Silver Scrolls

Characters

Characters are essential to novels as water is to fish. Without characters there isn't a novel. With flat characters the novel isn't worth anything. A character has to jump out of the page and come alive in the reader’s imagination. They need to live and breathe and be real. You want the reader to care about the hero and follow her journey throughout the book and pray she will get what she desires or needs. You want the reader to hate the villain but be mesmerised by him and wonder what terrible deed he might do next.

Characters are difficult to create. One wrong turn and you have a Mary Sue on your hands or a one-dimensional villain twirling his moustache and killing off the messengers that bring him bad news.

There are no easy ways to create well developed characters but I hope this guide will advise you on your way. Enjoy!

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AN: This article is reprinted from my site 'Silver Scrolls' (located on profile) where you can find the article with the links intact. Also note that barring titles, any text underlined indicates a link to another website.

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Next Chapter: Protagonist