Friday 29 May 2015

Bea Virulent

I have a problem creating characters with whom my female leads may fall in love. No man is perfect (sorry, guys) so I aim to introduce a few flaws to make him real. The trick is enough to add to the tension (will he change? should she forgive him?) against not enough (what’s holding her back? He’s gorgeous, nab him now!)

Here are just some of the reasons given for rejection. Some are rather harsh, virulent even.

we neither like nor trust Ben to the extent that we can’t stand him - he must see the error of his ways and change

Ted is an unsympathetic character - his begging for a second chance and saying he's had a change of heart doesn't ring true

the problem for us is that Dave sounds too pushy and tiresome

the stumbling block here is that Henry is so unpleasant - not an engaging character - his later climb down isn’t really convincing

Creating realistic characters isn’t easy. Do you have any hints as to how it should be done?

2 comments:

  1. It's especially tricky to make them likeable if we want them to change a lot during the course of the book. If they start off awful the reader doesn't care about them. If they start off nice then there's not much change needed. Giving them a good reason for their unpleasatness helps, I think. That hints the state might only be temporary.

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    1. Yes, that's a good point, Patsy. To quote from 'West Side Story', "Hey, I'm depraved on account of I'm deprived!" I'll work on that one.

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