk being boring, Antonia was really the one I was talking about most of all. Because Antonia is boring. In the first scene, her only contribution to the story is to be reluctant to take off her veil in church, because she's so modest. Things only get more nauseating from there. Really, the only reason for her being in the story is to be Ambrosio's helpless victim.
Well, I'm not going to waste my time writing female characters like that, because they're boring, and I don't want to write about boring people this time around (if ever). So Lily is going to have to change.
Ambrose will meet Lily when he and his group are visiting the sick. It will have to be him and Zachary together, I suppose, since both of them have to fall for her. Anyway, Lily will be younger than Zach and Ambrose -- about to start her last year of high school -- and she's in town with her mother visiting her sick aunt. I'm thinking she'll be an aspiring artist or musician, so she's spending the summer preparing her portfolio/audition piece.
I think there are two ways I could really take Lily, especially since she's outside the main group of people on the trip: I could make her really interested in sex, or not interested at all. I'm thinking "not interested at all," just because it makes Ambrose's behavior much worse. Or maybe I'll make her interested in sex, just not interested in boys. This sort of screws Zachary over, since Lorenzo had a crush on Antonia in The Monk, but Zachary's main role is to rescue Resa anyway, so that's not such a big concern for me.
A big question is whether to make Ambrose and Lily brother and sister, as Ambrosio and Antonia are in The Monk. Although it's a bit cheesy, it's such a gothic thing that I'm reluctant to do away with it. And I think it would make Ambrose more sympathetic if he were raised in a religious orphanage. That way, he's been indoctrinated with religion his whole life, but has never really been loved by a parent. I like the idea of sexual love being the only kind of love he has ever experienced; it makes more sense that he would just abandon his entire identity (which is completely enmeshed with his religion) for sexual conquests.
Okay, I'm getting off topic here. The focus is supposed to be on Lily. Well, I've been debating whether or not to "kill" her, and I'm not sure. I actually like the idea of her (and maybe Resa) ganging up on Ambrose and killing him. At the same time, I'm not sure Lily would do that -- she might want the judicial system to take care of him.
Ooh, in the middle of this brainstorming I just remembered my earlier post about why I wasn't making any of my characters homosexual. I guess I'll have to let Lily survive if I make her gay, because I want to stick by what I wrote in that post.
Aah, this is turning into a mess. Okay, so here are the choices I have to make about her:
Does she like . . .
- Guys (and if so, does she like Ambrose and/or Zachary?)
- Girls
- Survive the rape (and if so, does she kill Ambrose herself or prosecute him legally?)
- Get murdered by Ambrose?
And I think maybe Ambrose will try to kill her but fail, and she'll end up hurting him to get away, so that he can find out that they're brother and sister, and then he'll be left to rot in jail with the knowledge of the horrible thing he did. If I'm leaving out the supernatural element of the book, Ambrose's death might be seen as a merciful punishment for him, since we wouldn't see him getting thrown into hell. This way, he'll have to live with the knowledge of what he's done -- and whatever injury or injuries Lily has given him -- for the rest of his long, miserable life.
Or he could kill himself and believe he's going to hell, but think he deserves it. That might be more interesting and give him some sympathy in the end . . . as opposed to the original book, where the reader is rather glad to see Ambrosio gruesomely killed.
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