Character

Is It All About Character?

Tue, 13 Mar 2012 17:13:16 +0100

“The best characters stay with readers and listeners long after childhood is over. Think about the qualities that make a character stick with a picture book’s audience long after the book is shut.” (Ann Whitford Paul, Writing Picture Books, p54)

Absolutely. I love children’s books and am in the process of writing some – they really make you think about the character on a larger-than-life scale because you’re trying to connect with the simplified, overly-honest viewpoint of a child....

Sensory Memories

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 18:52:27 +0100

To pull the heartstrings of your reader I think you need to provide reference points for them. This is a moment of connection with a character when no matter how disparate the fictional character and the reader’s life might seem, it is still possible to identify with that fictional character. The writer needs to make their characters human. So no matter how cold-blooded, and aloof a character might need to be, it is also important for them to have a weak point, a glimmer of vulnerabilit...

Arlene Hunt on Creating the Bad

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 12:10:53 +0100

When I think of the murderous villains I have created over the years, from the French waffling Vinnie, through to Caleb Switch, the one thing I never shied away from was revealing how ugly they were. Not in looks, but in their souls. My killers can be charming, aloof, driven by madness, driven by grief, but united with the capability that excludes them from the rest of society, the capability to murder. Not kill, you understand, for many of us could conceive of killing someone in self defen...

Adrian White on Method Writing

Wed, 14 Sep 2011 11:44:01 +0100

I've come to call this technique 'method writing' - casting myself in the role of another person, trying to adopt their mindset as my own, and writing the words almost as a by-product of where I am taken. I was being honest and I stand by my intentions. What I wrote was a genuine response to a very upsetting life story - a life story that has continued long after its path crossed mine - and I hope this truthfulness is reflected in the writing and what is left on the page.

Of course, I ha...

Back Story - How Best to Include it

Tue, 12 Jul 2011 10:03:14 +0100

Perfecting character development is a tough task and one that comes without hard and fast rules. Yet in all the text book advice, writers are told to have rounded characters, 3-dimensional people that readers can identify with. But how much information should be included? Is there a prescribed formula?

What I have learned through experience is that every novel, and indeed every piece of writing, demands something different. Building past-history into current events takes expertise and intuition....

Understanding Characters: Tracy Culleton

Wed, 16 Mar 2011 22:35:13 +0100

Remember when you are thinking about each character, every story is about conflict. The protagonist wants something and can’t have it, or has something that someone else wants! Unless your character wants it very, very badly (motivation), they’ll just give up and go home and you will have no story. Your character also has to have big and credible reasons why he/she can’t have it, or they’ll get it instantly, and there will be no story.

Getting what the character wants must be d...

Whose Story is This Anyway? Tracy Culleton on Point of View

Thu, 24 Feb 2011 13:47:07 +0100

First person

Third person objective

Third person limited

Third person omniscient

First Person

First person means that ‘I’ is telling the story. The camera lens is firmly behind the key character’s eyes. The main character/protagonist is usually also the narrator. First person can work well if the first person narrator is in fact not the protagonist at all, but the protagonist’s sidekick, e.g. Dr. Watson (Sherlock Holmes) or Hastings (Hercule Poirot).

Advantages of first pers...

Who Are These People?

Wed, 17 Nov 2010 22:56:06 +0100

CHARACTERISATION – WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE?

Well rounded characters need to be real and interesting. They must spring to life from the page, they must be memorable. Ask yourself honestly whether you would spend time with any of your characters? If the answer is no, then that’s exactly how your reader will feel about your book.

Lucy, one of my characters from Love Match is a victim of domestic abuse, a lady locked into an unhappy marriage. I was overwhelmed when one reader – a victim of domes...