Character Building

A crucial element to any story is the characters that move about. Readers have to fall in love with these characters whether they are good, bad or oh so evil. I've found that if cleverly written, even the worst of characters can become a favorite.

As posted yesterday, I recently read On Writing A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King. Here are the tips on character building I pulled from the memoir that have helped me tremendously.

1. When out and about pay close attention to those around you and how they behave and record what you see. In other words, people watch. This is something I always do and it of course drives my family crazy. But what better way create real-life characters.

2. Keep in mind that in real life, no one is "the bad guy" or "the best friend." We all regard ourselves as the main character or the protagonist. Use this same attitude when creating characters.

3. Every character is an extension of you in some way, yes the rest is from your imagination. But whether you plan the action or not, a small part of you seeps in.

4. Make your characters behave in such a way that both helps the story and seems reasonable. Think about what we know about the character and what we know of real-life.

5. Make a bad character persuasive. For example, make your readers understand the reasoning behind their actions...this makes the character even more disturbing and real.

6. Remember, sometimes villains feel self doubt or pity. Sometimes the good guy is tempted to not do the right thing.

*Most important tip I took away from this book...If you do your job right, your characters will come to life and start doing stuff on their own.

So there you have it. These tips have helped me breathe new life into the characters in my current WIP and also resulted in a trip to the mall for a session of people watching. Much to my sons embarrassment! But hey, its all for the sake of the story so what can I say? We do what we have to do.

If you haven't read this book yet, I highly recommend. What each person takes away depends on what stage of your journey you are in. And were I to read it again, I'm certain I would take something else away entirely.