Creative Writing Foundations: Develop Compelling Characters

Adyna is an 18 year old, ambitious peasant. She hates farming, hates her hut, and she can’t stand the other peasants. They represent life’s cruel hand. You see, Adyna was found in the wild as a baby, tied to a pig and with nobody to claim her, so she was brought into Thocorus and raised into peasantry. She dreams of living in the nicer part of the kingdom, and wants to stand atop the highest tower and look down at the world to feel superior. Thankfully, those days may be close. She’s having a secret affair with the prince and is certain he will lift her from peasantry into privilege. However, when a guard catches Adyna frolicking with the prince, she’s sentenced to execution by ants. In a desperate bid to survive, Adyna makes a romantic speech to beg for mercy from the queen. She lists all the things she’d do for this true love. The queen acknowledges her pleas and Adyna thinks love has won the day, but the queen demands she complete everything she listed in her speech. Succeed, and she’ll have her prince and status. Fail, and she can never return. In the wild, Adyna is nearly eaten by a bear but saved by a vengeful, has-been goddess, Ruth, and a peasant she often avoids, who is cursed to only speak in rhymes, Dedric. Ruth wants to find the gods who abandoned her, while Dedric hopes that by travelling with Adyna he will find a way to lift his curse. It’s a rocky start, but the trio eventually find ways to work together. Their bizarre skillsets get them through encounters with beasts, crooks and manipulators, while they learn about themselves and face their insecurities. They also learn of the suffering the queen causes the world. Through Adyna’s quests, she ticks off tasks on her list, but there’s one left, a magic stone. When she shows rare kindness to a peasant, she is shown the secret to find it. She has her item. It maintains the magic defence of a town, but Adyna doesn’t care. Her friends are disappointed and they abandon her, much like her parents did. It doesn’t matter though, she’s won. She returns to the village and finds it massacred. She thought they might get robbed but not this. Worse yet, she’s attacked by the prince and robbed of everything. He’s sorry, but the queen threatened to banish him unless he married someone else. The queen used Adyna from the start to get the items. Nobody trusts Thocorians, but a lowly peasant… what’s not to trust? The queen can now extract the life energy of peasants. She stabs Adyna. Near death, betrayed, friendless and devastated, she waits to perish, but Ruth and Dedric save her. They remind her of the good she did. Now they need to do good again by saving people from the queen. With the help of those whose lives she touched, Adyna and her friends attack the castle. They suffer heavy losses, and with Dedric and Ruth wounded Adyna is alone. With the queen moments away from extracting the souls of all the peasants, Adyna sacrifices herself, killing the prince and subjecting the queen to death by ants. With the queen’s rule shattered, the people rejoice, but there’s a sadness at the losses, particularly Adyna’s. Ruth and Dedric destroy the wall separating people and make Thocorus a place with no class divide, a fairer system, and they welcome everyone. They place a portrait of Adyna at the top of the castle, looking out over the world.