Thursday, September 27, 2012

Great Characters make Great Novels


Update: My apologies for the missing post previously. I have no idea where it is or what happened.

Our tanks are dry, and now we are hanging out for rain. It seems so long ago since we've had a decent drop, and I can't remember when it did rain last. We are in spring and with summer approaching I do hope we get some soon. There's a lot of bush surrounding us. Okay to my post. :)

Great Characters make Great Novels.

I have learned that great characters make great novels. Your plot might not be too crash hot, but if you have fully fleshed out your characters readers will have a hard time putting your novel down.

I found the secret of having great characters is all around us. We as writers have to use our
observation skills. Using actual speech will bring our characters to life. It will make them realistic, and leave the reader sighing as they recall the novel they couldn't put down.

We've all read novels that we couldn't put down and when the end arrives we want to keep reading. We don't want the story to end as those characters were believable. We cheered them on, we worried for them, cried and laughed with them.

How do we do this? How do we do this?  Know thy characters inside and out.

Characters have to have a history, a back-story in order to have a deep multi layered personality. We need to make sure it's extensive and well written. I've been filling out character sheets where it has given me more insight into that character and I've come to know them as real people. This includes where they were born, how they grew up, what incidents shaped their early years. The people who grew up around them, their relatives, and who was the major person that influenced their lives.

The more we know about our characters and the more you dig deep into their personalities, finding out what they want, their habits, worries and fears then the more that character will resonate with the reader. Readers want characters they can believe in, they want to go on their journey with them.

Building truly believable characters is the single most important thing we can do for our books. If we come up with the best plot in the world, your characters have to be fully fleshed out otherwise, our stories will fall flat.

So get out those character sheets, interview them and know them like you know your sister or brother. Have you any tips that give you the end result in creating characters? I'd love to know. :)

 Have a great week, and smile. :)

3 comments:

Tarnya said...

Loved this post Suzanne. It made me go back and check lot's of things. Thank you for posting.

Tarnya. x

Anonymous said...

Couldn't agree more with you, Suzanne. I'm just charting a new novel and Officeworks is one of my destinations this weekend to buy a white board. On it will be Debra Dixon's boxes for GMC and knowing my characters inside out will help with that. :)

Suzanne Brandyn Author said...

I'm glad it's helping someone. :) It's one of the main steps into producing a great novel. I feel I keep learning every single day.