My favorite character

Khyber Elessedil is my most recent favorite character. She is in the Shannara series by Terry Brooks. She is in possession of the Elfstones, which hold an incredible form of Druid magic. She stole the stones from her brother, who is the ruler of the elves in the fictitious land where the novel series is set.

Early on in the series, she loses her uncle (her parents are already dead and her uncle is her mentor). In the beginning she is rebellious, and I guess that drew me to her. As the story goes on, though, and she finds herself in the middle of dangerous situation after dangerous situation, she realized that she was not ready to be out on her own. She showed her determination and perseverance by getting over all of these hurdles and overcoming great odds several times.

Her inner dialogue was great, and I really learned the most about her from that. On the surface she needed to be calm, cool, and collected, if you will. Inside, though, she was never sure she could pass the tests she needed to pass in order to help those she cared about to achieve what they needed to achieve. She was a character that a reader would really pull for and hope she succeeded.

Over the course of the books, she grows and changes. Early on, the most important thing in her life was her uncle and the opportunity to break free from what she saw as a boring daily life that he afforded her. When she lost him, I almost felt as if she would drift along and not really know what to do. She found inner strength in knowing that her uncle would want her to continue on the path they were on that brought about his demise. She also finds faith in herself and the abilities she knows she has. She’s not foolish, though, and knows that she has limitations.

She does save the small group several times as they go along, but she doesn’t really see it as saving them. She simply sees it as doing what he has to do.

I think one of the things I learned from how this character was crafted is that internal dialogue, when used properly, can go a long way to build a multi-dimensional character out of one that might otherwise just look and feel flat. I also liked the way that she grew throughout the series of books. It wasn’t forced and, at times, the outcomes weren’t exactly what she had planned when she was using her magic, which was a skill she’d recently acquired. It worked well enough to help the group out of a few jams, but it didn’t have the exact outcome she planned. To me, it was just like any teenager using any skill and learning to master that skill. Even though Khyber wasn’t written as “human”, her traits were such that they could belong to anyone of her age. One of the best things about Khyber is that I think most readers can relate to her. She’s not a flat character. She’s brave, but scared. She’s becoming jaded, but she believes at the same time. She’s not strictly black & white – and neither are people in real life. To me, that’s a really important thing to remember when c rafting characters. While a person, let’s say, may always brag about themselves and seem incredibly confident about everything in their lives – a believable character probably has something they are afraid of, or something that makes them feel less than confident. Having the character come across that thing could actually be the basis for a story.

Another great thing that Khyber taught me is that characters change over the course of a story. If they are exactly the same at the end of the story as they were at the beginning…. Then there was probably no story to begin with.