I tracked down my Character List for this book (series) so some of the names will be different in this post than in the last post. Initially, I thought that this would be a 20-book series, I guess kind of my answer to Sweet Valley High and stuff because I loved those books. But now that I'm like decades older and way more tired, I think we'll start with a trilogy. Seems more reasonable.
Anyway, I hadn't really considered titles until Chat GPT suggested "Bandages", "Bones", and "Skin" yesterday. I like the idea of naming them but honestly, the imagery of those words are pretty grim and I want the series to be bright, bubble gum colors with black accents. I actually envision this often as an animated series like Monster High (which I never watched but really liked the animation style of).
So, let's come up with some other trilogy title ideas. Nakia (the mummy's original name, I was using Tatiana as a placeholder) is a bit of a misanthrope with a handful of stories that she tells herself that underline why. One is being sacrificed to a volcano in Atlantis (totally real in this universe), and another time she was burned at the stake -- not to mention how awful her childhood was, being a companion to Princess Ahmose.
I want the first book to kind of introduce the characters. I want them to be multi-dimensional. In the first book, I want to explore the group dynamics and how Nakia fits in, and the secrets that the girls share with each other. In the second book, I want to explore the secrets that they keep from each other. In the third book, I want them to address/confess some of the more serious of the secrets. At the end of the trilogy, I want them to have the history that glues them together to be reinforced by trust so that they can go into adulthood knowing that they have each other.
I'm not sure how Nakia fits into this dynamic. I know that at first, the girls are still reeling from what happened to their friend in junior high, and whatever happened has weakened the bonds of their friendship. I think that each girl confides in Nakia separately, in their own way, and Nakia has to put together a realistic version of what happened. Maybe she helps each girl gain perspective that allows them all to forgive each other.
Nakia's big secret is that she's a mummy, and that's not something I ever want the other girls to know about. I don't want anyone to know, except for the The King. Which means that she also can't confide in the other girls about Atlantis or the witch trials. But she does need to be vulnerable with them. They can see her physical vulnerabilities -- whatever caused the bandages plus the fact that she's so skinny and never eats in front of them are pretty clear signs of an eating disorder. So the kindness that they treat her with is inaccurate, but shows their character.
So, for Nakia to show her soft underbelly, maybe she admits that she's never been on a date, never been to a school dance, never been to a bonfire (as a guest), and the girls take each admission as an excuse to go to or throw a party. This would structure the story around frivolity but really the way that the girls treat "Sunny" at these events are what build their bonds of trust.
I want the betrayals that Nakia suffered in the past to mirror these events so that the Beverlee Hills girls can thwart Nakia's expectations of being exposed or humiliated. Also, maybe Nakia is pretty guarded and sarcastic as a way to ward off the attempts at friendship and the girls just think she's really funny. I think they're all so sick of themselves and each other when they meet Nakia that her saying mean things to them is kind of like their worst fears about themselves and each other being outed, and it's kind of a relief.
Anyway, to get back to the trilogy titles, if we're going to start compellingly but superficially, and get deeper and more layered over time, maybe we can work with that.
Okay, I pasted all of that into Chat GPT and it came up with (amongst others):
Book 1 – Glitter & Bandages
Book 2 – Lipstick & Lies
Book 3 – Hearts & Secrets
Working with this, I really liked Glitter & Bandages because in a makeover scene, Candy gifts Sunny with stacks of new bandages to replace the sterile white gauze. I liked the idea of Sunny's signature bandages being glitter ones.
So that gave me Glitter Bandages for the first book. For book two, another suggest was "Diamond Promises" but I liked the idea of sticking with two nouns for the title, so ChatGPT suggested "Diamond Rings", which was a little basic -- definitely not as unique as "Glitter Bandages" BUT Thai has, as part of her personality, decided that she's going to get married the second she turns eighteen, and wedding planning is a through line of small talk/filler dialogue throughout the series, so I thought that was good. I actually thought it would be better as the third book. When she calls off the wedding, she turns the giant diamond that she bought herself into friendship rings for her and the girls. So, that'll be a nice way to round out the series.
For the second book, Chat GPT suggested "Velvet Rumors" which isn't two nouns but I like the "velvet" part. So I came up with "Velvet Chokers".
So:
Book 1 – Glitter Bandages
Book 2 – Velvet Chokers
Book 3 – Diamond Rings
Since Book 2 is going to be where we reveal how the girls' junior high friend (Ophelia) ended up being parapalegic, I think that maybe part of the conceit of their friend group was matching velvet chokers or velvet chokers in different colors, one for each girl. Maybe, like a Heathers thing, Thai was always trying to trade colors with Ophelia and also always challenging Ophelia's place as the group's leader. Her guilt is the strongest of the three, it's also kind of a passive-aggressive punishment for Candy and China to treat Thai as their leader now.
In Book 1, we (the reader/Nakia) can find out that Thai visits Ophelia every week, and in the second book, we can find out that China and Candy do as well, all secret from each other. Ophelia never mentions to one girl that the other two visit her, and schedules their visits to never coincide. Maybe in the second book she confesses to that and apologizes for being petty. If we get to know Ophelia well enough as a character, she'll be easy enough to forgive, and she can be incorporated as part of the friend group, as opposed to still friends with each girl. And, of course, Nakia is part of the group now. Maybe at the beginning of Book 2, Nakia visits Ophelia and finds out what happened, assuming that Thai tried to kill Ophelia or something dark like that. So Ophelia will be friends with all four individually and then part of the group for all of Book 3.
Regarding Ophelia being paraplegic, in a universe where we have a magical (highly advanced technological) substance called "lush" that Nakia's body is literally made of, the question would be, why wouldn't Nakia use lush to help Ophelia? If Nakia finds out about lush at the end of Book 2 and starts figuring out how to manipulate it to form her own body, it would be weird if she didn't think about helping Ophelia with it, too. BUT I know that there are issues with magically healing fictional characters. I will have to navigate that issue carefully to avoid it coming off as too able-ist.
For one thing, since this is the last book, this can happen slowly, and unless the trilogy turns into more books, I can probably be sensitive enough to pull it off. I think the main argument against magically healing a character is that authors shouldn't reward character development by healing a disability. But that's all I know right now, so I'll have to do some research and make sure I'm being careful with that.
It's like Harry Potter being super rich and never helping anyone with all of the money he has. Just seeing how poor Ron is and being like, "Oh, that's a shame. Too bad he's poor." For a full analysis of that thought, I recommend Shaun's video on YouTube called "Harry Potter". It's a great take-down of J.K. Rowlings weaknesses as an author, weaknesses I'd like to avoid. Just like, as a human, I'd like to avoid being a raging transphobe.
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