Beastly Little Boy

Developmental Trivia

This trivia covers the development of the story's plot and characters. If you guys want to know more trivia such as miscellaneous details about the characters that didn't make it into the story itself, please let me know. As a reminder, I'd also be more than happy to answer any questions you may have about the book.

General:

This story originated as a short story for one of my classes. What is now the prologue is basically a more polished version of that story.

The reason I decided to expand the short story is because I desperately wanted to explore what happened to Bernard after he was left in the wilderness.

This story was partially inspired by Gary Paulsen's The Hatchet, Erin Hunter's Seekers series, and, as many people have pointed out, Brother Bear.

I was originally considering giving the story a much darker ending. Bernard still would have saved his mother, but he never would have regained the ability to talk and would have just walked off to live the rest of his life as a bear in the wild. I decided against this ending partially because it was too depressing and partially because I wanted to see Bernard get the chance to confront his mother and start to mend their bond with each other.

My favorite scene to write was the scene where Bernard had to deal with the hunter. I really enjoyed building up the tension in that scene, and the note I ended it on actually gave me the chills.

My least favorite part to write was the chapter after Bernard woke up from hibernation. At first, I had a hard time knowing what to do with it since Bernard achieved his goal of surviving the winter and didn't seem to have any other goals to guide the plot. Things got better once I realized I could give Bernard a goal by having him be nearly starving because he didn't prepare for hibernation well enough.

It took me a long time to feel satisfied with the story's ending. I wanted the story to end on a bittersweet note, and it just seemed too much on the sweet side for a while. I'm a lot more satisfied with it now because of the introduction of a permanent injury Bernard sustained in the wild. No matter what happens, his time as a bear will always affect him. That one fact made the ending much more satisfying for me.

At first, I didn't know how to handle the time Bernard spent hibernating. I considered having a chapter focussed on his mother or on his memories of his family, but I realized those would really hurt the story's flow.

I cried after I wrote the scene where Orson found his mother's corpse and later starved to death. Just thinking about that scene makes me tear up. The scene where Orson said his final goodbye to Bernard also brought tears to my eyes.

I initially struggled to figure out how to get Nita to start to warm up to Bernard since I knew she would still be incredibly wary of him after he saved Mahon. After dreaming about Bernard meeting and talking with a bear who had been raised by humans and released into the wild, I decided to make Nita feel less threatened by Bernard after learning he was raised by humans.

Bernard:

Bernard's name was almost Arthur. After narrowing my list down to those two names, I chose Bernard for two main reasons. The first is that I had an uncle named Bernard. The second is that Bernard feels like a name that would suit a strong, older person. This would suit the character's bear form while also giving him an expectation he could meet as he matured over the course of the story. While the name Arthur is associated with King Arthur, it just didn't bring strength and wisdom to mind as much as Bernard did for me.

In the first draft, Bernard was 6 years old. I changed that extremely quickly because it didn't suit the character's voice and because I couldn't believe that someone that young could deal with such tough, life threatening circumstances on his own.

I initially considered having Bernard fighting his developing bear instincts throughout the story, but I realized he would eventually lose that fight. Orson filled the role the instincts left behind, although Bernard's body still forces him to develop hibernation centric instincts because he would die (or at least come very close to doing so) without them.

Orson:

I based Orson's personality on Koda from Brother Bear. However, while Koda is pretty much a bear with a human child's personality, Orson shows the effects of life in the wild on his personality a lot more. He is still as curious as a human child, but he accepts things humans would consider positively atrocious due to how bears in the wild need to put survival over all else.

It was originally supposed to be unclear if Orson was a hallucination brought on by Bernard being driven insane by the isolation or if he actually existed. I made him real to avoid making things too disturbing, to give Bernard someone to interact with regularly, and to create another character who had an arc to go through that was similar to Bernard's in many ways. I'm definitely happy with the result. Orson is my favorite character because of how complex he is and because his interactions with Bernard add a lot of humor and heartwarming moments to the story.

I gave Orson a brother because I wanted Orson's anger to be the cause of the transformation. Although he brings up his mother more often, he mostly felt fear when she died. His fear turned to anger as his emotions had time to fester while he watched his brother starve to death alongside him.

Alice:

I wanted Alice's decision to have Bernard taken away seem morally ambiguous because one of the main themes of the story is that nobody is entirely good or entirely bad. The theme of people/bears needing to do morally questionable things just to survive also helped shape Alice's portrayal. This moral ambiguity seems to have come through very well based on the comments people have left about Alice. I love how everyone seems to view her differently. She is easily the most divisive character.

Uzumati:

I wanted Uzumati to demonstrate that just because bears focus on surviving above all else doesn't mean they have to be nasty to other adult bears all the time. To accomplish this, I made him only attack once he was provoked, although I did make him somewhat irritable. This trait was inspired by how bears in real life will avoid resorting to violence and normally just stick to threat displays.

Arturo:

I made Arturo a grolar bear to give Bernard a formidable opponent to fight at the end of the story. I knew he would make for quite an intimidating character due to his sheer size. By making him confront such a terrifying bear to protect his mother, I aimed to show how Bernard never stopped loving her despite everything he has been through because of her decision to have him sent away.

He is the closest thing this story has to a true villain, but I still tried to keep Arturo in a moral grey area by bear standards. Although he is definitely the most aggressive and downright nasty bear in the book, I made sure his need to survive in a harsh environment would drive his behavior to make it seem at least somewhat justified. Even his least morally sound moment, preparing to kill Alice, was motivated by his desire for food.

Nita:

Her name used to be Ursa, but I changed it because it was way too cliché.

I accidentally named this character after a character from Brother Bear 2. Needless to say, that franchise left quite an impression on me.