Chapter A Chapter of Main Characters and High School Dropouts
A Chapter of Main Characters and High School Dropouts
Em did not live in a hole in the ground, nor in a massive palace, thank goodness.
She lived in a cottage on white cliffs overlooking the ocean. Her home bordered a desert and a forest, putting her in the center of her own world. Plus, it gave her a special place to be found by adventurers.
Unfortunately for her, though, it was her birthday.
And it was ordinary as any other.
As Em wandered from her Magical Potions class to her Hero’s Journey class, she scanned the mosaic sidewalk for any odd trinkets or peculiar clues that could lead to the start of a story.
Birthdays weren’t the ideal way to open a bestselling adventure, but she was becoming desperate.
No matter how original her life was compared to those of many of her classmates, she was running out of time.
If her plot didn’t start soon, she might lose her last chance of becoming a Main Character forever.
After all, she turned eighteen today. Practically fucking ancient.
Em tugged on her stiff collar.
Buzz was in the air at the Sanderson’s School for Main Characters.
Graduation neared, and many of her classmates would be receiving their placements throughout the world of Novella for the beginning of their debut stories.
Those who failed would need to find fallbacks for their future careers, likely fading into the shadows of other adventurers as Side Characters or even mere unseeming backgrounders.
As Em cut across her school’s brickyard campus, she scanned the bustling students finishing their lunch breaks around her.
A group of cheerleaders, who were already destined to spend their lives in Greentown, shoved past her.
The frilly girls still gushed to each other about prom from five months ago.
Babes like them had already peaked during their current high school years, their stories flying off the library shelves.
Although Em held out for a fantasy plotline, she couldn’t help but watch them jealously as they cut across campus without a worry in the world.
I just don’t get it. I do everything possible to stick out, and yet… no story.
Girls-Not-Like-The-Others glowered towards the cheerleaders from their nerdy textbooks underneath the willows in the center of school.
Behind them, cliques of vampires hid in the shade of the brick buildings, cursed never to graduate.
Yet their stories were already chosen a dozen times each by one of the Great Authors, giving them phenomenal resumes and the ability to skip class without consequences.
I will get my story, Em told herself. She looked up at the heavens, hoping one of the Great Authors could see her past the rainclouds brewing overhead. One way or another, I will.
She wondered what her Great Author would be like.
Hi, Em.
No, she can’t hear me… yet.
“Em!” a familiar voice called out. Strong arms bumped against her back, and Em staggered forward, giggling.
Her best friend, Gair, nudged her again, smirking from beneath his hood.
Their whole childhood, they dreamed of co-starring in an adventure together, but that slipped away with age.
Now they just held onto the hope that they both descended from famous Main Character parents while achieving good grades at Sanderson.
“You ready for the Tropes Final?” Gair asked, ruffling his blond curls.
“I was born ready,” Em said.
And she was. Mom and Dad’s various novels were displayed throughout the family cottage like crown jewels.
Nobody knew how to be a Main Character better than Em’s parents.
Tucked between Mom’s relics from her thriller adventures and Dad’s trophy collection of monster heads, the tombs leered at Em every day in challenge.
To be published in two or three books was already a rare trait, but both her parents were the stars of multiple bestselling series of a variety of genres.
However, their tropes contradicted what Em envisioned for herself.
She wouldn’t settle for what everyone else did—the love triangles, the magic school internships, the killer gameshow competitions.
She wanted to be unique, to stand out, to be so original that the Great Authors couldn’t resist writing stories for her.
After all, supply and demand had shifted, and Em’s teachers had stressed to her about how the Great Authors wanted original, riveting, new plots to attract readers these days.
Well, most of us do.
Her mom had given her a list of ways to get a story started all week long: skip school, take a day trip to the Selkie’s island with Dad, sneak backstage for boy band concerts, hunt for Kelpie eggs on the beaches, visit the local guilds wanting to hire adventurers—but Em had exhausted it.
Plus, the further she checked off the list, the less original her parents’ suggestions were.
“Aren’t you worried that neither of us triggered the beginning of our plots yet?” Em asked Gair. “We’re running out of time until graduation, and we still haven’t had anything happen.”
“A little,” Gair smirked with a shrug. “But as long as we have each other, I don’t mind so much.”
Gross. Em knew deep inside that he had a crush on her.
It was a potential weakness, an unoriginal trope, like many of her classmates’ developmental arcs, that could stain her marketability to a Great Author.
She’d started avoiding all hugs or time spent alone with Gair ever since she’d caught him staring at her with deep yearning across the dance floor at prom.
Keeping distance between them stung, but she needed to stay original.
“Quiz me on the Trope’s final review!” Gair challenged. “I studied Mr. Doe’s guide all night.”
Em held the door open for him as they slipped into the Plotline Department building.
Out of all her classes at Sanderson, the Tropes course proved to be the most educational to her.
A lot of the other teachers reviewed content and terminology or concepts she already knew from her parents.
She was no stranger to archetypes, plot devices, or lore.
“What’s the most cliché opening of a Young Adult novel?” she asked.
“Waking up or a dream sequence, obviously.” Gair laughed. “Give me a hard one!”
“What trope is commonly used to cover weak backstory in dystopian plots?”
“Amnesia!”
“Perfect,” Em smiled as they stopped outside the classroom 001—homeroom to Mr. John Doe and his perfectly curled white mustache. Already, a tense whisper drifted from the room as their classmates anticipated the exam.
“One last question,” she said to Gair. “What should a Main Character avoid doing at the start of their story?”
“Naturally, they don’t want to stare into any reflective surfaces and contemplate their physical appearances.” Gair offered her a fist bump, and she obliged. “We are so going to qualify for salutatorian.”
I just want to qualify as a Main Character.
“Good morning, Hero’s daughter. Good morning, Dragon Mutant,” Mr. Doe called from his desk, somewhere behind his endless stacks of papers. The kind, elderly teacher never failed to acknowledge Em ever since Mom saved the school from an alien invasion.
Gair rubbed at the silvery scales along his collarbone, his only physical evidence of his genetic dragon mutation.
But no matter how humanoid versus dragon he was, the concept of being a half-breed was more original than Em’s full human heritage.
Another potential flaw that could prevent her from ever becoming a Main Character.
She shook off her worries, determined to focus on this test before contemplating much more on her unfortunate plight.
“Hey, Mr. Doe,” Em greeted in return, but the teacher was already sorting through the dozens of test copies he had prepared to pass out.
She split off from Gair as they both made way to their assigned desks, the collection of oddball students around them chewing on their lips or bouncing their legs.
Everyone was dressed according to their preferred genre, or even the few who currently lived out their stories.
A lack of uniform was encouraged at Sanderson; anything that could enhance the students’ development into prospective characters ruled over every choice they made.
Em’s dream genre happened to be fantasy, so a floral corset and white chemise topped with a wool cloak were her usual appearance.
Her stomach fluttered with butterflies as she settled into her desk, but not because of the test. Several empty chairs were stacked along the walls beneath stained-glass windows; the last evidence of those who dropped out or were transferred to Side Character schools.
I will get my story, she kept telling herself, even as she filled in the answers to her test. It was so easy that she barely had to read the questions to know the right solution.
I will become a Main Character like my parents, she thought as she was the first student in the class to turn in the test. Mr. Doe let her slip out early, whispering a quiet ‘happy birthday.’
I will not be forced to join a Fan Fiction Theater group or be sent away to a Secondary Character college. Em kicked a loose pebble as she left Sanderson and made her way home up the winding sea-cliff path…
fully unaware her story had already begun.