Following Phil's feedback, i'm looking into introducing a new character into the story, and having the gravedigger play a 'ghost of christmas future' role.
The new character could be working as e.g. a blacksmith, and stumbles into the cemetary somehow.
-or just a cellar.
Character could be an outlaw:-
Notable outlaws of the 1700’s era:
Pirates:-
-Edward Teach (otherwise known as Blackbeard)
-Anne Bonny (Irish)
-Oliver Levasseur (French)
-Mary Read (English)
-Bartholomew Roberts (Welsh)
-John Rackham (otherwise known as Calico Jack)
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| Anne Bonny |
Others
-Princess Tarakanoff (Russian Adventurer,)
-Samuel Mason (American Highwayman)
Female Highwaymen
-Mary Bryant
-Lady Katherine Ferrers
•Out of these, the pirates and Princess Tarakanoff, and the female highwaymen jump out as potentially interesting characters to look to for influence.
I think that a pirate would be an interesting character, though it would take the original story into a completely different direction.
•But I think that having an outlaw as my main character would work, as the character could rob a liqueur store and break into the shop’s cellar, where she then has the dream sequence.
Possible new idea?
•Looking back on the research on the Gin Craze of the 18th century, I’d like to think about making the character female; a female outlaw who breaks in and steals some gin from the shop cellar, but perhaps this drink pushes her over the edge and causes her to hallucinate/have the dream that causes her to see what her future will be like if she carry’s on. (which still includes the seesaw part and the gravedigger.) Maybe she even gets shown that she will get killed as punishment for stealing. And when she wakes up, drops the loot, and walks away, and maybe leaves some pennies for the shopkeeper that she just robbed, as a way of saying 'sorry'.
For the Gravedigger character
I think the gravedigger could be represented as a ghostlike figure; similarly to the ghost of christmas future in Disney's Christmas Carol (2009), instead of being a physical character, since he'd appear in the characters mind.
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| Still from A Christmas Carol (2009) |
Exciting, Vikki - and I love how research driven this is. All I'd suggest is you can work confidently with archetypes and embrace the universalism of your story. The short version is simply that your main character needs to be recognisable to the audience immediately - i.e. a rogue, or 'tart with a heart of gold' or 'Captain Jack Sparrow' sort. You don't have a huge amount of time for exposition, so use archetypes knowingly.
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