The Characters of The Concordance - Part 1

On the surface, The Concordance is a sci-fi story. It's set in a future version of Brisbane around 2046, takes a few liberties with technology, and makes some fairly wild guesses about where AI might eventually head. But underneath all of that, it's really a story about people.

Over the next few blog posts, I thought it might be fun to take a behind-the-scenes look at some of the main characters in the book, how they came about, how they evolved, and why I think they each earned a place in the story.

Nothing here will spoil the plot, but if you're the sort of person who likes going into a book knowing absolutely nothing, maybe come back and read these once you've finished The Concordance.

Evan Mercer – The Jester

When it came to creating the main protagonist, Evan, I took a fairly logical approach... Write what you know.

For people who know me well, it probably won't come as much of a surprise that Evan and I share quite a few similarities. I'm the dad of a disabled daughter. I'm pretty analytical. I tend to overthink things, look for patterns and meaning in the world, and ask "why?" far more often than is probably healthy.

Now, I'm (hopefully) not quite as cynical as Evan, and I'm certainly not as witty or cool, but when G and I were writing scenes with him I'd often find myself asking, What would I say? How would I feel? What would I actually do here?

Writing Evan almost became a form of role play. I'd throw him into some pretty horrible situations and then work through what felt like the most honest response. If something didn't feel believable to me, it usually didn't make it into the book. I found that whole process initiative and strangely fun.

When it came to writing Evan, I wanted to do something that set him apart from the other characters. I decided to write all of his chapters in the first person. I liked using that as a little signal to the reader that they were back inside Evan's head. It made his chapters feel more personal and, hopefully, gave readers a stronger connection to what he was thinking and feeling.

Without spoiling anything, I also had a lot of fun playing with the switching of points of view throughout the book, particularly towards the end. It's one of those little storytelling mechanics that I really enjoyed experimenting with, and I think it paid off.

The thing I love most about Evan, though, is easily his "Jester" designation. The whole idea came from the silly train conversation G and I had before we'd even decided to write The Concordance.

We were talking complete rubbish about artificial intelligence and I jokingly said that if AI ever took over the world Skynet style, I'd quite like to be kept around as the court jester... the bloke whose job was to crack terrible jokes but also constantly ask, "Yeah... but why?" It was one of those completely throwaway comments that should have disappeared into the internet forever. Instead, it somehow became one of the defining ideas behind Evan's character.

That one stupid joke snowballed into something much bigger than I ever expected. It shaped who Evan became, gave me a hook for some of my favourite moments in the book and, ultimately, helped me arrive at what I think is a really satisfying ending.

To me, Evan Mercer represents that little voice many of us have inside when we don't quite trust the technology we see and use every day. The part of us that asks questions. The part that feels just a little uneasy.

He's cynical.

He's stubborn.

He's flawed.

But above all else...

He's a dad who would do absolutely anything for the people he loves.