July Prompt #15

Prompt:

We all have original characters. Tell me the inspiration for one of them. How did they get their name? What do they eat for breakfast?

My Writing:

Let me tell you about Perdita (Perry) Stain.

As cheesy as this sounds, she came to me in a dream. There wasn’t much to her: a light voice, brown hair, and a story to tell. I want to say the dream was like a movie I watched with my eyes half-open. I got to see Perry’s life and story, from the beginning to the end.

I didn’t even bother checking the clock when I woke up. Instead, I grabbed the paper and pencil I always keep by my bed and wrote everything down as quickly as I could.

To start with, Perry wasn’t much more than an idea, a vision, but she quickly turned into something more. Over the course of the next few weeks, she took on a personality and an image.

At the beginning of her story, she is seventeen, obsessed with Sherlock, and wears a light blue hoodie almost constantly. She is quick to get bored and makes fairly rash decisions.

Her name came into being after researching quite a bit. I have multiple notes tucked away in random places around my room and in my books, but the simple version is this:

Perdita means “lost.”

Stain means “wanderer.”

Obviously, this means something important to her story. I’ll leave it at that; I don’t want to go into the whole plot of the book I’m writing around her!