Caden Stirling

jack;

to be honest i'm not quite sure. i only met her once after all, and it was only really briefly. sometimes i think that she may have just been shy, but she didn't really smile at all or anything, so then i'm not so sure. she did seem "emotionless", but i may have just been misreading her. yeah, i guess she kind of did seem angry though, so maybe you're right.
if i see her again (which, given the size of the town, i'm sure i will soon), i will try talking to her. but if she acts the same, then i'll ask her if i've done anything wrong and try and figure her out a bit.
you never know, she may have just been having a bad day when i met her.

Believe me, girls have lots of bad days! So, yeah, you do that ask her and she might just be some girl with anger issues or something!

Oh sorry, I didn't mean to skip 'stuff' XD Is the world any different to before the war? I hope you don't mind me asking (and I hope you like history!), I'm just curious because... we learn different things XD Our country is a little different... most people haven't heard of yours (please don't be offended XD)

jack;

okay, i'll try to "break through" to her next time i see her


mac;

that's okay - i'll forgive you (just this once)
i guess the world is getting closer to becoming what it was like before the war. history is not my favourite subject, but i understand the importance of it so i don't mind you asking; we have to learn from our mistakes in the past to improve as a society. although saying that, i probably don't listen as much as i should during history class, so i can't give you an in-depth analysis comparing the similarities/differences. i think everyone is probably more suspicious of others though at the moment, though.

[Note from Emma: I probably didn't make it that clear before; my novel is set in the near future - let's say, about 20-30 years in the future. So the world before the war you are asking about is pretty much our world now...or at least what our world will be like in the next 10 years.]

I know the feeling of people having never heard of your country. I'm forever explaining that Croatia's across from Italy. One moron once asked me "Oh, next to Israel, right?" I almost slapped him. He got on my nerves so much.

Okay, rant over. What is your favorite subject? What are your hobbies, what do you do to past the time?

tia; that must be so annoying! yeah, no one has heard of the town i live in either. it's super small, as i said earlier. not many people live here and we're pretty isolated as it is.

i don't really have a favourite subject. i find that for me, it really depends on the teacher.

i do lots of sports at school, but i don't have one that i do continuously. i enjoy changing around a bit - joining different teams, meeting new people, etc.
i also enjoy reading, surfing the net, playing computer games...stuff like that.
during school time i mostly hang out with my friends. during the holidays i tend to help out a bit around town to earn some money

Do you have any other family, Caden? Aunts, uncles, cousins you're close to?

(Tia, next to Israel? WTH that's Egypt! XD I grew up as a kid in the UAE and no one knows it but they know Dubai - Apparently Dubai is the country or capital which both are wrong. Dubai is a 'scrape' (British slang, sorry) of a city.)

You said you had a friend called Hamish. What's he like?

i have one aunt (on my mum's side) and an uncle (her husband) who we go and visit quite often. she's really nice and spoils me a bit when i visit, which is always loads of fun XD
i also see my grandparents (on dad's side) a fair bit too
both my aunt and uncle, and my grandparents live in big cities (on the west side of course - none of my family lives in the east). it's crazy! it's hard to believe that so many people can live in one place. there's always something going on or something to do.

hamish is great! he and i are pretty close. he's pretty impulsive, so he's loads of fun to be around. he's honest, which is nice because i can always trust him to tell it like it is.

damn - i accidentally pressed "send" to early

well, i don't have that much else to say about hamish apart from the fact that's he's also pretty modest and stuff. in fact, he's staying over at my house at the moment for this set of holidays. he lives in another town maybe 7 hours drive away.

I've heard of the UAE. United Arab Emirates, right? I've got a super strict geography teacher XD Dubai I've also heard of. Isn't that that weird place where they've got an indoor ski slope in the middle of a desert? XD

Okay, back to Caden. I do a similar thing, job-wise, and help out at my grandfather's restaurant during the summer. Man, I'm having a hard time thinking up more questions. Um, do you have a crush on anyone? Has anything happened with Grace? How long have you known Hamish, and when did you first meet him?

Tia, that's exactly what I was going to ask! XD (Yes, it does have a ski slope in the middle of the desert. I haven't been there though, the ski slope was built after I came back to England)

7 hours drive away? *frowns* how did you meet?

Hamish and I go to the same boarding school. both our towns are too small to have their own school; most towns around here are like that, so all the kids have to go to a school in a bigger town/city.
errr crush? no, i'm not really into that type of stuff at the moment.
nothing has happened with Grace yet. i haven't seen her around town yet but i'm sure she'll show up again soon

[Note from Emma: I'm sure all of you are probably sick of Caden by now so if you're out of questions that's fine. This has been pretty helpful for developing him as a character, so thank you!!!]

[Yes, you're right, we are out of questions XD You said that you'll post the 1st chapter, maybe that'll give us an idea for more questions]

Caden, you know those countries that were fighting each other in the war, are you allowed to travel to them (if your country was fighting theirs)? Is there much tourism after the war? (That sounded as if I just did a grammar mistake, but I can't find it xD)

Ahmadblues wrote:Is there much tourism after the war? (That sounded as if I just did a grammar mistake, but I can't find it xD)

[From Emma: "Has there been much tourism..." maybe??? Damn, you guys are asking really good questions that I hadn't really thought about that much!]

there's still tourism within countries. like me, dad and mum have traveled around the west of our country a bit. not that many people travel out of their countries unless it is for work these days. a truce is what stopped the war, so we're allowed to travel to our "enemy" countries, but the security is painful apparently, so not many people are too keen on doing it.

What kind of work, do you know?

Do you know much about your enemy countries in terms of touristy stuff? I'm just wondering...

Oh and please give this to Emma:
[Yes! That's probably what I was trying to say xD
That's a good sign It means we're interested in your world... Consider it 'World building'. I drew a map of a fictional town in my last novel. Are there any real-life countries mentioned in the book?]

i dunno exactly. just work. probably similar stuff that would make people travel for work in your world.

not really, now that you mention it. we learn a lot about our country, our past, and how we interact/interacted with other countries, but that's all really. we might learn more about that in later years at school, i'm not sure...

[No, no real-life countries are mentioned. Or real-live towns. Or real-life cities. I don't mention any place names, actually.]

Oh OK:)

What do you use to power cars (if you have them?)? We use oil but oil is running out and wars were caused over it, like the Iraq war (I don't trust America It was obvious Saddam was bluffing as usual about his WMD) You have electricity, right? Do you know what you use to make it? I'm just asking because our resources are running out too.

[Emma, was bio-warfare and chemical warfare used as well as nuclear?]

How would you describe the climate in your area? Hot all year round? Wet in half, dry in the other? Freezing in Winter and boiling in Summer?

most cars are electric now. oil is super expensive now, so although there are still some old oil cars hanging out, most people can't afford to use them. yep, we have electricity, but it's mainly powered by green sources. because you can get some pretty strong winds by the desert there are lots of wind farms around where we live. other places use hydro and stuff like that.

[Emma: To be honest I have not thought about it much at all. The war itself is only mentioned in passing in the story. But I expect there would have been. Especially bio-warfare.]

well, we are one of the closest towns to the desert, so it can get really hot during the day and pretty cold at night. there aren't really any "seasons". the weather is unpredictable and rain comes when it pleases. you have to get used to living in a range of temperatures to live here!

Cool Most cars here are powered by Petrol (a type of oil) but it's becoming really expensive Do you use nuclear power? You said that some nuclear weapons were used against other countries, so I was wondering if they tried to get rid of them because they didn't want nuclear weapons to exist.

[I hope you don't mind me asking XD I've been doing some research on Nuclear weapons and wars a lot lately. My worst fear is to get hit by an atomic bomb... Nuclear terrorism worries me too. Apparently Al-Qaeda will soon be able to build a nuclear bomb/radiological bomb. Can't remember which... it freaks me out a lot.
Can I ask? Do you already have an idea about how the virus infects their town? I was wondering if it was because another country used bio-warfare on it or maybe they were testing it on this town. Hope you don't mind me saying XD Fan-fic of your storyXD]

Has it ever snowed there? I know it sounds strange, but you said the weather can be unpredictable. I'm assuming if it did snow then it'd probably be at night.
Is the whole country's climate unpredictable too? Or is it rainy in the north/always foggy in the south or something?

i think some countries still do, but we don't. nuclear power is really too unpredictable and because other green methods of producing energy have developed quite well, it's safer to use them. nuclear war wrecked havoc on several countries in the war, so part of the truce was an agreement that everyone was forbidden to have anything to do with nuclear weapons.

[I don't mind you asking at all! Nuclear stuff freaks me out too. I visited Scotland's Secret Bunker a few weeks ago (it's near my house), which is basically an underground bunker where the Scottish government would have hidden if a nuclear war had broken out in the UK in WW2. It was really interesting! Anyway, I watched this video while I was there which showed what would have happened if such a war had occurred. It was completely freaky. The effects of radiation are truly devastating and I hope I never ever ever have to witness them firsthand!
Yes, I do now how the virus infects the town Unfortunately, that's a bit of a spoiler, so I can't tell you just yet ]

no, i've never seen snow. although the weather is unpredictable we do live by the desert! the whether in the rest of the country isn't too bad. it's just the really arid parts that have such weird temperatures :S

Caden... what's your worst fear? What's your relationship with Derek? I heard something happened between you two the other day...