Making Your Characters Authentic - Part 1

There may be a thousand and one books on how to write a novel, filled with sound observations, but when it comes to creating and developing characters, many emphasize the mechanical over the intuitive.  Over decades, here’s what I’ve painstakingly learned about making your characters authentic, original and memorable.

Stay tuned for the next post!
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Most writers begin the writing process by working on plot.  While plot is obviously important, I also like to know everything possible about my main characters, even if I never use many of their details in the novels.  Whether you take voluminous notes about them, or talk out loud to them  (and they talk back to you), it’s rarely enough.  You need to imagine what they would do off the page, i.e., if they had to attend your Uncle George’s July fourth barbecue, or somehow landed in another novel altogether.  Make them your best friends or worst enemies.  Whether they come from your imagination or real life (or a combination thereof), you should be inside your characters a few hours every day—before you write a single word.  Think of method acting.  Characters aren’t simply pawns in a plot—they transcend it.  They are what you remember long after the plot is often forgotten.