One of Many

My current MC, Sybil, has gone a bit quiet but is not forgotten. She and I still meet to talk about her life and what new thing I'm going to throw at her next. This is a school story, because it's a genre that I've loved most of my life (more like Chalet School than Harry Potter), and it will certainly never see the light in its current form, so I'm thinking about the first round of revisions even as I finish the ending. (And it's a series. Yeah, I'm doing everything I can to make sure it never finds a publisher.)

I still think this probably looks like
Sybil. Maybe not in her best moment.
Source: Martin Walls on freeimages.com.

Sybil comes from a remarkably large family, which I've gone back and forth on keeping. They don't all come into the story, apart from the occasional mention, and sometimes I've wondered if that's just one ridiculous thing too many for Sybil's life. I had almost decided to bring her sibling roster down to perhaps still being a large family by today's standards--like four or five children--instead of the current ocean of people who live in Sybil's house.

And then I changed my mind. Because big families get enough bad press and I'd like to bring a more positive look, if I can. (Not that Sybil necessarily loves it. Coping with so many people is one of her challenges.) Because I keep meeting big families in my real life that confirm that what I'm writing is not out of the realm of possibility. Because I ran across an interview with an actor who I like who described being from a family of more children than I would ever think to cram into one house, not even in a fantasy novel.

And because it's fun. My day-to-day life is mostly one of solitude, which I've come to enjoy most of the time, so being able to write about all the people and the noise and the activity is a nice escape. I think if I rewrote her with just one or two siblings, Sybil would be lonely.

What are you going back and forth on lately?