In addition, a professional-looking site – one that features your published writing, not pictures of your dog and boyfriend along with your latest Ebay stats – will prove to an editor that you’re on ball, that you take your writing seriously. In turn editor will take you more seriously.

Even freelancers with very little computer knowledge can set up a website; check with your Internet service provider to find out how to start your own (often free) site. Or, if you have some knowledge of HTML or are willing to learn, you may be able to set up your own site. There are also many web-design companies that will set you up for a fee.

If you decide to go with a web-design company, here are a few important things to consider:

* What are total costs? Be sure to read fine print, otherwise your bill may be higher than you’d intended.

* Is maintenance included? If so, how much does it cost and what is turnaround time?

* How many pages are you allowed? Some budget companies only offer six or so pages, which is hardly enough to showcase your clips.

* Do they work with writers? Web-design services that cater to exotic dancers or widget-sellers may not know much about a freelancer’s needs.

Whichever method you choose, get your resume and clips online today and start wowing editors and making sales tomorrow!

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!