Getting into character

SOME IDEAS FOR MY CHARACTERS.

How have I developed my characters? That’s a tough one to answer really. There are many things I’ve had to consider when I thought about characters. Firstly what I want a character to accomplish. Most fantasy books I’ve read have the hero of the story as someone who doesn’t want to be the hero (if you understand what I mean). They normally find that they have a gift, normally some form of magic or special ability and then they have the most unforgiving quest set before them. I want to try and have a fresh look on the role of a hero. One of my favourite films has helped me in developing one or two of my main characters and also some of the background characters too. The film is ‘last of the Mohicans’ a great film. The final battle scene shows one of the heroes running to save his love, he takes on a good number of the enemy before finally and very brutally failing by being killed. To me this is a significant part of the makeup of a hero. To go into a battle or situation regardless of injury to self, and although having great skill, still being the weaker of the two forces. Fighting against the odds with the very chance of failure and even death. I recently watched ‘House of the flying daggers’ which shows another aspect of what I want my characters to be like. In that film the two main characters come to a sad end. No living happily ever after there. (I suggest skipping a few lines if you haven’t seen the film for this next bit is a spoiler). Even when the girl is stabbed at the end of the film and dies, I didn’t want to believe it. She was a main character and would live forever of that I was sure. Sadly the writers of the film had other ideas. That uncertainty made the film refreshing for me. (Ok you can read again now).

I want my book to keep the reader guessing as to where it’s going. How are the characters going to fair? Then when it seems that a certain course of events is assured I want to change the story and throw the reader out of the comfortable line of thought and make them wonder how things are going to turn out. Since I haven’t written all that much of the book at the moment there is no set path for the character. I know the general direction the story will take and what it’s all about but I’m treating each character as expendable. When I start to type I let my mind open up and I go with the flow of the story. If in the course of me typing one of the main characters comes to his/her demise then so be it. This helps me to keep the story interesting for me while I write it. I’ve have written down the introduction of most of the characters into the story and where I want them to appear, I also have the point to which they journey plus one or two of the main events that will happen along the way written down, but that’s it. So I hope that you enjoy the story and the characters that I’ll introduce. I hope you enjoy watching them grow and develop as much as I’m going to. Any way for now you’ll just have to be patient while I write the next bits of the story. It’s not the easiest thing to do while at the same time taking care of my family and work, but the following posts will include more from the history of my world and soon the introduction of the first few characters.