Characters

When writing, your book will need characters. So having well developed ones is a good idea. But of course characters always ruin things. It might seem easy to get them to do something, but actually characters all to easily develop a mind of their own, as this poem by Lissie shows.

A Character and His Author - by Lissie

I told him to go left... he went to the right

I told him to stay... he went to go fight

I made his hair black... he made it burgundy instead

I made him mute... you should hear the thing's he's said!

I told him he was blind... he decided he could see

I told him I'm in control... he ignored me

And that really explains a characters relationship with his author. They are in control, so don't be fooled! If you let them make the decisions then they will be true to their personality.

A few of my favourite characters have me under their control. Their personality does tell whether they will be the one telling you what they should do. My favourite is probably Valla. She is female, and has quite a overpowering temperament. She is my favourite character from the Traders of the Snowy Peaks series. Despite only appearing once so far for a brief period of around 10,000 words. The other character from that series is Jamie. He is a main character, but not the main character. He tags along, quite happily. His personality is not very strong but he is likeable. Unfortunately for my second favourite character, his life is hanging in the balance as I write. In my current book, he will probably die.

Then an unwritten character as yet, whom I like is Lars. He is from my series of five books and is going to be one of the main characters. He is a mellow person, dislikes mixing with people but will if necessary. The reason for his loneliness is the fact he is a mage. This marks him out when people know it, mages are supposed to be bad though Lars has saved many people with his powers. His fellow main character is Annika. She is much like Valla, but acts more on her impulses. She is a knight of the city, and meets Lars when it is falling.

I hope I'll be able to create many more characters that are interesting, and fun to write and read about. Many thanks again to Lissie for her beautiful poem.