Writing Doodle 013 - Character Development: Niko

Niko is a young woman, about seventeen years old. As a child, she loved magic and fairy tales, but as she grew older, the love grew stale and fell away. Magic was a lie. That lie hurt her more than she really let on, but it did hurt. Now, at a mere seventeen years old, Niko views the world with a cynical, hateful eye. Without a mother, she's become distant from the people around her, only keeping a couple close friends. She's afraid to let anyone too near, afraid they'll abandon her somehow. Despite the tough exterior she presents to the world, Niko is nothing less than emotionally fragile, still mourning the literal loss of her mother and the figurative loss of her father. She finds herself drawn to the forest behind the house she lives in with her broken father where she will sit for hours on end, reading, writing, drawing, studying...whatever her heart desires. A stray cat lives in the area of the forest and Niko has found a silent friend in the feline and often confides in it her hopes, dreams, and fears.

Niko is the kind of girl who doesn't believe in romance. Sure, it's a nice concept, but it's not her thing. In fact, she's not even certain she would ever be interested in dating, let alone getting married one day. It's just not something she thinks about despite society and media trying so hard to jam it down her throat.

Very clever, Niko is a great student, but she's all over the place, unsure of what she really wants to do with her life, and with her senior year of high school looming over her like a dark cloud, she's feeling a lot of pressure to figure her entire life out sooner rather than later. Sure, there are things she enjoys, but she's not sure those are the things she'll want to do for the rest of her life as a career.

When it comes right down to it, Niko can be pretty snarky, often using sarcasm and rude words to get her point across. She doesn't seem to care about the feelings of others and doesn't mind letting them know if they're doing something she doesn't like or doesn't approve of.

Deep down, though, Niko has a kind and loving heart, but she's terrified of opening up to people. She's seen people get hurt-- she's been hurt. If she can protect herself, she will. By any means necessary and available to her. Most often, that defense mechanism is scathing sarcasm and a wall a mile think so as not to let anyone in where they might be able to hurt her.

(http://images5.fanpop.com/image/photos/31300000/Bae-Suzy-DORKY-Style-miss-a-31321667-600-450.jpg)