Twisted Dark: Introducing the characters

In my very first blog post I talked about how I came up with Twisted Dark. So I figured that the natural follow up should continue this introduction, and that I ought to talk about one of the main attractions behind Twisted Dark – the characters.

Rodrigo Payne quickly became my favourite figure (or rather guilty pleasure) and seeing the journey he goes on is fascinating

Review from Deffinition

Meet the heroes of Twisted Dark

Not to freak you out, but there are 120 recurring characters in Twisted Dark. This is nothing like War and Peace which embraced over 500 characters but it’s still a lot, making it quite hard for people to remember them all – myself included! That’s why I use a spreadsheet to track the characters (and it’s become rather big).

I am aware that a lot of people will not have read the whole series, so I won’t reveal my overall favourite character yet, but I’ll tell you who my favourite is from Volume 1.Before I do, I’d like to mention my second favourite: Rodrigo. This is down to the fact that as we progress in the series, he has a much larger role to play. I’ve written a LOT of scenes and stories with him, and you’ll get to see this soon in later volumes.

But my favourite character from Volume 1 is…Rajeev.

Messed Up Logic

Let me shed some light on why I’m most drawn to Rajeev.

SPOILER ALERT

When you first meet him, he is innocent and good, and gets caught up trying to help his fellow men.

But his thirst for power (and a very specific kind of power at that) is one I find fascinating. I’m kind of obsessed with twisted logic because people usually do things for a reason that makes sense in their heads, but from an external perspective it can seem like madness.

I once read about a man who was planning on killing his children, because he loved them.’

For example, I once read about a man who was planning on killing his children, because he loved them. His rationale was that life is horrible and the world is a nasty place. Right now, his kids had lived a fulfilled, happy life and everything was great. But as they get older they were going to find out just how horrible everything really is, and how much of a failure their father was, so he’d be doing them a favour if he just ended it for them now, while they were happy.

Now there is a sort of logic to that, but wow – so messed up! That’s why I always try to understand why characters would do things in particular, and their ulterior motives.

And Rajeev’s logic for some of the things he does is pretty messed up – but there’s always a reason. And this brings me to a question I want to ask you.

Who is Your Favourite Character?

If you do tell me your favourite character – and it happens to be the same preference that everyone else has – then I will happily write more stories featuring that character. Writing stories really isn’t an issue for me (I literally have hundreds drafted for Twisted Dark). The hard part is making sure the stories all help build to the final issue, which to me, matters the most. If a story is good, but doesn’t drive the overall narrative forward, I’m not sure it’s right to include it in the series. But nonetheless, if many people have the same favourite, I will release more stories of that character. The audience knows best, right?

Oh and a final fun fact for you – my favourite character I have ever written hasn’t even got a name yet and isn’t in Twisted Dark! The holding name is ‘the persuader’ and he can pretty much make anyone do whatever he tells them to do. It’s in a series called Tabernacle, featuringsupervillains, prisons, psychology, real world politics, philosophy, engineering. 

Honestly, I think it will be the best thing I ever do.

I’ll finish this with a frame of Rajeev. I always love it when I get the art back for a story as the artists bring my ideas to life.

This frame was one that stuck out for me as it captures that inner turmoil and tension between good and evil that Rajeev struggles with, and it’s done with just a few straining tendons. 

So tell me: who is your favourite character and why? I’d love to know your thoughts, so drop me an email at neil@tpub.co.uk – can’t wait to hear from you!

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  • Enter a twisted world with more than 100 characters.
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