Tuesday Gather Writing Essentials Character Development - Alpha and Omega

Everyone has their demons. Usually there is a way to shut them out, but it's impossible when it's your twin sister and you share a fused hip socket and a few vital organs. And it's a real bitch when she's the pretty one. Alpha is a knockout. Curved in the right places, well on one side anyway, and endowed with a treasure chest. Blessed with features Michelangelo could only have dreamed of sculpting and still she insists on wearing too much makeup. Her hair was naturally chestnut, but every other week, it's a new look, a new color. Her cat green eyes attract all the wrong kind of guys.

She drinks. She smokes. She disregards any effect her habits have on me. She'll indulge in pastries even though she knows they'll go straight to my butt. She wants to wear mini skirts and ridiculously high heels, even though it means I have to wear a pair an inch higher. Words that aren't in her vocabulary include compromise, diplomacy, and discretion. She is such a ho-bag.

If she could find a stylish way to put me in a bag, I'm sure she would. My looks are plain; straight, fine, ashy- blond hair, hazel eyes, and a few freckles across my nose leftover from childhood. My chest is too flat, my bottom too wide, my arms and legs wiry and unfeminine. If I could sit and read a book after our performance in the modern freak circus ends, that would suit me. I'm grateful for the job as it pays well, but I'm not fond of all the traveling.

I've got no hobbies because Alpha's a whirlwind and won't sit still. She's got to be dancing or carrying on all the time. I used to crochet while she partied with the roadies or local boys, but it's too difficult to count stitches when you're conjoined heathen is drowning us in beer. One day, I would like to learn to paint. I read often - that is when Alpha doesn't hide my glasses.

I suppose I'm lucky men don't tend to notice me much. I don't find them terribly interesting, but that could be because Alpha's followers are looking for cheap thrills and kinky sex. They don't seem to mind that I hide under the covers, but they do seem to enjoy thinking they're performing for an audience. She'd probably have this sort of following even if she didn't have me. Like I mentioned, she's a ho-bag.

I wear a big black sweater most of the time so I guess I look sort of like a giant tick attached to Alpha's side. A parasite that can play the concertina and sing background harmony to the diva's lead. At least our manager and his wife, Dale and Amy, try to keep me happy with books and iPods and other toys of the technical age, but they can't really find a cure for the loneliness.

Oh well, Alpha has to die someday.