“The three soldiers — men-at-arms wearing the emblem of the royal guards — rushed at the king, and one felled the squire with a blow of a mace. The other two fared less well. As the first rushed in, lifting his sword, Conan met him with a sweeping stroke that severed mail-links like cloth, and sheared the Nemedian’s arm and shoulder clean from his body. His corpse, pitching backward, fell across his companion’s legs. The man stumbled, and before he could recover, the great sword was through him. Conan wretched out his steel with a racking gasp, and staggered back against the tent-pole. His great limbs trembled, his chest heaved, and sweat poured down his face and neck. But his eyes flamed with exultant savagery and he panted: “Why do you stand afar, dog? I can’t reach you; come in and die!”
— (Excerpt from The Hour of the Dragon, by Robert E. Howard)
Character Archetypes
Wow, it’s hard to believe that the month of May is already over (which, I guess, shouldn’t be surprising for me since I took half the month off while on vacation with family). It seems like the second round of ROW80 just started and here we are staring at the finish-line in June. I was pleased, however, that I got as much story-crafting as I did during May because, truthfully, I was having my doubts that I could stay on track with all the chaos and distractions. In actuality though, the vacation did my creativity a world of good. Seeing different scenery in new locations sparked my imagination, taking my story-crafting ideas in new and exciting directions. As I said in my last post, my beautiful Muse has been working overtime, flooding my mind with wonderful story-ideas. As best I could, I wrote them all down long-hand in my graph-paper notebook and I’ve been returning to these ideas all week, dutifully transcribing these notes into Scrivener. Within my “sword & sorcery” world, I now have fourteen story-ideas that I’m working on. Fourteen! Each story-idea has it’s own set of unique main characters (I’ve created twenty-two main characters so far) and I have eighteen villains that I’ve developed as well, so I’m really excited about all the possibilities that I have to choose from. You’re probably wondering how I’m able to come up with so many main characters with unique personalities. Well, I’ve been studying the Twelve Character Archetypes (pdf) and I’ve been reading articles on the subject, like this one here. But, even better than these examples, I’ve read two fantastic books on the subject that I highly recommend, both written by Tami D. Cowden. These books are Heroes & Heroines; Sixteen Master Archetypes and Fallen Heroes; Sixteen Master Villain Archetypes. I have based most of my characters using these master archetypes. The Hero archetypes are the Chief, the Bad Boy, the Best Friend, the Charmer, the Lost Soul, the Professor, the Swashbuckler, and the Warrior. The Heroine archetypes are the Boss, the Seductress, the Spunky Kid, the Free Spirit, the Waif, the Librarian, the Crusader, and the Nurturer. The Male Villain archetypes are the Tyrant, the Bastard, the Devil, the Traitor, the Evil Genius, the Outcast, the Sadist, and the Terrorist. The Female Villain archetypes are the Bitch, the Black Widow, the Backstabber, the Lunatic, the Parasite, the Schemer, the Fanatic, and the Matriarch. Starting with these basic master archetypes gives you a universally solid starting-point for building believable characters. I especially like the fact that the Hero and the Fallen Hero (Villain) have similar archetype traits; the difference being whether they stay true to their virtues or whether they succumb to their flaws. In other words, the Fallen Hero of the Professor is the Evil Genius; the Fallen Hero of the Best Friend is the Traitor; the Fallen Hero of the Warrior is the Terrorist, etc. I could go on and on, but you get the idea (click on the "Look Inside" feature of the book links to learn more about it). These books have helped me immensely and come highly recommended by me.
That’s all for now. Keep the Fire Burning!
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Sounds like an awesomely creative week! Thanks for the links to the character books - will definitely check them out. All the best as we wind down this month. Hard to believe round 2 is almost over.
ReplyDeleteHi Beverley. Thanks for taking an interest in my post. I think you’re really going to enjoy these character archetype books. Not only does the author go into great detail with each individual master archetype, but she also pairs each archetype with another, showing how they clash with one another, how they mesh with one another, and how each of them changes the other. This is especially helpful for all you Romance Writers out there, the Hero & Heroine book is a gold-mine of built-in personality-conflicts and social-dynamics. Each pairing in the Hero & Heroine book has movie examples as well. For example, in the movie ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’, the Swashbuckler archetype (Indiana Jones) was paired with the Spunky Kid archetype (Marion), while in the movie ‘Romancing the Stone’ the Swashbuckler archetype (Jack Colton) was paired with the Librarian archetype (Joan Wilder). The book has many same-gender (buddy) pairings and ensembles included as well. I refer to this book all the time (my go-to reference on character personalities). The second book will help you create believable villains with realistic motivations. Again, solid gold for building genuine conflict in your stories. Anyway, I just wanted to share these books with everyone. Best wishes for the rest of the round! =)
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