Characters are a key aspect of storytelling, they give the audience someone to relate to, help the story progress and even inspire the story itself. When I started to create my storyline, I started with the main character and built the world around her. I would say that characters are the most important part of my story. This is the third blog post to read in this production dossier.
Main Character: The Creation Of Ren
My main character started with a few simple sketches and doodles and was actually the product of a set of new coloured pencils that I wanted to try out. I liked her first rudimental design so I decided to create a more in depth character page on her in which I decided her clothes, her colour palette and other distinct features. I knew her hair had to be orange/red and I decided to experiment with making her eyes blue (the complimentary colour) which I really liked. I also tried combining different greens and browns together to create the outfit ensemble. I chose these colours as I wanted her to emanate an earthy vibe, as if her clothes are old and made out of natural material but the bright orange hair balances this out, making her stand out compared to other characters in the novel.
I had a few key features which I jotted down, these included: a young looking round face, scars, freckles, rat tails and bright orange/red hair. I chose for her to be scarred as she has had a rough childhood and is a trained fighter. She also has freckles and a round young looking face as I wanted to illustrate that she is still young, and being young is a key part of the storyline.
Christopher Volger suggests that within storytelling there are seven archetypes, Ren fits the archetype of ‘(Willing) Hero’ (Volger, 1982) she has a set of values that she is sworn to uphold and she will do this any way she can even if this means she is sometimes stubborn.
In the third week of experimenting with this main character, I filled in a character questionnaire which helped me to get to know her a bit better. This questionnaire has changed a little over time with the development of the story, but her personality has mostly stayed the same. I will summarise below:
Name: Ren
Age: 17 – 21 (throughout story)
Look like: Scars, freckles, orange/red hair, rat tails on either side of hair
Career: Trained Assassin
What makes you happy: Birds, nature
Ambitions: Revenge, recreating a cure for the disease
Pets?: No, just close with the birds she feeds
How do you relax: Feeding birds and creating new things
When were you last naked in front of someone: Never, later in the story when older maybe.
Treasured possession: Double daggers made by hand – gifted by a friend early in story, the spoilt recipe for the disease cure that is partly illegible
What do you want from life: Revenge, to find the source of the disease; her mother was suspicious of its source of origin and to help people as much as she can
What is in pockets: A couple of crystals (currency in world), string for crafting, a key to old house
What do you hate about yourself: That she isn’t supposed to exist, her freckles and hot-headedness
What do you love about yourself: Skill-set and cleverness, how good she is at what she does
How do you speak: Quietly, speaks a little of high elf, and fluent in English, standard British accent
Biggest flaw: Quick temper, wary of everyone, anxious
What gets blood pumping: Hiding from people, sneaking around places, killing
Prejudice: Suspicious of royalty and high elves, she thinks they have something to do with the disease
Fear most: People finding out who she really is and her real age, failure, bears
Experimenting with reference images
After creating my main character, I took some reference images of my sister to draw from and inspire my scenery as well. All photos were taken by me.
Other Important Characters
Mother – The Mentor
Name: Robin
Age: 40
Career: Herbalist and doctor
Ren’s mother (Robin) dies early in the story, but not before we see how caring and loyal she is. She is a common Elf around 40 years old and has devoted her life to herbalism and helping others. She has created a cure for the disease, and is planning to distribute it as quietly as she can.
She will have very long hair, some parts braided and wrapped with various coloured ribbons and metal spirals, she will also wear very long skirts almost similar to robes. Robin is a very spiritual elf, using the earth to heal people and practising witchcraft to create potions and elixirs. Robin acts as the ‘Mentor’ archetype (Volger, 1982) she raises Ren with all of her values and teaches her how to help people, they are extremely close. When Robin is murdered this has a massive impact on Ren, she feels betrayed and this creates Rens need for vengeance.
King Herold- The Shadow
Name: Herold
Age: 45
Career: King
King Herold is the antagonist of this story, he is the ‘Shadow’ (Volger, 1982) he is the main antagonist and the causer of tension and anxiety throughout the story as his friendly facade fades away. He is inspired by the biblical story of King Herod, a king overwhelmed with sudden power and a strong desire to keep it that way. Herold is a very pale tall triangular High Elf, an elf with extremely pointy ears and slender characteristics. He has long platinum blonde hair and is gowned in long red robes.
The basic story of Herold is as follows: Herold was always of unsound mind, he was obsessed with his power. Soon after Herold had married his beautiful wife, she fell pregnant. Already consumed with the power of being king, he grew concerned about his usurper. He maniacally had his best wizard create a disease which would kill the baby and stop his wife from ever becoming pregnant again. This disease was powerful and full of spite, it ended up killing the queen and unleashing itself onto every woman on the island, slowly affecting the pregnancies of many. People became desperate, women died in childbirth and the king was left with a desperate kingdom. In his grief he was not truthful, his insanity grew, he lied to everyone and promised that only he and his team could create the cure. This left an immense amount of power in his hands, and he enjoyed every minute of it, people worshipped him as a god and it numbed the pain of losing everything that was important to him. It is in his best interest to keep this disease a secret.
Adisa -The Ally/Unwilling Hero
Name: Adisa
Age: 21 (when met in story)
Career: Ex-knight turned lone assassin
Adisa acts as the ‘Ally’ in this story, he is also the ‘Unwilling Hero’. Adisa plays a large part in the advancement in the story showing up halfway through to help the main character and also bring out the softer side of Rens character. Adisa is an ex-knight who knows about and was partially involved in the murder of the main characters mother. We only learn this at the climax of the story, this causes arguments between Ren and Adisa, which then causes them to part ways only for Adisa to return at the end helping cure the disease and destroy the kings reign.
Adisa is a tall dark skinned common elf, he is scarred similarly to Ren with a shaved head. He is handsome, wears dark clothes and uses a bow and arrow to fight with. Adisa is also the love interest of Ren.
References
Volger, C. (2007) The writer’s journey: mythic structure for writers. (Third Edition) United States: Michael Wiese Productions.