Visualizing the cast of Starborn Legacy
How drawing helps me get to know my characters, and why it's been essential to my latest writing project.
Last year I was invited to join the Wattpad Creators Program: a new initiative designed to provide the platform's most engaged creators with tools, support, and opportunities to build their writing careers. When I learned that being part of the program meant I would get to write a brand new novel exclusively for Wattpad, I knew exactly what I wanted to work on: expanding the universe of my queer romantic fantasy trilogy, the Starborn Series. I mean, I’ve been carrying these characters, their stories, and their world around in my brain for the last 25 years — I’ve got a lot to work with!
Readers who’ve been with me since my early days on Wattpad know that the Starborn Series, which includes the award-winnig The Star and the Ocean and its subsequent sequels, is the story of my heart — the story I absolutely had to write, come hell or high water, regardless of whether anyone ever read them. But what a lot of people probably don’t know is that the story of May and Em isn’t the one I originally intended to write. In fact, even though May is the trilogy’s primary protagonist, she wasn’t even part of the narrative I’d spent literal decades of my life writing in my head.
If you’ve read the Starborn Series, then you know that it isn’t the first rodeo for many of the characters. Most of the cast had already experienced a lifetime of adventure, drama, and danger well before May stumbled across a mysterious stranger passed out on the beach.
That story—that lifetime of adventure and drama and danger—is what I originally intended to write. And, while I’m really glad I decided to pull a George Lucas and start a few episodes along rather than from the beginning, I always knew that beginning was something I wanted to share one day.
Enter: Starborn Legacy. As a prequel, it tells the story of who Em was before she was Em. It explores the Star mythos, and it dives deep into the conflict that pits characters like Audrey, Connor, Jeremy, Rue, and Priva against the Loyals.
It’s a story I know well, which is why I was surprised when I found myself struggling to sink back into it. Apparently spending three quarters of your life with the same characters in your head doesn’t necessarily mean that telling their story will be easy. Who knew!
In a lot of ways, writing Starborn Legacy has felt like going to a reunion. Yes, there’s a lot of history between myself and these characters, but we’ve had to get reacquainted a bit first before it could start feeling like old times again.
To write this book, I’ve had to re-familiarize myself not only with characters whose stories I finished telling a couple of years ago, but also with who those characters were at a completely different stage of their lives. When we meet most of these characters in the Starborn Series, they’ve already been shaped by events that will unfold in Starborn Legacy. I’m having to tap into who the characters were—and in essence, who I was—when I first dreamed them up 25 years ago. It’s a weird exercise in time travel, let me tell ya.
As both an author and an illustrator, I’ve always found drawing to be a helpful tool for getting to know my characters. Translating who I see in my head onto the page or screen involves spending time with them; I have to consider things like their fashion sense, how they carry themselves, whether they have resting bitch face. Sometimes I even sketch scenes from the story or depict what a character will look like at different ages. For me, drawing my characters is as much a part of the writing process as creating an outline or revising my work.
Here are some of the sketches that have come out of working on Starborn Legacy:
Pinning down Audrey has been one of the biggest challenges of this entire project. Visually, she undergoes the biggest transformation between Starborn Legacy and The Star and the Ocean. But she’s also 16 years old when Legacy begins, compared to her 32 years when we meet the person she is in TSATO. Sketching her has been really helped me get a better grasp on who she is, how she differs from who she’ll become, and what it’s going to take to get her from point A to point B.
On the opposite side of the coin we have the characters whose appearances don’t change at all between Legacy and TSATO. Drawing non-human characters like Welkin and Emandi always pushes me out of my comfort zone, albeit for different reasons. I struggle to capture Welkin the Star accurately, and this sketch is no exception. As a character, Welkin is dignified, passionate, and the very embodiment of the phrase “the path to hell is paved with good intentions”. Their earthly form is both ethereal and androgynous; elegant and approachable. To do them justice, I need to strike a seemingly impossible balance between ageless and ancient. I don’t think I nailed it, but I appreciated the challenge!
My struggle with Emandi is purely a matter of character of design and my own proficiency (or rather, lack thereof) with drawing animals. Emandi is a giant cat-like creature with slightly anthropomorphized features. Perhaps the trickiest part about them is that they’re just as comfortable walking on two legs as they are on four. What’s really funny about these sketches is much I can tell what influenced the character in the first place. Fun fact: both Welkin and Emandi are homages to two of my favourite childhood characters, and I will legit send a prize to the first person to correctly guess either or both.
What kinds of tools and techniques do you use to get to know your characters better? Spill your secrets down in the comments!
Starborn Legacy updates weekly and is free to read exclusively on Wattpad.
Your drawings are really good .
A lot of the time, I dream of my characters - usually when I am sleeping. Sometimes, I just happen to have a situation happen IRL and a character comes to champion me and say, ‘hey, this isn’t cool. How about you- the douchebag bothering author- go do this before I do that.’ Or something similar to that 😆. I wish, wish, WISH I could illustrate my characters. I know for a fact it would help me to keep a pin on who they are, their behaviors, and their wardrobe- what makes them tick. I’ve often thought of trying to find an illustrator to help me bring them to life. I know how they dress and want to appear and I just can’t get it down- especially when so many want to speak all at once. I did a short story, or what-have- you, called Affinity of Crows. It is a pretty interesting story, if a little rushed at the end. One that I did for Writetober probably about 2-3 years ago? But the character came to me, sullen, at the mostly are 😅 and I watched like a movie screen a scene that had came to mind. I think it’s pretty cool to dream and create characters like that. It’s like they give you a peek into their lives.
I am EXCITED to read this prequel. I love the drawings of Welkin and Emandi. Sadly, I am afraid I don’t know who they could be on the tv screen. I was thinking for Welkin- Legolas. And for Emandi, a thunder cat? But something tells me I’m wrong... anyway, KEEP DOING GREAT THINGS! 💜