Character Evolution

In discussing my series, The Prophecy War I am often asked, "Why didn't you such and such with this character?" In other words, how did I come up with the various characters' personalities, quirks and why do I kill them off when I do?

This series began as one book that kept growing. I started with a plan, or outline, for the story and after about four years, thought it was ready for publication. I dutifully submitted the work, was rejected, but got some excellent advice from the editor. He told me I needed to think bigger, as in a series. The editor also gave character development suggestions which, when I followed them, completely changed how I looked at developing characters. It also increased the amount of work involved.

At this point, all my characters were pretty much as I had planned them. Good guys stayed good, bad guys stayed bad, fence-sitters eventually came down on one side or the other. Although some may think that "anything goes" in fantasy, if a writer has that attitude, the work will most certainly fail. Character development is probably the most important aspect of any storyline. Readers want to put themselves into the characters...to live their lives if only through the pages of the work. Ultimately, what we are doing is telling human stories. So what human is totally good or totally evil? Religious figures aside, most of us have never actually met a perfectly bad or perfectly good person.

We all make journeys through life, change attitudes, sometimes reorder values, change behaviors. So why should our characters not make the same journey? As I stated in my previous post, I took this route to character development. I went back to the drawing board. While continuing to flesh out the storyline and expand into a multi-book series, I took detours based upon things about which a character reminisced and created that event in the character's life.

The result was that my characters continued to evolve in the main story, so much as to seemingly take on a life of their own independent of what I had planned. They get themselves into messes that I can't get them out of, or they are simply in the wrong place at the wrong time...sort of like what happens to us in real life sometimes.

A prime example is Tal'Mar, a sorcerer seemingly on the side of evil for thousands of years. Yet, even when you first meet him, he is a likable villain. As the story develops, he reveals that certain key events in his long life have had a profound effect on his thinking and how he views the world.

Another character, Tylanna, a sorceress, started on the side of good, but became utterly evil through a path of self-destruction brought about by vanity and greed.

I won't discuss the deaths of characters here. You need to read the books. (Shameless plug.) I will say that I was roundly castigated by some of my proof-readers for killing of characters that they had come to like. In three of the cases, they didn't see it coming...the readers that is. Stupid bad luck for the characters, but that's life. In the end it's all about telling a compelling human story with all the ups and downs.

Just to show off...

Nothing mind-blowing here. I think my brain is overloaded right now. I've been polishing my third book so that I can get it to the publisher by the end of March. I take periodic detours into books four and five and then back in time to an era before any of the events described in the series to write more background. After all, the characters need memories and they need to have something to remember. So I create them.

I am also working on our online travel business web site, "Isles Britannic". We put the whole thing in "cold storage" when I went off to the war. My wife and I started the business in 1998, and we were just making it profitable when foot and mouth struck the British Isles. It was a heavy blow to us since we specialized in travel to the British Isles. Right when the business recovered from FMD, 9/11 happened. Deborah went back to nursing and I went back to training soldiers. We both felt a need to do something more important with our lives. We had planned on resurecting the business last summer, but never got around to it. I was planning on returning to Iraq, but things didn't work out that way. I had a false start on getting things going again in January due to a potential excursion to Afghanistan, which also did not pan out. So maybe I really am a civilian now for good.

So, just to show off a little, here are cover pictures of "The Sword's Prophecy" and "Well of Power" along with a sneak peak at the artwork for "Destiny's Bride".

Beginning Muse

Well, I've been thinking about doing this for a long time. What finally got me motivated? A friend and fellow writer. This the start to musings of many sorts. Just a wee hello to the blogosphere. My interests are wide and varied, so don't get too comfortable thinking you have me figured out.