Okay, so, I've got this group of horror (zombie apocalypse) novels planned, as well as a sci-fi one planned. I've got one character that I think I've developed over the course of the story, I'm just not sure if his development is good or not. You should know that this book is going to be VERY dark. Ever watched/read "the Walking Dead?" It's more or less on the same level of gore and horror, if not worse. I should also warn you that this is a VERY long read. Note: This is set during a zombie apocalypse. Thirty years into it, in fact. also note: This is set in a completely fictitious world that is nothing like ours. Okay so here it is: Name: Axel Podmore Age: 36 Axel Podmore was merely six years old when the apocalypse started. However, due to the slow-moving and unintelligent nature of zombies, his walled-off town remained untouched and he lived his life normally until his town was destroyed by a large group of survuivors when he was 33. He lost his wife while on the road, leaving him to raise his daughter, Bethany, alone. After a while, he met another group of survivors and moved into a re-settled trailer park with 83 other people. Here, he met Patricia, whom he started a relationship with and later married. He also met a man named Carl, and they became close friends. After two years of living in safety (a brick wall was build around the trailer park so they could live in saftey, just to clarify.), a large horde of zombies was spotted heading towards the trailer park, and he, his wife and daughter escaped with Carl and his wife and twin boys in Carl's RV before the horde arrived. They eventually came across a small fence-off courtyard, were they remained for two weeks. Here, they met a young 17-year-old (one months away from 18) named William, who was travelling alone. But they didn't realise that William's arrival had attracted zombies into the area. They were attacked by zombies and one of Carl's sons died. They moved to an abandoned walled-off mansion, and Carl was bitten on the hand by a zombie while clearing out the area. Axel decided to amputate Carl's hand to save his life, but this only caused resentment on Carl's part. Carl also blamed William for his son's death, as he attracted the zombies that attacked the courtyard. They also met a girl named Maggie, who was living in the house until zombies overrun the mansion only a few days earlier and killed her family. William and Maggie eventually enetered a relationship. Patricia revealed to Axel that she was pregnant. They remained at the mansion for a six months until they were attacked by a groupd of bandits. When fleeing the mansion, Patricia was shot and killed, causing Axel to brutally murder the bandits and enter a depressive episode. They later arrived at a small chain-linked house, where they met another survivor named Alex, who had chained up his zombiefied son. His son bit Carl's living son when he wandered too close and Carl went on a rampage, eventually being forced by Axel to put down his son. They stayed at the small house for only three weeks before they moved to a small farmhouse, where Carl started beating his wife Jennifer. They stayed at the farmhouse for seven months. Jennifer began to look to Axel as a shoulder to cry on, and Carl began to grow suspicious. William and Maggie got married, but Carl's hatred and - now - jealousy of William caused him to try and shoot him. Axel was forced to kill Carl, but the noise of gunshots attracted zombies and they were forced to leave. After two days, they came across and old fenced-off warehouse on the forest road. While clearing out the area, Axel's daughter Bethany was bitten and Axel was forced to put her down. Axel's and Jennifer's mutual sorrow over losing both of their families made them grow closer, and they eventually started a relationship, although Axel stated that he didn't feel much emotion at his own daughter's or Carl's passing. Soon, a girl named Michelle and a man named Paul arrived at the warehouse and were allowed to stay. Paul had feelings for Michelle, and became very angry when her and Alex started a relationship. He eventually tried to fight against Alex for Michelle's love, but Axel shot him without hesitation and kicked his corpse repeatedly. Maggie told William that she was pregnant. Later, after staying at the warehouse for six months, a band of survivors tried to pillage the warehouse to steal Axel's group's supplies, and they were forced to leave. They soon arrived at a beach and they took refuge within the lifeguard station. They met a group of survivors, including a family of a mother, father and a teenage boy named Daniel, along with another single man named Ben. When out on a supply run with Daniel, Axel was surrounded by zombies and was forced to leave Daniel to his death rather than die trying to save him. He told his parents that he was killed. They happily stayed at the lifeguard station for five months, until the group of survivors that raided the warehouse tracked them down and attacked them. Jennifer, Ben, Michelle, William and the heavily pregnant Maggie escaped, whereas Alex and both of the late Daniel's parents were killed and Axel was captured. Axel was tortured by the attackers, having his eye ripped out. The others later returned to rescue him and they took refuge inside of a small house witha makeshift chain-link fence already in place around it. Maggie gave birth to a girl and William decided that he and his family should stay at the house for the rest of their lives to help raise their new child. Axel spat at him, calling him a coward and left with Michelle, jennifer and Ben. After travelling for a month, Axel's group entered a tropical jungle and met three men named Jack, Liam and an old man named Dexter. They were supply runners and soldiers for a small shanty town of about fifty residents that was set up in the jungle, a settlement of which Dexter was the leader of. While being escorted there, the group was attacked by another community of survivors which were at war with Dexter's settlement. Alex was killed and they were forced to flee to Dexter's town, which he officially decided to name "River Village." Once they arrived, they were allowed to stay under the condition that Axel and Ben joined the village's "army." Axel learned that the only reason River Village was at war with this other community, which was named "Vine Borough," was simply because River Village wanted to steal their supplies. After a few months, Axel eventually rised to the position of leader of the town after Dexter died of natural causes. Only a few days later, he found Jennifer raped and murdered in the town's back alley. He began to investigate as to whom raped and killed her, violently killing two of River Village's residents in the process, but to no avail. Axel had no choice but to continue to attack his enemy's camp brutally. Vine Borough surrendered, but Axel decided to kill them all, taking only a 16-year-old girl as his cuncubine and slave. Bitter, angry and alone, Axel went home one night and thought about his past three years in hell. He thought about everyone, his first wife, his second wife Patricia, Carl, Carl's chidren, Bethany, everyone. Out of his single remaining eye, he cried for the first time in years. I know that it was a LOT to read, but I really want feedback on this. He's supposed to still be the hero at the end, but be very distinctively the "bad guy", aswell as supposed to be a sympathetic character, too. Thank you, I really appreciate you taking your time to read this and I look forward to reading all comments, positive and negative. EDIT: Since I know that I may get some criticisms for having the 17-year-old couple marry, I should clarify that although William was 17 when he was introduced, he was 19 when he married Maggie (who is of the same age) and was 20 when Maggie gave birth.
No. All writing posted for critique must be posted in the Writing Workshop. Please see the site rules. But a character profile is not critiquable anyway. A character can only be critiqued in the actual writing that exposes him or her. You cannot separate the character from the writing.
Sorry, I wasn't sure where to put this. And I haven't actually finished the writting of the novel, yet. I haven't even actaully started writting it, I've got other novels to write and I'm still refining the story for this one and previous novels in the same storyline.
