Monday, October 23, 2006

My Characters

One of the first things I did in my preplanning for NaNo was create the hero and the heroine.

The instructor of the writing course I'm currently participating in taught us to create a character outline. Not just form a bio but also include the character traits. I want to know who the character is now, how they will act and what motivates them. This will give my characters more dimension.

One valuable tool I used was the book "45 Master Characters" by Victoria Lynn Schmidt. I started with my heroine and from this book chose an archetype for her. Then I chose her personality type. May sound like a lot of work but it really was fun. I went through the same process for my hero.

I love to read a book where the characters come alive in my mind. And I want my novel to be that way, too!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I'm glad Schmidt's book helped you. I blogged today about a character development method that works for me.

Keep up the good work. See you at the Friday night chat.

Jeanne