I created the character Skye Wright when I wrote a series of sketched out urban stories called Gutter Folklore. It was my first ever attempt to write a book. In it, I decided to create a lot of typical and high-volume inner city characters, such as the surly punk, a gratuitous junky, a musician with a genetically attached guitar, and the butchest of butch dykes. In the background of all of the drug-addled and rotten tempered punks I had another punk named Skye to round out the cast of characters.

I worked out the characters and wrote a few scenes and started stringing some stories together, and I had gotten a decent amount of writing in. But after the initial and not yet completed first draft I drifted away from the work. When I came back to it I saw that I had really fleshed out all of the characters except for Skye.

A preliminary sketch
of Skye for the cover
of my novel-in-progress

Many of these characters started off as parodies of big city alt scenes. Skye was supposed to be a typical punk rocker, but because I had not worked on her character very much at that point. All she had was a name, a quick description, and no dialogue yet. I had to concentrate on Skye to flesh her out, and since she was the only character I had not yet developed all of my concentration went to filling out her personality and role in the stories.

Anne Lamott said don’t pretend you know your characters, because you don’t. For someone who was supposed to be a supporting character, who was just there to round out an ensemble, Skye not only began to take on a life of her own, she started to become the more-or-less the central figure of the work. Originally I had planned on having Preston the guitar player be the “main” character, even though no one character was supposed to dominate. That mantle got overtaken by Skye.

In a way I suppose she is the “straight man” to all of the other characters, since we start to see the story from her eyes and she’s one of the few who doesn’t get swept up by the chaos as much. That became true even though she’s basically an alcoholic and a drug addict, a rough punk who rides a bike around San Francisco like someone who has a death wish, occasionally punches people in the nose, and gets to play bass in a punk band full of exotic dancers. She’s pretty far out, maybe not to the extent of some of her fellow roommates, but she’s still down with the street.

After finishing up Gutter Folklore she started to live outside of that work. I began to write short stories about her and developed a backstory for her, writing about her messed up childhood and her early years in high school where she found her gateway drugs to music, excess, and fighting. She then became the lead character in my drug novel Crash Shadow. Even though there are two main characters, she ends up becoming the focal point of the story.

I left Crash Shadow with a hanging ending, so I started work on a sequel, a road trip tale called What the Hell Ever Happened to Yuri Rozhenko?

At the moment I am finishing the first draft, but in anticipation of eventually publishing this work I commissioned an artist to work up a scene with Skye, something I could use for the cover of the novel. I found Hellga Protiv’s work when someone posted a piece she had done on a Facebook page called Vagina Devil Magic. I was really impressed with her artwork. I found her Instagram and sent her a message, asking if she did commissions.

She took on the job of fleshing out a character I had been writing for years. I sent her a description of Skye and some novel excerpts so she could get a good idea of what her character was like. I’ve always had visions of what Skye looked like, but I had never gotten anyone to flesh her out.

When Protiv sent me her first drafts I was very pleased. And I had another feeling I couldn’t describe. I have worked on this character for so long. To finally “see” her gave me a feeling I can’t really describe. This character has been running through my mind for years; growing, evolving, and becoming more and more dynamic. But all of my mental images didn’t brace me for seeing her for real.

The Skye I’ve known has changed her looks over the years, some of which I detailed in this short story, so the visions I’ve had of her have changed, but still they were only flashes and glimpses of what she might look like.

Protiv’s vision of Skye is only one of several machinations of Skye that I’ve come up with over the years. Other artists and maybe even Protiv will come up with different versions of her, and I may even commission Protiv to work up some more pictures of Skye, such as her younger self, and Skye during her drug dealing days.

This is a new step for me in the development of this character. I still have many stories to tell about Skye and her roller coaster of a life. Even so, I don’t know where Skye is going exactly. She will have to show me which way she’s going to take her story. Because Lamott was right. You don’t know your characters. Oftentimes they decide what’s going to happen.

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