Writing Characters: Jonah & Co

WRITING CHARACTERS: JONAH & CO

Last week I gave you an insight into the other POV for my upcoming release, Invisible. You can find it here. This week I thought I would talk to you more about Jonah, and what part he plays in the story.

To recap for those who might have missed it last week, Invisible, which is the first in a young adult dystopian quartet, is set in England in the far distance future. The country is split into nine self-governing segments, all of which trade and work with each other to become sustainable. Jonah is in North-West, and completely abled. He's at school with his best friend, Jackson, and the two of them don't think anything's wrong, beyond some weird emails that Jonah's been getting.

Jonah and Jackson are one of the first to escape the school when bombs are dropped all over the segment. It soon becomes clear that there's something in the air that is not just killing some students and teachers, but making others very ill. While the two of them, with help from other students, manage to get off the campus and towards the hospital, neither have escaped the gas and the virus from the bombs.

By the time Jonah wakes up, his whole world has changed. He's gone from being with his parents, and completely abled, to having chronic pain and fatigue that doesn't have a name. He's lost his family, lost his home, and is, at seventeen, having to jump into a working role to be able to afford to live. While he has Jackson alongside him, who has developed his own conditions, despite having been perfectly healthy and abled before the bombs, but with such a massive loss of life and the world changing, it's hard to adapt even though they pretty much have no other choice.

Writing Jonah allowed me to showcase just how weird things were in both segments. Having abled characters becoming struck down with a new disability meant that they could be the eyes that some readers would use to see themselves in the story. Jonah's view of life in the segment before, and life afterwards is startling as a way to showcase just what a new disability is like.

I loved writing him, and I think his viewpoint was sorely needed to present some kind of mirror to what Zya was experiencing herself. Both of them were loud in my head when writing this story and the other books in the series, and both were very much valid protagonists if just for different reasons. Like I said last week, this whole series is written and was done so way before COVID happened, but I can see the fact that some people will not know that or even see the similarities in the way things are dealt with.

While Jonah and Zya have never met, they do make contact, but that's through Jonah's connections rather than anything she does. The two of them grow close, they rely on each other even though they're not in the same segment, and the chances of leaving are very slim. While Zya's worries about Further Training and the Exit Exam are pivotal to her story, Jonah's lack of worry about them to begin with are just as important, showcasing the disabled experience and the abled one.

I love this book, love this series, and can't wait to share with you more as we go along towards release, and the second book which should come out in 2025. If this all sounds interesting, you can pre-order Invisible here, it's out on November 14th, and if you do pre-order, you can sign up for the SWAG here which is open internationally.

Any questions? Lemme know in the comments!

Follow Joey here on her blog, or on Facebook or Tumblr to be kept up to date with the latest news regarding Joey and her books.