Conflict, conflict, conflict. Conflict on every page, they say. Is that even possible? Yep! And it’s easier than it sounds.

If you recall, I decided upon ‘trust’ to be my ‘deep theme’ based both on what I was freewriting and my past experiences.

(below there be mild spoilers, yarr!)

I started off with a thief. Not because ‘thieves are cool’, or because ‘everybody else is doing it’. I wanted to do this because I know what it’s like to steal something (at a time when I was very poor and depressed, sadly), and I’ve experienced ‘honor amongst thieves’ first-hand. I also know what it takes to drive someone to thievery, and I want the character to struggle and grow in a similar way I did to rediscover the moral compass he had during his early childhood. I chose for him to be male because I am projecting parts of my personality into him, and there is some symbolism to him being male. Also, a thief was a good choice to me because I typically enjoy stories where the main character is an anti-hero.

To prepare for this character, I wanted to gain more understanding about what his life might have been like, so I did some research on modern-day Russian thieves’ guilds, studied judicial law manuscripts from the dark ages, and tried to learn some of the more useful “thieves’ cant”.

And as you know, I named this thief ‘Cirellio’.

I’m Nick. He’s Cirellio. ;) Since I use his name as my email address, you might begin to grasp the personal symbolism between myself and this character. I have a duality with him. It’s almost as if he’s my past self.

((Actually, I’m going to stop using that email address. I guess you could call it another way to seperate myself from my past. I’ve decided on a pen name, anyway – Nick Terendel. Terendel was a last name of a characer in my book — Gazic Terendel. Only something came up in my plot that made characters require only one name. He’s just Gazic now and so I’m taking Terendel. :P ‘Nick Terendel’. Let me know if you like it or not.))

So great! I’ve got a goal already. Cirellio needs to rediscover his moral compass and go from a thief to an honorable guy.

Cirellio can’t achieve this on his own. He’s jaded, he’s put too much stock in Fatalism, and he’s worked hard to rank high in his guild. He’s full of pain but bottles it up inside, he dislikes mystics, and he’s unwilling to talk about his past. That’s quite a few hurdles for someone to overcome.

I needed a strong, caring character to help him get to his goal. And of course, she has to be a mystic (for conflict, and a major part of the plot). Just like G (my wife) helped me, Cauinn has experienced bad things in her past, too, but she was better able to handle them. Just like G, she has always cared about other people more than herself. I have injected parts of myself in this character, too. For instance, Cauinn’s parents didn’t kick her out of her house, but they did not hesitate to send her on her way when she was requested to be trained as a mystic a thousand miles away from home. I know the pain of feeling like you are not wanted. It’s a pain she grew up with, and she can use that pain to relate to Cirellio so he’s more forthcoming. Cirellio must build up trust in Cauinn, and she must trust him as well.

Now I’ve got another goal. A possible love interest. And plenty of opportunities for conflict between the two. In fact, they will have a falling out at some point. This is inspired by a moment in my favorite videogame (OKAY you can stop rolling your eyes, now. The videogame RPG has proven itself as a valid form of storytelling). A character (Locke) and another (Celes) have a terrible falling out, but they meet again much later. The meeting is awkward, but the plot keeps them together long enough for something to happen that lets them finally forgive and forget, and they truly understand how much they had to lose.

~The deep theme should be the main theme for about 60-70% of your total scenes to give your story focus.~

Next, I’m going to talk a bit on villains…

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