Hey friends. Sorry ive been out a few days. A lot has happened but I am currently in a bad state of mind. I admit I do not have the best mental health, life has left me plenty of baggage to sift through. I am trying to make the best of it though.
I needed to talk about my character a little bit. This character was given to me in a dream about ten years ago when I was a baby christian. I was also exposed to a problem that has become a global epidemic - human trafficking.
Recently, at least 40.3 million people worldwide are currently being enslaved for forced work and others (including children) are sold into sex slavery. It is a very scary and unfortunate situation and with this book I am going to help expose this evil. My own city is a hub for human trafficking to and from Mexico. People have been arrested for this and there were Chinese restaurants shut down after they discovered human enslavement going on.
My character is a young man who experiences the human trafficking underground world. He survives it and is rescued, unfortunately, his life is darker because of it. His only bit of peace is found in his faith in Christ. He is the kind of character who gives young men a voice who in reality today need to receive healing for abuse and enslavement, mental erosion and loss of purpose. He is a character who borrows themes from David in the Bible and has to learn to slay his giants and repent from the messy situation he gets himself into that so many young people do when they end up being spiritually and mentally damaged.
He is an overcomer, and making this character was quite tricky because I had to make him the protagonist while also turning into his own antagonist in the leading incidents. He has to learn to repent and take responsibility and build himself again. This character will touch many lives and open eyes, it is a message of hope and restoration and knowing how to ask for help when needed and when to fight and when to be still. God bless you all.
Comments
If possible, if you look at documentaries or interviews of sex trafficking survivors, that might give you some insight into the development of your character. Develop a detailed history for your character such as parents, neighborhood, childhood experiences, etc. This will give your history to springboard from.
Heh. I'm reading just your summaries of your side characters and I'm already smiling; well done.
There’s even two demon characters with the main demon that are slightly stupid lol. I wanted my bad guy to look a bit foolish carrying these two clowny demons around with him who don’t always get along. They’re already scary characters as it is, right down to their looks, but I figured I would throw in an heir of stupidity on their end time to time haha.
@Briansterling, indeed! I’ve got the love interest he’s crushing on but terrified to tell, the goofy girl at the Bible study that he doesn’t want to talk to but she’s always being a weirdo around him, the nice kid in the Bible group that helps him out daily, and then he ends up being “adopted” by his long lost older brother who is a sarcastic goofball at times but other times he is just trying to be a good parental role, though he isn’t quite sure of himself because he feels bad about failing the protag character as younger characters. Then, we have the school bully, the kid whose life is bad and he gets bullied at home so he takes his anger everywhere else, we have the temptress who is the protag’s downfall because she isn’t in a good relationship herself so she ends up preying on the vulnerable protag (yay teenage hormones and confused feelings), and then there is her boyfriend, the one who gets into a fight with the protag over the girl and it becomes a sort of David and Bathsheba situation. There’s a lot of background characters too that display things like social media gossip, cell phone filming instead of helping people, church gossips, jail buddies (my protag ends up in jail for a short while because of the incident) and then there is the crazy old man who spends time preaching on the corners while most people ignore him. He’s actually an angel in disguise ;)
1) "Survived." and"Getting through the day." are underrated slogans; hang in there Natalie! Drawing on the Lord's power to face your daily demons is victory.
2) I'd encourage you to simultaneously develop some side-characters to dialogue with your protagonist and bring out parts of his character and inner conflicts. Bring in at least one or two semi-goofy characters to lighten up your subject matter and maintain viewer interest in a painful storyline. Side-characters can include odd and unusual villains; there is nothing amusing about evil itself however the foibles and follies of disreputable sidekicks can add depth to a story.
I look forward seeing this story became a reality. Peace
That sounds like a very compelling character with an interesting story.
Good for you that you are focusing on characters. Those are the things that drive a good story.