Those of you who have hung out here for a while know that I’m a pantser, not a plotter. That means I start out with a general idea of my book, but I don’t have all the details worked out for the story line. In fact, the romance in Wolves’ Knight isn’t at all what I planned for it to be.
The same is true for my characters. I start out with a general idea of who they are, but I don’t know them intimately. As I write the story, I’m also discovering their likes and dislikes, their background, their personality. The information doesn’t come to me all at once, the characters feed it to me in bits and pieces.
Harmony Duprie from the Oak Grove Mysteries is a great example of this. When I started writing her, I didn’t know she was so tied to her daily routine, or that she names everything. She let me know about those quirks quickly. She’s been great fun to write as her character develops through the book series. I’m always discovering something new about her. When I started writing The Marquesa’s Necklace, there was a bit of me in the character. By the time we reached The Baron’s Cufflinks, she was more like a good friend, and not me at all!
(If you haven’t read Cufflinks yet, you should. Harmony finally reveals what’s up with her and airplanes.)
How does that happen? It’s really simple. I listen to my characters. Heck, sometimes I argue with them about the way the plot is going. I win a few of those discussions, but most of them I lose. After all, the stories belong to them.
I’m currently working on Wolves’ Gambit, the third book in the Free Wolves’ series, and it’s been interesting. Lori, a minor character from Wolves’ Pawn in the main character. (I’m willing to bet you don’t remember her, that’s how minor she was!) So I knew a bit about her, but she didn’t take long to clue me in to who she really is underneath her bravado. This is yet another book that didn’t go the way I planned but Lori’s way is better! (Stay tuned…the book will be called Wolves’ Gambit and I’m working on a mid-April release date.)
Now let’s check out what the other authors have to say about character development.
Wait- you say you haven’t read the my books yet? Then head over to my books page to see where to get yours first! My Books
February 5, 2018 – Character Development; How do you achieve quality character development?
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