It’s true. I haven’t really come around to Quentin. I’m friends with him, but only because I’m friends with the main character, Beatrice – and I adore her. However, other than that, he and I don’t really have anything in common.
Hardy-har, but in all honesty, if we’re trying to understand how it came to be like this, then we have to take it back to the beginning, when Quentin was actually the main character of my book.
Back when I first wrote this book in university, Quentin was the star of the show. And what a massively different show it was. In that version, the story starts with Quentin just about to graduate high school, when he and his teacher start an illicit relationship. She eventually cuts it off, but this event sends a heart-broken Quentin to New Highlands.
One day when this new version of the book comes out, you’ll see just how different this version is. There is no teacher. There is no heart-broken Quentin in the beginning of the story. (At least with the plotline I have concocted so far). In all honesty, I don’t think I knew enough about the emotional repercussions of imbalanced power dynamics, ephebophilia, etc. in order to do it justice, as well as portray it fairly without running into bad messaging on my end.
I’m glad I made that decision for the above reason, and many others. In the old version, Quentin is heart-broken and confused. Being only 17 when he comes to New Highlands, I think that his young state of emotional maturity leads him to become bitter in response. It’s understandable, but by the time he meets Beatrice, this bitterness comes out in different ways. Even behaving meanly to her.
On top of that, Beatrice is 25 and though she kind of keeps her distance from him until he’s 18, she still has qualms about his age and the age difference. Looking back on it now, I don’t think they would have been a good match in many senses. Beatrice is in a different place in her life than Quentin. And Quentin is getting over his first real heartbreak and doesn’t know how to handle it (nor even understand the power dynamics that were at play).
I think also the issue that a lot of romcoms pose is that when story is about love and romance, yet every story needs to have conflict in order to drive the plot forward. So how do you remedy that? Most romcoms answer this by a will-they-won’t-they. Or enemies to lovers. Or fake dating. Or convenient miscommunication. Or one of the many romantic tropes that exist.
Trust me, I love romantic tropes as much as the next person. However, if done incorrectly, then it actually portrays toxic relationships as normal.
I was very much running into that issue with Quentin and Beatrice. So in this new version, I really wanted their relationship to be pure. Something that I’d want to see for more couples in real life. Supportive. Interdependent. Loving. Funny. Flirtatious. Thoughtful. Kind. I always reference this video about love portrayed in Hiyao Miyazaki films. I’d like Quentin and Beatrice’s relationship to be something like that.
To do that, I had to remove the conflict between them and make it something beyond them. It did the relationship good, but as well as making Beatrice the main character (who was always the more compelling one), it left Quentin to become simply a plot device in this version of my new plotline.
During feedback, a writer friend of mine duly noted that it seemed as if I didn’t like Quentin. And it’s true. I think I still feel remnants of distaste for him because of how poorly he acted towards Beatrice in version 1. He’s kinder in version 2, more supportive. But ultimately, he falls flat.
“I think you need to fall in love with Quentin a bit too,” my writer friend told me. “Spend some time with him. Get to know the new him. Maybe write in his perspective if that helps.”
So that’s what I’m going to do: write in his perspective. These passages will never be in the book, but it feels important to get a sense of his voice and his background. I feel a little bit more compelled to spend time with Quentin, because I think he’s kinder now. I can see the trails of his character, but not yet the fully picture.
Maybe one day, I’ll release these passages, but for now, I think I just need to hang 1:1 with Quentin.