Hello all Some may have read the excerpt from the beginning of this project. IF so, I hope you liked it, but I am looking for some general suggestions of how to develop some of my characters. First I will give a brief summary of what I have decided will happen in Part 1. The zombie plague is pretty much a curse from God, that starts with one man, Justin McGrath, a child serial killer. We meet 7 cops, one is at the scene when it starts, four more show up shortly after, but the other two run into some trouble on the way. Those two happen upon a hit and run on the way. We meet three college students outside a bar, two of them get hit by the car the two officers are chasing. We follow them shortly, and they will show up again much later in the story. That being said, here is a list of characters and the general ideas I have for them. *We will go into a flashback scene for each of the cops, and probably the killer* Justin McGrath aka The Beast - Child serial killer. Evil bastard, not much o the gory detail needs to be shared. Lieutenant Earl Harris - Has a personal vendetta with The Beast, who killed his niece which resulted in his brother committing suicide. Detective John Rixford - A jolly fat man, good friend, good cop. Not much on him yet, maybe a depressing life with a wife who can't have children or something to that extent. Scott Temple - Self proclaimed ladies man, somewhat of a pervert. Hails from Staten Island and has the vocabulary to prove it. Though, I want to show that this is all a facade to mask his true self loathing about his life. Keith and Jarrod Hall - Two black brothers, close in age. Their backstory is coming to completion. Their father was killed in a shootout when they were ~13. The flashback is them running to the hospital and joining their father before he passes. Chris Owens - Has a wife and young child, ironically it is his sons birthday this night. Want to show how much of a good and loyal father and husband he is. Allen Atkins - The rookie. I haven't figured a story for him yet. --College kids -- Jason Agnew - Jock Casey Kane - Irish gal who can hold her drink, Jason's girlfriend Charlie Capwell - Sort of metal head / goth who is a sloppy drunk. (When the crash happens, Charlie dies as he is puking in the street, and Casey, who had come to his aid, is injured badly. We follow Jason and Casey to the hospital where **** will eventually hit the fan) And that's where I am so far. However, this is supposed to be a surprise, so if you for some reason actually want to read this and not be, skip this.. Thanks ahead for all the replies! **spoiler ** All of the cops will die I have thought long and hard about this, but it is the only way. They all have to die. The purpose of my need for development is that I want the reader to care and even love some of these men while they know them. I plan for Part 1 to be about 100-150 pages, and the message is that this book will get personal.
It's gonna' be tough... It'll be hard to make a story/book personal in 100-150 pages, but good luck with that. All personal bias aside, you could make the rookie (because he doesn't have a story yet) get into a developing relationship with some girl before they both die. That could add weight.
I would suggest that you'd not make Justin just an evil being. He's a child, make him childish, having childish interests and for example think that killing's just a game and a lot of fun. What happened to Earl's brother's wife? If he had one, that is. If there's one, I would take her to the story too, get her involved somehow. These were the only things I could think of at the moment.
I'm pretty sure that when the OP said Jason was a child serial killer, he/she meant that Jason is a serial killer who kills children, not a child who's a serial killer. Forgive me if I"m wrong.
Haha! Yea sorry I guess I should have clarified. Justin McGrath is a serial killer who targets children, not a zombie version of The Omen or anything As for the wife of Harris' brother, she is not involved in the story, but the brother isn't either. The only thing we find out is that she is in a mental institution. Alright, maybe what I said in the opening post was a long shot. I don't exactly expect the readers to LOVE the characters in 100-150 pages. I mean I read through the dark tower series, and by the end I loved Eddie Dean like he was my brother, so I realize it takes time to develop that relationship. However, I have read books and watched movies where a character unexpectedly gets killed off in the first hundred pages / 45 minutes or so, and I think "Aww man that sucks I really liked them!" That's more along the lines I am going for. I make a post soon with some of the backstory on one of the characters to give you an idea of where I'm at and how I have tackled it so far.
