How I wrote a book - Part 2: Developing my characters

When I started writing my story was set in a classic high fantasy world. The necromancers with the help of demons and undead conquering the country trying to take over the power from the gracious king and his Disney prince son.
Well, I must say that this was a starting point and I admit it was not very creative. I wrote the first pages, the first chapters and I truly was not happy with the outcome. I did not like my own characters. Then it came to me why. They were perfect in what they were. Perfect evil, perfect light and they disgusted me.

Despite the fact that there are truly cruel psychopaths out there in our world – hopefully none of us will ever cross their path – (and hopefully also some untouchable saints) we all have good and bad parts, darkness and light always belong together. I think everyone of us has characteristics he or she is not proud of and bad habits as well. So I decided to leave the classic high-fantasy-lord-of-the-rings-Disney-hero-villain world and give all of my characters a kind of human touch. The shiny prince turned into a moody guy having a vice for beautiful women like his father. The leader of the necromancers was tortured and betrayed all his life before he became the monster he is now. So you can feel with him, you can understand his story. He is not pure evil that just exists to destroy the light, he is a product of the world he was born in. As I changed my characters, I had to totally change their first description.

So how did I create my imperfect babies?

This is how it worked for me: I started to make a starting profile, not only describing their appearance but also basic characteristics (it helps to have a character list, so you don’t forget yourself). For example Prince Caelian, son of the king: As I already mentioned he can become difficult sometimes, is quick-tempered and has a lot of weaknesses. His father rejects him because of his lack of self-control which makes him even more unpredictable and makes him take a lot of bad decisions as he tries to impress his father and gain his respect. So this is the starting point from where we try to go on. As the story runs, my characters are not static. Prince Caelian has the chance to change himself and consequently learn, improve and maybe will take better decisions in the future or react differently to things that happen to him. It is also possible that the situations will leave even more invisible scars on him which will force him to become even worse.

We all know how hard it is to change ourselves and our bad habits. Have you ever been cheated on? I not – as far as I know about – but I can imagine that it will make it harder for you to trust in a new relationship. And have you been a jealous character from the beginning? Then such situation will not help to successfully fight your jealousy but might make it even worse. So as I know that we are all struggling while going through life and experience ups and downs, I also let my characters struggle taking the type of human they are as a starting point.

I have just finished the first book of this series; some more to come and as I currently know only the raw storyline of the second part, I don’t know where Prince Caelian’s story will end but I am sure that a lot of surprises will come up. As humans always surprise us with new things and actions you have not expected.

I think that it is true that the leopard cannot change his spots but he can try to work with it. The experiences we have gained in our lives have made us the people we are today but you should not relax and say that it is not possible to change. Within certain borders I think it is and the same goes for all my characters. It will also be interesting for me to see where they end up in my story and hopefully also for my readers knowing that they are not as predictable as classic fantasy characters. Their journey has just begun and so has mine as writer.

Hope you enjoyed reading! Next episode I will let you know how my own moods and my “real life” influence my writing. So talk to you soon.

Kisses, Caroline

Ps: The picture was taken at Mount Etna, Sicily. Darkness and light close together.