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  1. isaac223

    isaac223 Senior Member

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    Introducing A Character As "Someone Else"?

    Discussion in 'Character Development' started by isaac223, May 15, 2017.

    Me and a friend have been collaborating recently on my first murder mystery work starring my (planned) recurring protagonist, Ernis Blythe. Now, once I got ideas flowing, building the premise of the mystery, as far as the method of killing was concerned, was easy enough. However, while I thought on it, I began to realize... Unless I wanted to find some way to stretch over a few pages a digital forensics team doing what it is they do to backtrack people, I figured that it'd be impossible to create a suspect.

    My friend had an idea I rather liked. To "not introduce Ernis Blythe as Ernis Blythe." To clarify, me meant that the character going by "Ernis Blythe" in this story was not Ernis Blythe but rather someone who is somehow familiar with him and used his name as a pseudonym of sorts and to make him the culprit. Then, he said, I would introduce the "real Ernis Blythe", a private investigator, in a sequel so to create a suspect out of him given that "he" was already convicted. When I expressed my concerns with introducing a character this way, he said I could use the initial (fake) Ernis to build on the real Ernis' backstory and, inversely, building the character of culprit of the first case and creating a new recurring character out of him.

    Could any of this actually, work however? Would it be bad to introduce a character like this? How would one write a narrator to subtly foreshadow but not directly hint at not only the protagonist, the "fake Ernis Blythe"'s guilt, but also at the nature of his true identity?
     
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  2. making tracks

    making tracks Active Member

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    I think it's an interesting idea and I personally haven't seen it done before over sequels.

    I think the main concern would be whether you could do it without confusing the reader. From what you've written I understood it as the first novel would be someone posing as Ernis Blythe in order to frame him, is that right? I think you would have to be very careful to make it clear what happened and which parts of Ernis' back story the infiltrator got right and which bits he didn't know about. In the sequel, would the real Ernis be treated as the criminal? Is he trying to find out who framed him? I think it definitely has potential to be very interesting, as long as it doesn't become too complicated. You could have some depth of character building where there are things about the real Ernis the imposter doesn't know and is basing it on his perception of the real Ernis. I'm sure most people have some disconnect between how they perceive themselves and how others perceive them.

    You might want to think about introducing the real Ernis in the first novel, knowing there is someone out there with his identity and trying to figure out how to stop them, that way you'd get to see them contrasted together and the audience would already know there are two Ernises which might make it easier to understand. Sorry if I've misunderstood anything!
     
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  3. isaac223

    isaac223 Senior Member

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    Your ideas are very helpful, thank you! You didn't misunderstand anything except that the "fake" Ernis isn't necessarily trying to frame the real Ernis, especially since the initial idea involves the fake Ernis's discovery before the real Ernis's introduction, even though it does inadvertently create a suspect out of Ernis in the sequel.

    I was thinking that a different, character-centered reason could be why he masquerades as Ernis rather than purely attempting to frame him.
     
  4. making tracks

    making tracks Active Member

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    I see! I think making the framing an accident makes it even more interesting because it's more unusual! It also gives you a chance to really dig into the imposter's character - are they being malicious or were they just misguided, are they incompetent (thus getting caught at Ernis) or unlucky, were they trying to help Ernis in some way or were they up to something? What is the history between them? I like the idea.
     
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