Character Sketch: Glamis

Here is the first look at a supporting character from my novel. This guy's name is Glamis Gryme. He is the chief advisor to the king with the title of Counsellor.

What is not generally known to the public of this Christian kingdom is that Glamis is actually a wizard. He is forced to keep his magical abilities a secret for political reasons. As the chief advisor, Glamis is clearly the true power behind the throne handling most of the decision-making for the kingdom's affairs.

Serving the king, however, is not his true priority. He has a secret agenda that he considers to be in service to the greater good.

Glamis is impatient by nature with little tolerance for those he perceives as intellectually inferior to him and for any who may hold prejudices against wizards.

Visually, in designing Glamis, I wanted to stay away from the stereotypical appearance of wizards. The long robes, pointy hats and long grey beards of characters like Merlin and Gandalf were all things I did not want to see on Glamis.

So he got a short beard, with only a touch of grey on the chin. And instead of flowing robes, he wears complicated, multi-layered garments as might be seen on members of royal courts. And I made the decision that his color palette would be a range of purple, spanning from near-black to lavender highlights. Mostly, the hues are subdued, deep violets. In the book, I usually describe them as wine-colored.

When I drew the above sketch, I didn't mean for him to look so much like General Zod (Terrance Stamp) from "SUPERMAN II", but that's exactly what happened. I decided that was okay, but realized I didn't have a firm idea on exactly what the outfit would look like, so I started looking at period movies for ideas.

Even though the historical era might not quite match up to my story, I found what I was looking for in Geoffrey Rush's character from the movie "ELIZABETH".

So this image here is something I cobbled together in Photoshop. That's Terrance Stamp's head (as General Zod) on Geoffrey Rush's body (from ELIZABETH). I doubt the Shakespearean collar would be a part of Glamis' look, but the broad shoulder pieces falling off similar to robes, the various layers and textures, and the jewelry all fit well with the design I have in my head.

Working in prose, I don't really have to get this detailed with my character designs. But by doing this, I assure myself that I'm writing consistently from a concrete visual design. This eliminates having to constantly look up my previous descriptions for the sake of consistency.

Book 2 Underway

I have now gone back through the manuscript for more tweaks and ironing out contradictions. I have also written the "Acknowledgments" and the "About the Author" pages. I might fiddle with the map a little bit more, but other than that, we can start on formatting the pages. All that's left beyond that is to wait patiently for the artwork and then design the cover.

Once that is done, "My Brother's Keeper" will finally see the light of day.

With this book largely in my rear view mirror, I've already turned my attention to Book 2. The second book will be called "Marching As To War". I was quickly able to break Galen's story down into individual beats because I've known for a while now exactly what would happen in the second book. In the last week I have sat down and figured out the story beats for all the various subplots and supporting characters that we will follow.

What I must do now is integrate these six or seven lists of story beats into a logical timeline so that it all works chronologically. This is the fun stuff. As soon as I blend all these plotlines into one master list then the book is essentially written. It then becomes a matter of realizing each scene in an entertaining way and breathing life into the characters.

I leave town on Saturday for about six days. I hope to have all my prep work completed by then and spend some time actually writing the book while I'm gone.