Beautiful People–June Edition!

In case you don’t know, Beautiful People is a monthly blog meme and link up hosted by Cait @ Paper Fury and Sky @ Further Up and Further In ( I can’t get it to link properly, so if you’re interested in checking out her blog, you can do so here http://www.furtherupfurtherin.net/).

This round I’ll be doing Dr Spencer Verne, a secondary character from my novel Black & White and a main character from Red & White. I hope you enjoy!

1. What’s their favourite place they’ve ever visited?

Australia must be the answer! He visited Australia when he was sixteen years old and never went home!

2. What’s one mistake they made that they learned from?

Hmm, this is a hard one! He repeatedly makes the mistake of assuming that other people are a) smarter than he is, and so to be ignored, or b) not as smart as he is and so to be ignored. Basically, he repeatedly makes the mistake of ignoring people who would make good allies or even friends.

3. What was their favourite subject in school? Or favourite thing to learn about?

Science! Especially chemistry and biology. He excelled in both of those subjects as school and now pursues science as a living.

4. What’s their favourite flower/growing thing?

Ah, such hard and random questions this edition! I’m going to hesitatingly answer that his favourite flowers are carnations and violets. He isn’t a sentimental person, but both of these flowers remind him of his mother and the life he lived in England before coming to Australia. Carnations remind him of his mother, because on her birthday every year he and his father would go and pick her a big bunch of them. Violet was her name and her favourite flower and she carried a bouquet of them on her wedding day. (Wow! I literally just made that all up then, I feel so smart right now!)

5. Have they ever made someone cry? What happened?

Spencer Verne makes people cry a lot. He isn’t callous but he often considers emotions secondary to facts (for example, if there was a fact he knew which would break the heart of someone close to him, he would see it as his duty to be bluntly, brutally honest with them. he doesn’t care a whole lot about what most people feel).

6. Would you consider them a reliable or unreliable narrator?

He is definitely a reliable narrator, as he regards the truth highly. However, while he would never lie, he does conceal things or avoid them or say things with double meanings. Thus, he might convince you of something, without ever say that something, and then completely turn it around on you.

7. What do they dream about at night?

He hates the fact that he dreams at all. He sees dreams as sentimental and worthless, so he would never admit to dreaming anything at all. However, his dreams are probably the normal kinds of weird dreams that make no sense.

8. They’ve gone out for a “special meal”. What would they eat?

For such a very English/Australian man, Verne really enjoys Thai. If he was to go out for dinner to a Thai restaurant, he would either eat Panang Curry or Pad Prig Sod.

9. What’s at least one thing they want to do before they die?

He openly admits that he has spent his entire life trying to create the kind of people that are only seen in comic books and sci-fi shows. It is his dream and one that he has broken many hearts trying to accomplish.

Somewhere deep down in his heart of hearts, his goal is quite different. He won’t admit it, even to himself, but he desperately desires people to see him as a person, rather than an emotionless machine or a mad scientist. He is neither of those, and he desperately wants to be seen for himself, and for someone to care for him enough to see past his rather obvious faults.  He openly admits that he has spent his entire life trying to create the kind of people that are only seen in comic books and sci-fi shows. It is his dream and one that he has broken many hearts trying to accomplish.

10. Do they have any distinguishing or unique talents? 

Verne has a condition called Synaesthesia (look it up, it’s a fascinating thing!), this allows him to memorise things by categorising them under colours. For instance, he can memorise phone numbers by memorising a pattern of colours. It also means he can “see” emotions and so can read people well. He is also good at observation, noticing small things about people that no one else sees, or attaches any significance to.