Character drafts

Russel Banks made me think about the difference between caricature and character.  One is, by definition, more nuanced though maybe caricatures can present a mirror in which readers see themselves.  I don't want to write caricatures, but maybe when you're an outsider, you can't help it.

Jacob: A man who lost his brother, the defining factor of his young adult life.  So scarred that it's visible.  He walks as if leaving space for his brother to walk next to him.  He left here but can't help coming back, because his parents are aging and his brother died in their backyard.  There is a place in the woods near him that has renewing ghost pipes, surely a sign of Homer.    

Zac: Motion compels him.  His momentum keeps him from reflecting.  It's almost blissful, to be so occupied and sure of its endurance.  His body is sculpted from perpetual physical activity.  He revisits the river beds he ran across when he was young, and although 20 years later, still carries himself blithely over treacherous rocks and swift waters.  He never puts himself to sleep, only exhaustion can do that for him.

James: moved here from New York to be in love.  His only refuge is Burlington, a sad comparison to the inexhaustible glamor of New York City.  He sits in an art gallery during the day, with people visiting from Manhattan looking down on the paintings on the wall.  His gallery has the white drop down ceilings that he despises for its suburban watermark.

Stephen: What a freak, a total oddity.  He lives in the woods to prove his authority on the place, to earn his ownership.  A romanticist by "trade", he only speaks in antiquated sentences and uses chivalry as his modus operandi.  He talks about his "modern man" past at UPenn, playing for the Philedelphia Eagles, almost winning Nobel Prizes as the easy price to pay for "walking with the bears" during their migration.

More characters to come.