When I last wrote about my War Sonnets characters, I had no idea I’d be adding a bunch more. Major changes took place in my most recent draft (Draft Three), the largest of which is the expansion of Tadashi’s story to include more depth, more chapters and more characters.
Let me introduce Tadashi’s latest comrades:
Top (l-r) Corporal Fujita, Private Ikeda, Private Kimura
Bottom (l-r) Corporal Miyamoto, Corporal Sato, Private Yamada
Corporal Daiki Miyamoto (lower left), a fellow guard at the Cabanauatan Prison Camp, has a devil-may-care attitude about life. He is 30 years old, unmarried and has no immediate family. A mentor to Tadashi, he has seen it all, done it all, and relishes the risk that comes with war.
The rest of the characters pictured are the members of Tadashi’s squad at the Bigti Caves:
Corporal Jiro Fujita, age 23, is a senior machine gunner and one of two corporals assigned to lead a four-man team. Having been at Bigti longer than Tadashi, he resents it when Tadashi is promoted to Sergeant instead of him.
Private Uki Ikeda is only 18 and eager to please. Born in Miyazaki Prefecture, Kyushu, he is small and agile. Easily able to scramble to the top of the enormous mango tree they hide in after abandoning Bigti, he becomes the lookout for advancing enemy details.
Private Akio Kimura is the youngest at the age of 17. A skinny kid, he is flighty and easily spooked.The close confines of the Bigti Caves makes him claustrophobic and you know that’s going to come back to bite him.
Corporal Kenji Sato, age 25, is the explosives expert of the group. He helps to booby trap the main enemy supply road, and is a mentor to the younger soldiers. Like Corporal Fujita, he supervises a team of four privates.
Private Nobu Yamada, age 19, is assigned to Corporal Fujita’s team. The son of a karayaki-san (enslaved prostitute), he never knew his father. He has the brown hair and blue eyes that reveal his western parentage, and is shunned by his family and community. Corporal Fujita becomes the father he never had.
And that–I think–introduces you to all of the characters of War Sonnets except one: the only woman in the story.
Stay tuned.
Susannah Willey Writes 
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Thank you for sharing this with us. I think this demonstrates how much research you put into making fully fleshed out characters. It helps us readers understand their motives and will probably make them more relatable. And it shows you invested a lot of time and thought into it, which should make for a really engrossing story.
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