To have a well written book, I think you will agree, we need a diverse set of characters. Characters that you will fall in love with, characters that you will despise from
the word go, and characters that bring humour into the melting pot.
I mean that is life, right? And it needn't be Human characters, it can be alien characters as well, and in my books, we are talking Elves. I have to persuade the reader
that although the culture, looks and way of life of an Elf is so foreign to us, they too can
have good, bad and very ugly characteristics.
Without giving too much away, I am going to pick on just a couple of colourful
characters that you will meet in my books. One is from the Earthan dimension, and one is
from the Elvish dimension. For this blog, I will bring in the Earthan, Lord Arlo Brough, The Elvish character will be introduced in part two of this blog
Lord Arlo Brough:
I set out right from the start, with the intention of making him a very unpleasant person. So what did I do? I made a list of all the things that Human's do, that make us despise and hate someone. Someone who treats animals cruelly, who is condecending and patronising, who is a physical and mental bully, has no compassion and so on.
Let me quote a few lines from my book as to what this person is like. I am apologising now, but remember I want you to hate this person. To get it all into perspective, this is how I describe him when he first appears:
He had a big red beard and was very broad in the chest. He was not particularly tall, but incredibly strong, and had a large girth that meant he waddled rather than walked. His strong presence that proceeded him, commanded immediate attention anywhere he went. His mop of red greying hair was tied into a top knot on the crown of his head. Most people who were introduced to him, immediately disliked him. He had a very offhand, patronising and rude personality, and didn’t bat an eyelid when telling someone what he thought of them. He could
be nasty, and condemn a man or woman to death, in his role as a judge, without an ounce of compassion. Even though the evidence could be overwhelming in proving the guilty person was innocent, it has been known that Brough would summarily issue a death sentence simply because ‘I didn’t like the look of that low life’.
He used brute force and political manoeuvring, together with a bottomless purse, to curry favour with various others in society to help him climb up the political ladder'
Ok, are we getting the gist now? Are you beginning to formulate your opinion about him.
But I didn't want to stop there, oh no, what else could I introduce about his character, that would reinforce your hate of him? We all have pet hates about people. We in Britain, are a nation of animal lovers. I have two dogs and love them to bits. So I knew if this obnoxious person didn't treat animals well, I would be reinforcing your feelings towards him.
Lord Brough has a horse, a stallion called 'Majesty'. Almost black, with a beautiful shiny coat. He has the spirit of an Arab temperament in him. Now, we all know cruel people will take their frustrations out on animals. It can be heartbreaking. So now, lets see what happens when
Brough gets angry with Majesty:
'His anger was returning, because of it, he was wrenching majesty’s neck uncomfortably, pulling on the reins violently, making him wince and snort so badly, he reared up, and Brough fell heavily to the ground, completely winded. For a few moments, he couldn’t breathe in, and it looked like majesty was rearing up to trample him under his hooves. Indeed, Brough was already shielding his face and head with his arms, but managed to roll to one side. When he could, he stood up, anger in his whole body, grabbed the reins, pulled Majesties head down, and using his crop, started whipping and flailing the crop across both sides of Majesties head, with such force, that slivers of skin on the horses cheeks were opening up and blood was beginning to spurt out everywhere, and indeed was splattering Brough across his face and hair.
When he had vented his anger on the poor horse, Brough had to wipe away Majesties blood from his eyes, so he could see to re-mount. He dug his heels deeply and cruelly into the horses flanks, and set off at full gallop back to the manor.'
Ok. By the time I had finished, Brough would have been the last person you would go down to the local pub for a drink with.
Interestingly, in the team behind the writing of my books I have three Beta readers. They very kindly, read everything through, and mark spelling mistakes, grammatical mistakes, how the plot lines are working, is it keeping, are you gripped with the story and so on.
Well, one of my Beta readers, has horses and rides regularly. When I got back the corrected chapter containing this cruelty of Brough towards his horse., and I looked at the corrections, which had been done in red biro, at the very end of the chapter, she wrote in very large capitals, 'I HATE THIS LORD ARLO BROUGH WITH A PASSION'.
Ahhhh. It was beginning to work. This is what I wanted to happen.
And what happens to Lord Brough throughout the book? Does he ever get his comeuppance? Well, you will just have to wait and see.
And that is because, no matter how cruel someone can be, sometimes, just sometimes they have a weakness. In this case a weakness that may, no matter how small, make your heart feel sorry for him or her. A little bit of kindness for something in particular that is kept hidden, maybe because that person thinks it could be a sign of weakness and nobody should know. Does Lord Arlo Brough have a weakness? If so, will it show itself? When will you discover that weakness, if their is one?
Well, who knows, you will have to delve into my mind to find the answer to that one.
Or to when if at all, it will be revealed.
In Part two of this blog, I will be picking on a comparably obnoxious Elf called Mandaz. I am warning you now, he will put you off your breakfast!
Till then, Live, Long and Prosper
Michael
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