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On Yuri Sysevich/ The Android, and Dalton Prestwick

by DWDLLC

So as I mentioned in my previous entry, I’ve had new inspiration for my blog: I’m going to talk about where various elements of INSIGNIA came from. I’ve done Vik, this is Yuri/Dalton, up next is Wyatt. If there’s anything you guys want to ask about, feel free to do so in the comments.

And just as a reminder– TITLE/COVER/SYNOPSIS reveal of Insignia, Book Two is coming Monday!

Okay, onto…

 YURI SYSEVICH
          I knew this kid who was very, very nice. I mean, anyone could just talk to him and have a conversation with him. I’m fairly sure he was popular, but he still showed no signs of that sort of exclusivity one generally attributes to those who win friends and influence people wherever they go. He was also good-looking, very intelligent, and very athletic. He was just good at everything. I did not go to the gym much, but whenever I did, he was already working out there— it could’ve been a weird coincidence, but I definitely got the impression he was so physically fit, it was ludicrous.
            In any case, one year, this guy was running for a place on our student council, facing off against this other kid. I remember hearing several people in a language class discussing their plan to vote for the other guy.
            “Why?” I asked. “He [perfect person] is such a great guy.”
            “He is,” someone agreed. “You know why? He’s an android!”
            The others nodded in eager agreement. He was too good at everything, too nice, to all-around awesome, so therefore, he must be an android.
            Last I heard, this guy had gone on to get a double PhD and MD while I was dithering from short term job to short term job immediately after college. In conclusion: there are superhuman androids out there, and they apparently walk among us.
            That’s where Yuri and his nickname came from.
DALTON PRESTWICK

            When I started writing INSIGNIA, I had a throwaway line about Tom’s mother’s skeezy boyfriend early on, then this idea for this other villain, this corporate executive. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, before INSIGNIA, I had six novels that went nowhere. Part of what I always tried to do was avoid clichés, and put in plot twists people would not see coming. An idea occurred to me as I got closer to writing this villain into the first draft: I should just make it Tom’s mother’s skeezy boyfriend.

            I rejected the idea immediately. It just seemed too cliché. Too predictable. But then I got to thinking of it again. I examined the merits of a lot of tropes you see in literature (i.e. the evil step-parent cliché). I wondered if sometimes, there is something good in an element of predictability. Maybe that was the problem with my previous manuscripts: by trying to avoid the familiar, I also avoided the comfort of the familiar, the comfort of allowing the reader to at least predict some of the story. Maybe if I was presenting this vastly different, sci-fi universe, it would be beneficial to stick a few things in there that people immediately recognize.

            Once I did decide upon Dalton as the villain of the story, I was extremely satisfied with having made that choice. It added a lot more resonance to his antagonism with Tom, and let me play upon a particular theme of kid-hating-mom’s-new-boyfriend-who-is-not-his-father. Plus, there’s some stuff later on that should work far better this way..

            That’s it for now! Stay tuned for Monday.

2 Comments

  1. I love your inspiration for Yuri’s character. He’s definitely one of my favorites (second only to Wyatt, of course, because of her awesomeness). Also, on a sidenote, thank you so much for writing such a great book! 🙂

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