Mad Writer's Club Week 2 -- Meet The Characters

If you've known me online for any number of years, and I'm talking a lot of years, you are quite familiar with my insane modern hockey rewrite of Dangerous Liaisons, and very familiar with my characters. So this post isn't for you. It's for everyone else who hasn't had the privilege of meeting my crack for brains characters.

So if you're still reading... HI!

I'll talk about just a couple of characters.

If you're not familiar with the novel "Dangerous Liaisons" you probably are familiar with the movie versions. The most famous one would of course be the version with Glenn Close and John Malkovich, followed closely by the modern remake starring Sarah Michelle Gellar and Ryan Phillipe. My favorite version happens to be "Valmont", starring Colin Firth and Annette Bening.

Why? Because even though "Valmont" takes the most liberties with the novel (and who am I to judge because... um hockey...), I do think "Valmont" has a fresher cast that sparkles with gleeful cruelty and innocence. There is JOY to them that I think lacks in the other versions. The other two versions just take themselves SO SERIOUSLY and ... ugh I just wanna beat the starch outta em.

Ah well.

So going forth!

First off , you cannot have Dangerous Liaisons without Madame de Merteuil!

Beautiful, bored, widowed, unstoppable! In the novel she is the centerpiece, the spider pulling all the strings. She manipulates everyone around her into thinking she is a generous, loving, chaste widow. She is everyone's best friend and the cream of society. Out of cruelty, she plays games with her former lover, seducing people on dares, breaking hearts and destroying lives!

She will be portrayed in my crackhouse of a novel by "Minni Patrick".

In a departure from the source material, Minni will be married, a mother of three! Thirty four years old, and seemingly a friendly, fluffy, blonde beauty of a housewife, no one around will realize the wicked games she is playing as she manipulates everyone out of their innocence, and hearts, and SOULS! Mwahahaha!!!!

Her character, however, will be tinkered with my melodramatic touches. She will have a tortured past, where she will have developed skills for manipulation to survive... but she also finds she has a taste for the cruel. She will love and protect her children with all of her heart, but at the same time, she will view the rest of humanity with a cold practicality.

I'm hoping to balance softness and sharpness, and will give her no middle ground!

Next up, say hello to the Vicomte de Valmont!!

Handsome, rakish, dandy, cruel! He devours innocence and hearts for fun, he matches wits with Madame Merteuil and when she throws him the gauntlet of gauntlets in the game of Broken Hearts he happily dives in to the demise of just about everyone involved.

Tinkering with this character, I have cast Valmont in the character of "Christopher Patrick". Minni's husband and the star goaltender for his hockey team. Even though he and Minni are married, they keep the spice in their relationship alive by seducing those around them and comparing notes. They give each other assignments and dares, and revel in the results.

Christopher will be a star at the peak of his career, drowning in accolades, and league records. To the adoring public he will be quirky, neurotic, a man of eccentric legend. To his family he will be fiercely protective and sometimes silly. Still, he will be driven by his need to own and dominate those in his shadow. Sex is a cold, mechanical thing to him, and it's a tool to claim a soul for him, it's a way to pass time, it's a way to control someone. What will drive his story is the gauntlet Minni will lay down for him, and his need to play the game all the way through, perhaps even past fatal limitations!

So there it is, a couple character sketches!

I hope this sounds interesting enough xD.

*scampers*