Characters

Good characters are like toys you made yourself. You know it’s going to be a hard task ahead because it will involve some sort of research but in the end it’s going to leave you feeling like God. They may be a bit flawed but somehow you fall in love with them anyway.  To make your readers fall in love with your characters you must love them yourself.  You must mold them, shape them so that they’re real characters with a body, a past, a personality and a future.

Their physical descriptions can be shown through the eyes of other characters. You can also use this to show other people’s opinions of them for instance; a tall boy with green eyes can be described by one character as being gangly with eyes the color of an abandoned pond while another would describe him as imposing and with witch emerald eyes that could sear past the soul.

Create a unique character with a personality who will transcend your book and differ from the rows and rows of boring stereotypical characters. Develop the traits of that character so much that the audience feels like they know the character by the end of the book but not like they’ve met them before. If I meet another dark haired Lothario with an athletic body whose only flaw is arrogance (which by the way will disappear as soon as the heroine chides him), I swear I’ll buff.  

You can present your character’s traits by their actions, speech and thoughts rather than words. Don’t say Joe is kind, show Joe helping out the lady next door paint her house (then show her turning into a werewolf on him…hehe). One technique of developing your character even more is to interview them. Ask them questions about themselves and imagine their answers and watch how they answer. Is red haired Timothy Griffin subdued as he answers your questions, almost frightened? Is Gwyneth extremely bubbly but you can see a bit of a frantic air in her?

As your story develops so should your characters. Your story is creating new experiences for your character and they need to readjust their characters to it. There is no way a happy go lucky character who goes through a the suspicious death of her mother, being forced to investigate it and finding out that everything she knew about her life was a lie and still remain the happy go lucky Sam.

While being God has its perks, you should know – you will probably have to kill off some of your beloved characters. Hey – at least you can make them martyrs that someone wants to avenge. The more times they appear in your plot the more information you’ll need to find out. 

NEXT

1. Physical Descriptions
2. Creating Personalities