My statement of intention is to create a character that is an untrustworthy narrator.
My characters name is Theresa Kingsly. She is about 12 she travels with her family in a gypsy troupe of about 20 different families which amounts to about 75 people. She lives with her family in a beautiful caravan. Her family includes her mother and father, her younger brother and her grandfather and grandmother. Her mother is a gypsy healer so there caravan is full of herbs and different concoctions that her mother makes to help the sick. Her father is a high gypsy elder and often decides when the troupe leaves and where it goes. Her younger brother is 9 and is very mischievous and is always getting in trouble with the elders. Her grandfather is quite old and doesn’t usually leave the caravan because he is blind, her grandfather is her favourite. Her grandmother wanders much of the time and has the gift of sight but she is much respected.
Theresa is unreliable because although her father is involved in the secrets of the troupe, he is not permitted to tell anyone under age. When you turn 18 you are told about the secrets of the tribe. But until then the children are left to work it out themselves.
The characteristics of Theresa will be: she is very impatient and unable to read peoples body language and the tone of their voices. She will be clumsy. Force is the only way she knows how to deal with people and she often has tantrums. She has a winy voice and a limited vocabulary. She has a slight lisp that infuriates her and she is often trying very hard not to lisp her words. So her sentances are very short and direct and she often talks really slowly and pauses when shes trying to find a word that she can say clearly. Except when she is fighting about something she is really passsionate about. Theresa is a bit of a loner. Because of her lisp she is very shy and doesn’t talk to people outside her family. So she spends a lot of time in her families caravan talking to her grandfather talking about anything.
Theresa often goes to spy on the adults when they have there secret meetings. Hearing only snipets of their converstions. She then muls over them trying to work out what it could mean. After that she will try to indorectly talk to her grandfather about what she thinks, but theresa isnt very tactfull.
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1 comment:
I think this sounds very well thought out. You've laid out a very complex story already so you may want to consider just writing one or two episodes out of what could later become a larger work for this assessment. You may also need to think about specialist vocabulary you will need - whether it be gypsy terms (look for Roma - that's the name of the language and the people) or names of things like the herbs her mother is using and so on.
In terms of Theresa's voice - will her internal voice (the one she uses when narrating) be different from the spoken voice we hear in dialogue she records? If so - what will her internal voice be like? - I think you have given good detail of her dialogue but there is this other aspect to consider...
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