Ever Want to Place Yourself in Someone Else’s Fantasy World?

How often have you been reading a book and thought “I would love to be able to put myself into that world and make an impact on what is happening?”  Whether it was something as simple as being the owner or the Prancing Pony and watching Frodo’s first encounter with Strider, or something as epic as being an Aes Sedai cutting through legions of Trollocs with flames at the Last Battle, I’m sure we all have wanted to play our small part in the amazing worlds others have created.  Well now I want you to be in mine.

I am currently working on my novel set in the world of the Three Moons Realm, which I already have filled with dozens of characters that won’t even appear in the first story.  I’ve already released a small collection of short stories which can be found here that takes a glimpse at five characters, all of which may or may not make appearances in the novel (alright the first character, Zin the Imp is a major character in the first story).  But any fantasy world is a big place and can hold many minor characters that can still have an effect on the world. I want you in mine, or more specifically, a character that you’ve created.  So my plan is to have a contest to see who can come up with an interesting character that I can shape to fit into my world.

Here is the idea.  You create a character.  He/she can be anything from a beggar in the streets to a powerful warrior, but their profession can not be the only thing that defines them.  I want to hear about a beggar that secretly is a well off merchant that punishes himself for his evil trading practices by being a beggar for a week at a time.  Or a warrior that wields twin knives but refuses to fight anyone that does not resemble the man that burnt down his family’s home.    I want characters that you care about and want to see succeed or fail, and that can be semi-permanent characters in my world (semi because everyone dies eventually, even major and minor characters).

The contest: I want you to post a brief description of your characters under this post.  I’m going to keep this little game open for at least a week, possibly more depending on how many people I can get involved.  At the end, I’ll take any submissions and look at two factors, 1) How interesting is the character, and 2) Can I mold them to fit into my world.  If you want an idea of what the world is like, I’ve given some hints on my other blog here.

For how interesting the characters are, I don’t need someone over the top, with a dozen weird personality traits (although you are more than free to create a character like that as long as you have reasons for all of his/her problems).  I want a character with history, with their own story to tell, and most importantly their own future to explore in my world.   If your also an artist feel free to submit a sketch as well!  The more details the better, and feel free to give them special abilities or skills.  Part of the fun for me will be taking those skills and making them fit into the culture I’ve already created.

Rewards:  As I mentioned, I recently released a small set of short stories set in the world.  Well, I want to increase the number of those stories from five to six.  If your character is chosen, I will immediately get to work on creating a short story to add to my other five.  We will work together to shape the character into something that fits in well with the world.  Your character might then go on to help shape the direction of the world, or just happen to be at the right place at the right time in future novels or short stories.  Who knows, they might even get their own full length novel.

The Big Question, why should you care if your character exists in a world where the first novel isn’t even finished?  Many of you that I follow and follow me on twitter are either established writers, writers that just released their first novel, or like me are still working on their first novel.  This is an opportunity for you, regardless of where you are in your writing career, (or hobby if you are not a writer but want to be involved) to think outside of the worlds you have already created on paper or in your head.  Think of it as practice, think of it as a way to work on something new, hell, think of it as a way to get more publicity for your own stories.  The reasons you try don’t matter, I just want to see what interesting and colorful characters you have floating around in your imaginations.