Character Profiles: Trenton

Good afternoon! It’s time for a new post, and that means new stuff to discuss. I think what I’ll be doing over these next few weeks is establishing a number of different categories that I’ll be using when a new post comes out. To start, I’m going to share a brief character profile for the first character the readers meet right from the get-go: Trenton Mellorn. For those of you that might not know what this is, a character profile is when a writer records everything about a character. Their personality, physical appearance, their relationships, their bonds and their flaws, their motivations, and many other little things that really can’t be dumped on the reader all at once. I’ll personally be walking through a bit of the inspiration for why I wanted to make some of the decisions I did for this character and what it means for the impact he/she/they will have upon my plot. I won’t be touching on every single character the readers come across, but depending on their impact for the plot, that will reflect on the reason they may be talked about compared to others that didn’t necessarily have those opportunities…or maybe don’t have them developed quite yet.

Trenton is in his early twenties (keep in mind I started writing this in middle school, so I’m not just translating my current age into this character arc :D), has darker skin tone, has short-cut hair, and is about five feet. And that’s it when I introduce the readers to his physical descriptions. My goal with this was to give a vague impression of what the main character would look like without fully giving such in depth characteristics that the reader wouldn’t remember unless it was mentioned outright later down the line. It gives *just* enough room for the reader to make their own impression of how that character looks in their eyes. After all, leaving the imagery to the imagination of the reader is one of the best aspects that books have to offer, no?

Trenton was one of the higher-ranking officials in the military of the Empire, the coalition of humanoid races that united through commonality of a shared foe with the races of the Humans, Elves, Dwarves, and (to a lesser extent) Halflings. I can touch more on how the military strength is organized in a future post, but in short, his rank of Arbiter could allow him the flexibility to either participate like a modern-day general would command a massive Army or to partake personally in smaller, more covert units for infiltration, sabotage, and the like.

But you come to terms very early on in the book that Trenton doesn’t really remember much of…well, *anything*, really. His name, his identity, the names thrown around in the fleeting dream. He woke up after a brief flashback to the morbid sight of a corpse-ridden battlefield, lost and confused beyond comprehension…it also probably doesn’t help that there’s a dagger that was thrust through his temple, to add insult to injury. After trying to gather his senses and tending to his wounds, he finds a dogtag with a hidden inscription along the back of it…a name and small phrase “Remember the good times we had in the Academy? Visit the Dwarves of Arador at some point. It is time to catch up; I will be waiting. -Baldrek Arador: Trusted friend, Heir to the Throne of Arador”. A name and a place, his only tie to potentially remembering who he is.

So he attempts to set out, off to make a name for himself, with a chance to learn who he was and what he can do now for such a bleak world he’s awoken into.

My goal with this character arc (no spoilers) was to really touch on what it means to have a variant of Hysterical (also called Fugue) Amnesia and the impact disability can have when trying to find one’s place in such a fantastical world. Disability in our modern culture is often attached with such a negative stigma. I’ve even seen it written and represented in such poor approach that it merely enforces the same misconceptions that our society has instilled. If you yourself haven’t experienced disability or know a loved one that has one itself, it can be a challenge trying to fairly empathize with it–let alone writing it in such a manner that represents the condition with justice or critical reflection.

I’d be surprised if you didn’t have more questions about this character: How did he survive? Why is his memory fleeting? Is it all going to come back? Will he be the same person he remembers through these flashbacks? Well, I can’t just give away *everything* without the book being done! But I will give a hint for the curious to brood over: There’s more to him the meets the eye…death is not as unavoidable as one might think. And we will see more on how that applies when we touch on my adaptation of the Four Horsemen.

Trenton is really the driving reason why my first book in The End Time Legends series is named “Forgotten.” But not the only reason. Keep an eye out for future character profiles to see if you can determine why its name applies in more than one obvious case. Until then, cheers!

-J.K. Denny