The Shopkeeper’s Wife only has four main characters (but a ton of side and minor characters), and so after this bio write-up, I can move onto the 4th actual stage of the Snowflake outlining method which is… (looks it up)… yikes. I’m supposed to take the one-paragraph summary of my novel and expand every sentence of that paragraph into its own paragraph. And I wrote a two paragraph summary. Anyway. Let’s worry about that another time… hehehe, I’m in trouble.
For this last part of Round Three, we’ve got Len’s friend, the Knightess Elayne.
I don’t want to give too much away here, but Elayne and Len came from the same cursed world, Elayne was supportive of Len after Len left her husband and together Len and Elayne opened a sort of bar/restaurant/hotel establishment where weary adventurers and would-be-world-savers could come for rest and refreshment. And then their entire cursed world got swallowed up by the Void. Len thought she’d lost everything and everyone, but while searching for her husband, Len found Elayne adrift among the stars. Quickly, Len tethered her to the Spider’s web and now Elayne is protected from the Void.
- Character’s name: Elayne
- One-sentence summary of her story: In romantic love with Len, Elayne is torn between protecting her from both physical and emotional harm and helping her achieve her goals.
- Elayne’s motivations, or what she wants abstractly: Though a skilled and efficient melee combatant, Elayne truly wishes only to spread peace and mercy to those suffering pain.
- Elayne’s goals, or what does she want concretely: Elayne is in love with Len and wants a romantic relationship with her, to settle down together somewhere safe where Elayne can protect her.
- Elayne’s conflict: As far as Elayne can tell, Len is not interested in women. Not only is Len not interested in women, she’s still totally hung up on her husband even though she left him. Perhaps worse than that, Elayne’s own desire to have Len for herself and to protect her and keep her safe has her reminding herself of Len’s husband… and Elayne hated Len’s husband.
- Her epiphany: Hmm… it pains her to even consider this, but… maybe Len’s husband does deserve a second chance… not with Len, certainly not with herself, but maybe just at life in general…
- A one-paragraph summary of Elayne’s storyline:
- From a long-forgotten order of knights and knightesses devoted to giving the dying a peaceful, merciful death, Elayne traveled to a land soaked in suffering, locked in what seemed an eternal struggle, where the dead seemed unable to truly die and would rise again and again, driving the living and dead alike mad with the futility of it all. There she fought many battles against monsters and undead and there she met Len and her shopkeep husband. But after their entire world became lost to the Void, Elayne was left drifting amongst the stars in a sort of suspended animation. Too strong and pure to be diminished by the Void entirely, she slept until Len, now a Dreamcatcher, happened upon her entirely by chance. Together again, Elayne stands by as her Dreamcatcher’s Knightess, her sword at Len’s service, but doubt begins to creep into Elayne’s heart as she travels The Waybetween with the woman she loves. It’s not right, is it? Len left her husband for a reason, why should they find him now, if he’s even out here at all? Why shouldn’t they just rebuild The Garden and live in peace, together? Could Elayne really bring herself to continue along Len’s side if it meant dropping her off with that man again in the end?
The Waybetween 