As many of you know I'm currently writing Sephyrn, book four of the Assassins of Dakaal series (and the last of the assassin books but not the last you will see of Dakaal).
A lot of the characters in Dakaal are ones that were revived from my original world. When I was ten years old I wrote a massive world that spanned 20+ novels solo, 30+ with co-written cross-over novels with a friend, countless hours of roleplay with other friends. I was heavily invested in that world for the first half of my life. Then it was stolen by someone I thought was my friend and I had to start over. Well, I couldn't write the world like it was any more so my characters are slowly being reborn in new places/new worlds/new books/new combinations. They're old friends and I still believe very much in their stories.
Sephyrn has quite the story of development. When I was ten years old, as children are wont to do, I picked inspiration from sources around me for favorite characters and wrote them into new worlds. I won't mention where Sephyrn's inspiration came from originally but it might not be hard for some to figure out. Though his look was mostly what I borrowed, his character has always been different than the source inspiration.
Sephyrn was in the very first novel I wrote when I was ten years old. At that time he was the bad-boy (like a 50s greaser/biker) that showed up to try to steal the girl in the story from the Disney-esque Prince Charming main character. He fell in love with the girl but she was in love with his father so he lost her. That trilogy actually got shelved when I had it in a very harsh critique circle and people hated my main character Eryk (the goodie-two shoes prince, who is still my favorite character personally though I do see why he was flat at the time now).
After I shelved it I still loved those characters but I decided to only write them where people I trusted could see them so I began roleplaying with them in various formats (usually rpg video games). Sephyrn in one version of the roleplay did end up happy-ish with a wife that adored him and a dozen children (if I remember right). But it never felt 'right' for him. He had settled for that woman and life but it wasn't what he truly wanted. He was a side character in the roleplay though and he was never the same as he had been originally.
Most times though he ended up taking the road away from the bad boy hero I wanted him to be (anti-hero?) into something much darker. Through roleplay his story developed into something terribly dark and tragic. He changed from the morally grey anti-hero I envisioned into a villain who tortured and raped women because one had hurt him. There was a dark role play were he ended up with a woman who actually encouraged all his bad habits (he overdrank and was a violent drunk, he cut himself, he tortured and murdered as a paid assassin, a vigilante for hire that killed cheaters because that's how he was betrayed). I actually shelved him as a roleplay character many years ago after he convinced a life-protecting druid that murdering a human was no different than killing an animal. He scared me. I have many dark characters and I enjoy writing the tragic villains, if you read Ashiyn or Glaice in my other books you'll see that. Ashiyn and Glaice are very strong characters as well but Sephyrn is unpredictable and hard for me to control.
Since then I've never role-played him live, not trusting where it would go. I have tried twice to revive him through novels before this. Once I tried to erase everything that had developed him and go back to the original concept but then he fell flat and no matter what I did he still turned down the dark path. So the next attempt was a NaNo where I decided fine, I would let him be the villain, and maybe he would work the evil out of him so I could revive his good side in a different way later. He was so bad in that book as a villain my heroine refused to continue letting me write that book and decided to let him burn her world instead while she hid in a cave away from him. I got halfway through that NaNo when it died and there was no saving it without starting over.
It's been a puzzle that I've been trying to work out my entire life. I have plenty of other characters I could write much easier but I didn't like that Sephyrn was locked up in a corner of my mind, dark and broken, nothing like he was intended to be.
Meanwhile, Nichole, who was his original love interest that he lost to his father in the story way back when I was ten years old, was still with Eryk. But what was meant to be a fairy tale happy love story ended up not being that way whenever I wrote them together later. I could never figure out why but all Nichole did with Eryk was fight and antagonize him. So they were shelved as well, because my goody-two-shoes prince was too flat for readers and his 'perfect' princess wife was terrible to him. As a writer I hated her for it.
It wasn't until last year my mind finally worked out what was going on. Sephyrn was still angry he had lost Nichole and that's why nothing worked with him. That was the story he was meant to have, he was supposed to be with her. And that's why Nichole didn't work with his father. My goodie-two-shoes was too good for her. It drove her crazy in bad ways and she wanted to fight with him all the time. She didn't want to be with the good boy. She needed the bad boy.
When I brought back Onyx and Niyx I had a lot to consider. Sephyrn in my stories had always been their father and it didn't feel right to make a different character fill that role. There are very specific circumstances with Sephyrn and their mother that made their backstories make sense (which I hope will eventually be revealed in Sephyrn's book but he's not being forthcoming so far). And I always enjoyed the father/son relationship between Sephyrn and Eryk. So I decided to be brave and allow them both to appear in Niyx's story to see how it would work out.
I thought Sephyrn worked very well in Niyx's book. I was already thinking about writing his book as the fourth one to see if I could get him to work in this universe again since he behaved mostly in Niyx. Then the cover artist I use, Anna at EerilyFair Designs, posted this cover as a premade for sale:
She meant him to be a young vampire but his design was so close to what I always pictured Sephyrn (albeit this cover looks a bit younger than I probably would've suggested) to look like I actually wrote to her and asked if she would still be okay doing a very similar character in a custom cover later. She agreed so I didn't buy the cover at that point because I still wasn't sure if I could write Sephyrn or if the book would work out and I didn't want to invest in a cover I wouldn't use.
Well a few months later no one had bought it and it still called to me so I grabbed it for Sephyrn. It was meant to be. Anna said he waited for me. At that point I decided it was meant to be. I was supposed to write this book. If only for my own peace of mind. Some people seem to be turned off by how young he looks but Sephyrn in this version is a half-elven demi-god who doesn't age so the art actually does work for him.
I'm now 15,000+ words into this new book and I am determined to finish it. It will release this summer if not sooner. It's the story of a character that's drowning in darkness of his own design, driven by a painful past that haunts his mind constantly. Nichole is the candle in the darkness trying to lead him out. It won't be an easy road, and it could be that no one likes Sephyrn or his story. But that's not why I write. I write the stories I want to read and the characters that are so loud they MUST be written. People enjoying my work is a bonus that I enjoy but it is not the goal. The relationship that develops in this book will likely not be 'healthy' or one I would recommend for real life. And I also try not to 'redeem' my villains because I don't like to feed that trope. But sometimes good people suffer and they need help to come back to the path they were meant to be on. Sephyrn is a deeply psychologically disturbed character who has done terrible things and justifies them with a twisted sense of justice. He's turned good characters bad before but I think because Nichole is what he has always wanted in the background she has a chance to stand up to him.
I believe people don't usually change. Circumstances can shape them but creatures like my Glaice were born bad and can't be forced to be good. It's my hope that since this character was born 'good' there is a way to bring him back to that. I've always been intrigued by the trope of the tragic villain who was good until the world crushed them so much they struck back to survive.
I don't have an ending in mind usually when I write because I make my stories up as I go and let them grow naturally from the characters (for instance, the tragic ending to Restless Dreams of Darkness shocked even me). So I can't predict how this will end. Sephyrn has always been stubborn and obstinate. But so has Nichole. Everyone has always given up on Sephyrn what happens when someone refuses to? We'll find out.
People have asked me why my characters have so much depth. This is why. I know everything about them and think about them in every imaginable situation I can as I'm writing. Every scene I am asking myself is the character true to their character or is that what I want them to do? I find it an entertaining challenge to separate myself from my characters and make them as alive and unique as I can. Even when they scare me.
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