NAMES

Once you have age and personality trait of each character, then you need to give them a name that fits them. If male character is a warrior or has a tough-minded personality, you wouldn't want to give him a name that sounds feminine, like Jean or Francis. Also, be sensitive to setting, locale, and time period, when deciding upon names. In addition, names of your other characters should not overpower hero/heroine’s names.

OTHER CHARACTERS

Once you have your main characters, then think about whom else will be in novel. What role will these other players maintain to help hero or heroine go forth? If you just add someone in novel because you like him or her, but they don’t help story, then rethink on how they could be useful to story. Maybe they know something that might be useful to hero or heroine, then add that into story.

Cardboard characters are a result of focusing on one dimension of a character. The cardboard character can be either totally evil, good, funny, sad, etc. They don’t waver much from that description. Sometimes they are added in novel to prove someone's character. For example, an evil cardboard character makes hero look good by battling with him. That's only purpose evil character has, to show hero's good side. We don't try to develop evil person's character so that he/she is less evil. However, in recent literature, one sees more sympathetic looking evil people doing their bad deeds, yet somehow managing to make reader feel sorry about them. Those complex types are not considered cardboard characters.

BALANCING ACT

No matter how well you think you are writing, always go back and double check your work for consistency. Make sure that if your hero has blue eyes in beginning of story, that he still has blue eyes by end of story, etc. Also, make sure you know your characters before you write. If you don’t, it will show up in your writing. Throughout story, you have to carefully describe real person in all their glory, as well as their character flaws. When I went back and read first draft of my romance novel “Lipsi’s Daughter, I found that I tended to lean more towards making my characters too good. I then went in and deliberately inserted a fault or two. Those faults also help with conflict. Conflict drives story forward.

The final balancing act will come at end, where you will have created, or synthesized a whole new person that has evolved into a better human being from lessons they learned in story. So now that you've read this section, go ahead, write your characters. Make them come alive!

Description  Enough or too much? Are you including trivia? Are you omitting vital 'show don't tell' information about character, place, purpose, atmosphere. Is your description integral to transmission of plot, characters, action, your style, story's tone? The reader's feeling experience can be enormously enhanced by judicious use of description. It helps create that virtual reality experience that takes reader deeper into story.

Dialogue  The most important questions to consider with dialogue are: Is it worth saying? and; Is it said well? Delete, or replace with valuable content as necessary.  A note on using street talk. Beware; great skill needed. Reading written translations of this material can be tedious.  Similarly, with jargon or accented language use this sparingly and with skill, otherwise it is painful to read. Err on side of using regular written language with tweaking to support your style, story tone, or character's personality or background.

Your Style  Some writers forget or choose not to develop this and just copy someone else's style or a generic style. This can work if other components of your story are strong.  If you specifically try for creation of your own writing style or 'voice', remember to create a style aimed at benefiting reader, not your self image. If former leads to latter, great. The flow goes one way only. You may need to experiment or workshop this style. Look for a feel, a pace, a tone, a way of thinking, speaking or moving that creates type of energy you want for your story, characters, narrator and action. Find an integrated, fundamental way to write this energy into your story components. Each time you sit down to write your next scene you need to put yourself into that energy, that style, that feel, to maintain consistency and quality.

Briefly Practice these seven components with short written versions to ensure you have a quality experience to offer your reader. Try standard ten-minute exercises. This will give you an idea of which components you are ready, and which need more development.

And always apply your maxim: What thinking and feeling experience are you giving your reader? Are you taking them there? Or are they just watching from outside while you go there?

_______________________________________ Need To Read? Take a Break! A quick break to clear and refresh your mind before plunging back into your busy schedule.

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