How To:

How to: Develop Your Characters

A character will never stay the same. We, as human beings, change all the time. Are you the same person you were last year? I don't think so. So your characters can't be the same they were at the beginning of the book. 

Your characters will:

· Go through many situations.
· Face many challenges.
· Grow as human beings.

They will change and you need to show that evolution in the story.

Characters are the main focus of your story - it might have an amazing plot, but if it has flat characters? You probably won't get as much attention on that story as you want. Try to make your character unique, yet in some ways, relatable. 

- Tammy from Moni's 'Masquerade' is a very strong character, she has an opinion and she's not afraid to say it! She's tough, but has layers as to why she is the way she is. She has a dark past that she is not willing to unfold until the time has come. She has reasons to act the way she acts today, it's not just because she has fun being bitchy.

- Al from Katie's 'Take Me As I Am' is a sassy, sarcastic, brat. Yet she's relatable, because not all girls love dresses and high heels. She can make you laugh with her witty humor. Again, she is not like that because Katie decided to, Al has a past that lead her to be the girl she is now. A past the welded her into not being as 'girly' as she used to be.

These characters were formed and they evolved as the stories went on. 

Consider the fact that your characters have a life, situations that shaped them. Before writing the story, consider developing the background of the character. What kind of infancy did they have? What happened to them to make them act the way the act? We all have scars, some are deep, some are almost invisible, but we all have them. Your characters have them as well.

Perfect characters don't exist. They must have flaws and show those because these flaws will make your characters relatable. 

For complex characters consider some phychology theories. One that helped me a lot is the one that deals with the kind of attachement. Basically, there are 4 kinds of attachement. 

· Safe kind: When parents offer their kids all the support they need but they are not overbearing. They allow the kid to grow. When the parents are not present, the kid will be constantly looking for them, but the kid will also carry on, make friends and socialise.

· Avoidant kind: The parents are cold towards their kids. The classic type "Let him/her cry, she/he will stop eventually. She/he needs to learn". This causes kids to be too independent, when the parent is not present, the kid won't react. Not possitively nor negatively. These kind of kids grow up into adults that don't trust nor believe in human relationships. They always expect relationships to fail and they don't even try.

· Anxious kind: This kind of attachement is due to overbearing parents. When they are not around the kid is awfully stressed. Always having tantrums. These kids grow up into very possesive people, they get too attached and they are too demanding. Jealousy is very common here and making scenes. 

· Disorganise kind: (this is Tammy's case in Masquerade) due to when the parent is the source of distress. You can never know how they kid is going to react once the parent is not present. They may blow a tantrum, they may stay impasive. They can be violent or completely ignore you.

At the sidebar on the external link you have an simple article about this theory. It really helps to build up characters.

Hoping this helped,
-Katie, Moni & Tina.

...Next entry - How To: Manage POVs