ON WRITING DEVON

Having a character with such limited canon to play with is both a blessing and a curse. A writer has much greater freedom when writing Devon because so little is known - and yet, there's often a feeling that there just isn't enough to enable a writer to write a convincing characterisation. Devon falls between two stools (and not just because he's drank eight tequila shots).

The problem I think many writers encounter is how to give Devon depth. He's never portrayed, in his limited screentime, as a person much concerned with people and events beyond the band and his music, and that is often seen as a limiting factor in fic. Devon becomes preserved in aspic, a brainless degenerate fit only for PWPs and the occasional cameo. Some might think there isn't any depth to be plumbed.

The same could very well have been said of Cordelia, back in season one and season two. She was just as shallow, just as self-obsessed - although admittedly had much better lines. But, as we know, Cordelia evolved. She became much more than a two-dimensional prom queen and, by the time she ascended to a higher plane at the close of Angel season three, she was one of the Buffyverse's most complex and interesting characters.

The trick with Devon is to allow him to evolve in the same manner. Give him the character development we never saw on screen. Often that's not so easy when writing short vignettes but nor is it impossible even there. Indeed, it's even desirable.

That development can be either an expansion of the Devon we saw in high school, or the evolution of the adult Devon.

Most of us would probably say that the other students in high school never really saw the real us. It was all too often a case of image over substance and the jostling for position taking precedence over the acceptance of self.

Whilst we saw a fairly confident and assured Devon, he may well have been a mixed up kid underneath it all, and I'm sure there's a lot of cod psychology to be divined from examining a lead singer who is so evidently an attention-seeker.

And after we last saw him on screen? Well, no-one goes through late adolesence and early adulthood without changing. By definition, you grow up, and (up to a point) mature. Obviously some mature more than others, but experience gives you wisdom even if you don't have much intelligence to go with it.

Whilst it's not difficult to suppose Devon stuck with the band and still tours today, it's equally possible that (for instance) Oz's departure heralded the gradual disintegration of what was, after all, merely a reasonably successful high school band. Or that after some years of trying to get noticed by the A&R men the Dingoes realised that they had to have day jobs if only to fund the new equipment and trips to LA for gigs. How does the real world affect a dreamer like Devon?

There are some constants though. As I've said, Devon is a performer, an attention-seeker. He dresses in shiny clothing and evidently demands the adoration of his audience, like a bird of paradise in a mating ritual. Unless he's had some pretty hard knocks to his self-confidence that trait will still be in evidence more or less whenever you set a story.

He's also at least a little ditzy. Not necessarily stupid in the traditional sense but perhaps somewhat literal and scatterbrained.

After that there isn't so much in the way of established characteristics. Which can be a little scary for a writer used to more comfortable, developed figures to play with. But believe me, it can be just as much fun - if not more. Which is probably the best reason for writing Devon there is.