Put a Little Character in Your Characters

In your mind your characters do not look like the ones in the picture. They are colorful with dreams and ambitions. They also have unique interests and talents. However, sometimes we translate them differently from our mind to the page and they end up sounding like the picture: flat, colorless and see-through.

When that happens I challenge people to think about what they know about their characters. My husband consistently teases me about obsessing over my characters. I research them, know about their daily lives, and understand the past they came from. Why am I like this? Because I don't want my characters looking like the picture. I want vibrant characters who reach out and grab the reader with everything they are. When I know and understand them they write the story all on their on and I'm just the vessel they use.

So I ask you today to think about your characters. Can you see through them? How much do you truly know about them? And lastly who's writing your story?

Madison Croughlin

Did you know according to statistics four million women in the United States are currently married to a gay man? No...Elizabeth Reaser is not one of them, but the lead female character in my current novel was. Madison Croughlin is next in our line of characters from my almost finished novel Amidst the Fog. Most of you know this actress as the mother of a bunch of teen Twilight vampires. Esme, who in my opinion doesn't get the screen time she deserves is the matriarch of the Cullen Clan. Now all you people out there assume that I would chose Elizabeth, because she happens to be in Twilight are incorrect. Remember I started the project several years ago. While deciding who to visual base my lead female character, Elizabeth was a supporting role on the TV show Grey's Anatomy. Something about her calm and mild demeanor made her the perfect choice for Madison.

Its five years since her husband left her for another man and Madison finds herself going through the motions of life. She works because she has to and takes care of her kids the best a single mom can. When her mother in law pleads with her to help organize her annual charity masquerade she is unable to decline.

When her mother in law begins to weave her matchmaker spell the two find it hard to stay away from each other. Everyone from Madison’s kids to her employees get in on the mission. My novel will take Madison on an emotional battle with depression, angry, healing and finally forgiveness, but will she ever be able to love again?

Meet Darren Matthews

Meet Darren Matthews, okay, the pictures are really of actor Eric Bana. As most of you know I have been working on a new and old project entitled Amidst the Fog. Several years ago when I first began the character work on the project I needed to find someone who would help me visualize one of my characters.

One afternoon my daughter was watching the movie Troy. She has loved that movie forever and everytime she gets a chance watches it. Anyway, before Achilles comes to kill Hector, he shows his wife a secret way out of the city and it was in that moment that my character was truly born.

Growing up in a movie laden society has created monsters such as me that need something visually to relate to. There's nothing wrong with it at all. So yesterday, we get the new Men's Health magazine and who's on the cover? You guessed it. Eric Bana. Now that I'm reworking this project he proudly sits next to my computer. Maybe a little inspiration, but also a guilty pleasure since really he's not too rough on the eyes.

Truly meet Darren Matthews, a veteran NHL player who has been traded to a rookie-laden team. He's the typical tall dark and handsome type, but isn't afraid to let the stubble show through. His dad was a hard working FBI agent. On the night of his first NHL game his dad was gunned down in a sting that went bad. He watched as his once love-stricken mother wasted away to a cold and bitter human being. After that he swore off any kind of relationships at all. That is until he meets Madison Croughlin. To be Continued...

Amidst the Fog

As authors we've all fallen in love with one of our projects and treated like it was our baby. We take months to write it maybe even years, because it needs to be perfect. Then after a while we get bored with it and never finish. Rather your a new writer or old we've all done it. I'm not afraid to admit it I have. Maybe it wasn't boredom that caused you to set it aside or personal reasons. My favorite blaming spot is my job. Yes, I would love to write all day and never leave my computer, but until that day happens I have to work.

Several years ago I fell hard for a story between two potential characters. I took a month just to write the prologue. Absolutely no reason for doing that. Then after three years I put it away, because not only was it all over the place, so was I. In three years a human being goes through a lot of emotions and changes, I was taking me characters along for the ride. After only eleven chapters they were going nowhere and not very fast.

So I finished a project recently and was beginning to think about what I wanted to work on next when I stumbled across the above picture. It was one that I had posted above my workstation while writing my incomplete novel Amidst the Fog. It made me think about my life for a minute and all the situations that had occurred. Sometimes as a writer I get distracted and I let everything else going on fog it up. I was guilty of walking away from writing for so many years, because I was jaded about my situation. Then if I did try to write all anyone would have seen was the jade. They'd see my fog and as beautiful as it might be that's all they'd see; nothing underneath.

This year I got tired of it...my own crap. The only thing keeping from doing what I loved was myself. Now I do a little of it everyday regardless of what's going on. Quite frankly I feel incomplete without it. Maybe in a day I write one paragraph or I write fifty pages at least I did it.

I pushed my own fog out, but brought back in my incomplete project. I looked at what worked and what didn't. These characters had a great story going it just needed to be finessed. So I've started over with it. I'm already at 200 pages, because I'm focused on them and so are they.

So when you find yourself amidst the fog take a step back and see what's causing your vision to be clouded and than get rid of it. In the end it will be worth it.