Vree’s Beginnings Again, 2

Today, I’m presenting another edited repost from my old blog Vree Erickson. (Vree is a character that appears in many of my stories.)

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In the last post about Ridgewood and Vree Erickson, I introduced the character, Nick Corwin. He was the result of a high school creative writing assignment that developed into a short story about a boy with a magic typewriter that took him places when he typed his stories on it.

The magic came from a special ribbon that never reached an end or ever dried of its ink. But the person typing had to keep typing for the magic to work. Once they stopped typing, their journey stopped. Thus, they occupied two places when they typed, so it was important that no one interrupted the typist.

The story of a magic typewriter began forming in my mind from the Steppenwolf song “Magic Carpet Ride.” The lyric “Fantasy will set you free,” was my mantra and became the theme of Nick’s travels to Ridgewood (or Ravenwood as I called it back then).

I based Nick’s travel stories on the question: “What could happen if someone was able to travel to a fictional place and live there?” This prompted another question: “What if they fell in love with one of the fictional characters?” And off I went, with Nick falling in love with Vree. Unfortunately, I restricted him of entering the story and leaving behind his magic typewriter. He had to keep typing for the magic to work. Therefore, he was in two places at the same time. How would this affect his “real” self who must type to keep his other self—his “story” self—in the story?

This problem presented more questions. How would “real Nick” cope while stuck at his typewriter? If he stopped typing to eat or use the toilet, would his story character vanish while the story world continued? Or would the story world cease to function while “real Nick” was away? The idea that the story world continued while he took care of other business intrigued me to create an antagonist beyond his control. This person felt that “story Nick” didn’t belong there, so they created events that turned his story friends against him. No matter how Nick wrote his story, the antagonist got the upper hand. In the end, Nick tossed the magic typewriter into the Atlantic Ocean during a voyage with his parents on a cruise ship.

For me, writing fantasy is fun. Its depth is limitless.

Writing rural fantasy is more fun because it takes me back to my childhood. For me, childhood was exploration. I could explore my world with family, friends, or by myself. For the most part, Vree likes to explore her world by herself. She’s a smalltown girl with few friends and can perform low-level magic. However, the magic and weird stuff common with many fantasy stories is not the norm in Ridgewood. It creeps in at the edges of a world in which magic is mostly hidden.

My character, Vree Erickson, is highly creative. She’s an artist excellent beyond her years, and one who enjoys working in solitude. Most of her personality came from a book about careers and personalities I bought in 2001. The book, Do What You Are, by Paul D. Tieger and Barbara Barron-Tieger, was—and still is—a useful reference for creating character personalities based on 16 personality types. I chose the INFP personality for Vree. INFP is an acronym that stands for Introverted, iNtuitive, Feeling, and Perceiving. According to the book, persons of this type are excellent artists and do well working in the arts.

Introverted is stage one of the 4-stage growth process of the INFP. This was Vree’s dominant personality, which developed after her birth and stayed her primary personality until she was around 12. During this stage, spending time alone energized her.

INtuitive is stage two and the secondary personality of Vree’s type. It came into play at around age 12 and has pulled ahead as her dominant personality. It will remain dominant until she’s around 25. During this stage, ideas and concepts rather than facts and details are important to her.

Stages three and four, Feeling and Perceiving will come later in life and dominate her personality. For now, though, she enjoys time by herself because she doesn’t need acceptance. She has friends—a small group of them—but sometimes the best company is no company at all. She isn’t inherently unhappy, either. In fact, she’s self-loving. She likes who she is. She doesn’t like circumstances that keep her apart from her parents and living at home, but she’s level-headed about it and empathetic to her parents’ needs. And it’s those reasons why I like her character so much. She isn’t perfect—no one is—but she’s aware of that and knows what her weaknesses and strengths are. She works hard to do right—she has a strong moral compass.

Thank you for joining me today. You can read more about Ridgewood and Vree soon.

That’s all for now.

Steve, 5/30/2022; revised and reposted 5/30/2023

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This post “Vree’s Beginnings Again, 2” copyright © 2022/2023 Steven Leo Campbell at stevecampbellcreations.com – All rights reserved.

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