Competition

Chapter 15

-COMPETITION-

Last Issue’s Character-Writing competition is over and the winning application has been displayed below! Now, for this issue the challenge is to write a blurb of any length and for any sort of book. It need not be more than a paragraph or a sentence, but can be as long as you like.

The winning submission will be rated on simple quality, ideas and temptation (how much it makes the reader want to take a look at the book).

-Winner of Previous Competition-

Congratulations to Kris Shah, our winner for the previous Character Writing competition.  Kris won for detail, diversity and interesting characters. Here’s her entry:

CHARACTER ONE – MALE.

NAME: Kelvin Ross

AGE: 13

NATIONALITY: He comes from a long line of Scots, and hails from Greenock, Scotland

HOGWARTS HOUSE: Ravenclaw

APPEARANCE: Dirty Blonde Hair, grey eyes. Kelvin is of average height and weight for a boy of thirteen, though he tends to slouch somewhat from the weight of all the books he generally carries around with him.

His mother trims his dirty-blond hair short when he comes home from school over breaks, but he lets it grow out for the months in between, so by the time the end of term rolls around, it can be quite shaggy.

He wears wire-rimmed glasses to correct for his terrible eyesight, and they only serve to accentuate his rather large ears, which stick out from his head quite prominently. His robes are fairly new, but they have small holes and stains on them that are impossible to get out, most caused by experiment failures in the mini laboratory he set up in his dormitory.

OTHER CHARACTERISTICS AND PERSONALITY:

One thing Kelvin is really good at is remembering facts and details, whether it's intellectual knowledge or snippets of conversations from six months ago. He doesn't even really have to try to remember most things; it just happens, though if he puts actual effort into it, he can recall things with close to complete accuracy. Kelvin is also very loyal to his friends, and will drop everything if one of them is having a bad day and needs someone to talk to, or is struggling with their homework and needs a hand. He doesn't always know what to say, but he figures that just being there for someone is the most important thing.

Though he's good with facts and figures, Kelvin struggles with being able to connect with people. He never feels like he's saying the right thing, and he always worries that people will laugh at him behind his back the moment he's gone, which makes it hard for him to trust anyone. When he's around people, he is often awkward, and many times avoids starting conversations at all, preferring to stand in the corner and observe everyone else. Kelvin also has a tendency to get frustrated very easily, both with himself and with others. It doesn't always take much to set him off - sometimes a little thing like someone not closing a jar properly can be enough to make him angry.

Kelvin's mind is always going full speed ahead, and stray thoughts tend to intrude a lot. Usually, those stray thoughts are very unhelpful -  useless facts that are only slightly related to the topic at hand, or observations about the people and things around him that distract him from what he's doing. He's always watching everything going on around him, and filing away details that will likely never be important to remember. When he's interacting with people, Kelvin also spends a lot of time analyzing them and trying to figure out if they're annoyed by him or not, because he knows he's kind of weird.

Most of the time, Kelvin is okay with being different from the people around him, but sometimes he wishes he were good at things that were more normal, like sports or telling jokes. He really does love the acquisition of knowledge, though, and he finds all the facts and theories that he ruminates on to be incredibly interesting, even if other people don't.

Because he finds it hard to fit in, Kelvin spends a lot of time mentally creating his own worlds, where he has awesome adventures with both historical and fictional characters. This leads to him zoning out frequently in classes, and he tends to rely very heavily on being able to understand things faster than many of his fellow students in order to keep up with the work. When he's talking to people he doesn't know well, he usually fidgets a lot and feels very uncomfortable, because he wants to make a good impression but knows that he's not so good with social skills. With his friends, however, Kelvin is much more boisterous, as it's easier for him to relax when he knows people aren't judging him for his idiosyncrasies.

ADDITONAL INFORMATION ON CHARACTER ONE:

Both of Kelvin's parents are Muggle scientists - his father teaches engineering, and his mother is a botanist, and they raised their son to appreciate scientific discovery. His parents actually named him after Lord Kelvin, who determined the correct temperature value for absolute zero. When the Sorting Hat was trying to place Kelvin in a Hogwarts house, it took a while to decide between Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw as the best fit for him, but he has been very happy in Ravenclaw. He also wants to find a way to combine magic and science to make helpful advances in the standard of living for both the Muggle and magical worlds, although he knows that dream could take a lifetime to accomplish.

CHARACTER TWO – FEMALE:

NAME: Sienna Larkin

AGE: 14

NATIONALITY: She was born in London, but grew up in Shrewsbury, England.

HOGWARTS HOUSE: Hufflepuff

APPEARANCE: Deep brown eyes, dark skin and dark hair. Sierra is tall for her age, with short dark frizzy hair that she spends a lot of time styling. She has a bright smile, which is accented even more by her rich brown skin, and while she doesn't realize it yet, the boys are starting to notice how lovely she is. Because she cares a lot about appearance, her clothes tend to be fashionable, and her robes are always well cared for, even if they are second-hand or hand-me-downs from her older siblings.

OTHER CHARACTERISTICS AND PERSONALITY:

Sierra is quite good at both Charms and Transfiguration, having a natural gift for wand work and spell casting. She finds that the theory in those classes is something that intuitively makes sense to her, and connecting theory with application also comes easily. She is also very attentive to the needs of the people around her, and often goes out of her way to keep people happy, cleaning up messes she didn't make, or offering to stay after class to tidy up the room.

At her core, Sierra is a people-pleaser, and she's always trying to figure out what would make her friends, professors, and even casual acquaintances happy. Her mind is constantly running through the possible consequences of future actions, trying to determine what would please those around her. She's also very aware of how everyone around her reacts to what she says and does, although she tends to be overly critical of herself, and therefore reads things into their responses that probably aren't really there. Occasionally, she finds herself wishing that she could care less about what people think of her, but she hasn't been able to figure out yet how to let go of her insecurities.

Being a people-pleaser can be very exhausting, and oftentimes Sierra is simultaneously incredibly anxious and so tired she can barely muster up the mental energy to do anything. Any time someone new approaches her, she feels like the fate of the world rests on that one conversation, even if it's just a question about some random thing the professor mentioned at the end of class. The only time Sierra actually relaxes a little is around her closest friends, and she only has two of those - both guys, because for some reason she feels more at ease with guys than with girls.

Because she's almost always anxious, Sierra tends to fidget a lot, especially when she has to talk to anyone. It's rare for her to look people in the eye, as she feels more comfortable staring at their shoes or over their shoulder than making eye contact. Often, her palms will get sweaty when she's nervous, and she's constantly wiping them on her robe. When she walks through the hallways, she keeps her eyes on the floor, hoping that if she doesn't look at anyone, no one will try to talk to her. She avoids most social activities like the plague, but if for some reason she has to attend something, she spends a bit of time hiding in the corner, and then ducks out as early as she possibly can while still being polite.

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CHARACTERS:

Kelvin and Sierra are actually friends, having bonded over a mutual hatred of social events that led to both of them hiding in the same corner during a school-wide event two years ago. Sierra finds Kelvin's dabblings in Muggle science to be quite fascinating, and Kelvin likes having her around, because she never makes fun of him.