Munday Changes
Today's topic for you writers is 'changes' -- changes to a character or story that you make as you go along. For original characters, we invite you to tell us about something you changed about the character or their story from your initial image of them. Maybe you thought they had come from a happy home at first, but as you wrote their story you realized otherwise? Maybe you'd wanted them to be a pilot, but realized astronaut worked better for the story?
Anything from backstory details to personality traits-- whatever has evolved from your original idea. Feel free to tell us why!
Wil is where this wound up happening. He started as a minor noble, one who didn't go to the Crusades but had had them negatively effect his life. He'd been sent as a squire to a knight who was going, to pay off a gambling debt his father had owed, but he refused to go, his father was killed over it, and stuff. That evolved to him shifting to having been on the crusades, and negatively experiencing Robin's actions there, like a direct result thing. Neither of those wound up ultimately working, and, when I wound up switching POV characters to Sir Guy, I was sick of the Wil character and the Robin character being at each other's throats over the issue of the crusade, which didn't make a lot of sense for Wil to be THAT upset over, considering.
So, I merged the two of them into one character, my new Robin, now called Rab. It meant he was a lot younger, and HE was the squire coming back from Crusade. Doing that allowed for me to have a lot more information that was directly relevant to one of the main characters instead of as a couple. Similarly, some of my favorite characters, like John and Ellen got more minor roles in the current re-write, with Mariun getting a bigger role, that's a little more active in terms of the story, even though I refuse to make her an action Marian, since that's been done before.
Switching to Sir Guy's POV is another change I've done lately and that has done a lot for me in terms of exploring interpretations of law and justice and the early medieval period. I've found that a lot of what Guy is called to do, he's called to do because it's actually intended for a good reason, and my Sheriff of Nottingham, Sheriff William doesn't want to do things because he's a bastard, it's because he actually has order to uphold. It allows for a somewhat interesting interpretation. I'm not trying to go full out pro sheriff or anything, but I AM interested in showing more of the grey areas. As it stands, both sides in the novel have those, so exploring them instead is creating something a bit different that I really appreciate being able to see.
And then there's the part where Rab decided he was going to hook up romantically with Guy that took me completely by surprise. Uh. WHAT? It's created some interesting consequences for both of them, thats for sure.
Anything from backstory details to personality traits-- whatever has evolved from your original idea. Feel free to tell us why!
Wil is where this wound up happening. He started as a minor noble, one who didn't go to the Crusades but had had them negatively effect his life. He'd been sent as a squire to a knight who was going, to pay off a gambling debt his father had owed, but he refused to go, his father was killed over it, and stuff. That evolved to him shifting to having been on the crusades, and negatively experiencing Robin's actions there, like a direct result thing. Neither of those wound up ultimately working, and, when I wound up switching POV characters to Sir Guy, I was sick of the Wil character and the Robin character being at each other's throats over the issue of the crusade, which didn't make a lot of sense for Wil to be THAT upset over, considering.
So, I merged the two of them into one character, my new Robin, now called Rab. It meant he was a lot younger, and HE was the squire coming back from Crusade. Doing that allowed for me to have a lot more information that was directly relevant to one of the main characters instead of as a couple. Similarly, some of my favorite characters, like John and Ellen got more minor roles in the current re-write, with Mariun getting a bigger role, that's a little more active in terms of the story, even though I refuse to make her an action Marian, since that's been done before.
Switching to Sir Guy's POV is another change I've done lately and that has done a lot for me in terms of exploring interpretations of law and justice and the early medieval period. I've found that a lot of what Guy is called to do, he's called to do because it's actually intended for a good reason, and my Sheriff of Nottingham, Sheriff William doesn't want to do things because he's a bastard, it's because he actually has order to uphold. It allows for a somewhat interesting interpretation. I'm not trying to go full out pro sheriff or anything, but I AM interested in showing more of the grey areas. As it stands, both sides in the novel have those, so exploring them instead is creating something a bit different that I really appreciate being able to see.
And then there's the part where Rab decided he was going to hook up romantically with Guy that took me completely by surprise. Uh. WHAT? It's created some interesting consequences for both of them, thats for sure.