Monday, July 4, 2011

Crafting a Story : Secondary Character

Today, I’ll talk about our secondary character, Jasmine.

Jasmine grew up in a poor neighbourhood and eventually got mixed up with the wrong crowd, i.e. Irwin. She agreed to help him rob a store by posing as a hostage, but in a shocking twist of events, Henry manages to grab the gun and shoot Irwin, thus “saving” her. This let Jasmine see another side of the world and hope for a better future. Perhaps she felt horrified that Irwin was just killed. Either way, she falls in love with Henry, who has thus become her saviour, not only saving her from her “hostage” situation, but also symbolically saving her from a bad life. Eventually, Henry gives in to her advances, but she goes to great lengths to conceal her history with Irwin – as it would create conflict between her and Henry. When the ghost of Irwin starts haunting her and Henry, her secret comes out and Henry, in an act of anger, locks her out of the safe bunker and she is killed, abandoned by both the men in her life.

Jasmine will be regretting her decisions all throughout the story, from getting mixed up with Irwin at the start, to not telling Henry the truth sooner, at the end. Thus, she’ll be second-guessing every move she makes and endlessly obsessing over decisions she made. All in all, she’ll be a pretty jittery character, one is is doing everything she can to keep everything stable, thinking too hard on things and so forth.

However, Jasmine grew up in a rough neighbourhood and had learned to act out in certain ways to defend against ruffians. She couldn’t be a softie, per se. But, after she meets Henry, she tries to act the way a higher class woman should act in order to impress him.

Therefore, the Jasmine that Henry knows is not the same Jasmine that she really is. Eventually, when the pressure gets too much (such as when her secret is found out) she will drop her mask and revert to her old self. This on its own will shock Henry and therefore agitate him even further, allowing his anger to get the better of him.

Lastly, Jasmine’s attitude towards Irwin will be one of fear. She feels guilty about what happened, but hoped to put it behind her (maybe she spoke to a psychiatrist) but when he pops up again and she realises it’s him, the pressure will be on and she’ll start acting out. Fear will be a powerful motivator, even more than Henry’s approval. She will be the first to realise Irwin’s intentions (or at least guess correctly) and she will be the reason Henry and she survives the first lethal attacks.

That’s everything I need for now. Next week, I’ll summarize the story, so I can see the entire scope of where it will take me.

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