Some writers create their story plot first and their characters second. Others do the opposite. In the actual process of writing a manuscript some fly by the seat of their pants, while others use huge flow charts to map hero/heroine personalities and story events.

In the end, I truly believe the process doesn’t matter, as long as it works for you and you get to “The End” with a good, satisfying story. However, when a reader picks up your book, what makes her stick with it - and what makes the book stick with her long after she has put it down - isn’t a scintillating plot (although that is useful) or exquisitely-worded sentences (though that’s a bonus too).

It’s the characters.

If you’ve made the reader care about your hero and heroine, if you’ve made her ache for your h/h’s losses and griefs, yearn along with them for that connection of body and soul they’re seeking with the other, even if they don’t know it yet…if you’ve made the reader rejoice and maybe even cry a few happy tears when those two people you’ve created at last find their happy ending - then you’ll have made a mark on the reader’s heart, and she will likely remember your book (and hopefully your name as well) for a long time.

So, how do you go about creating memorable, real characters?

I can recommend two books that I’ve used on occasion to get the juices flowing and make me ask the kinds of questions, as I’m creating my characters, that help them to become real people to me: CREATING UNFORGETTABLE CHARACTERS, by Linda Seger (a gifted script consultant for Hollywood, who is also the author of MAKING A GOOD SCRIPT GREAT), and CREATING CHARACTERS: How To Build Story People, by writing guru Dwight V. Swain. Both have some great techniques for creating characters who live and breathe in your imagination.

However, the technique that I use the most in creating the characters in my books is from a double-sided worksheet created by former literary agent and current writer, Alice Orr. I saw her give a workshop once where she detailed the technique and then passed out the worksheet called, “Writing Characters From the Inside Out”. I believe it’s available in her non-fiction book, NO MORE REJECTIONS: 50 Secrets to Writing a Manuscript That Sells, and I’d recommend buying the book for that alone. Below, I’ll give you a quick run-down of what it does and why it works (for me at least).

Ms. Orr’s worksheet requires you to get inside your character’s head, literally. You answer the questions on the worksheet, which is broken up into sections like biographical background, emotional background, life experiences, etc. as if you are your character. That means you’re answering the questions in the first person (i.e. My name is Grayson de Camville, and I am a loyal baron and high champion to my king. My circumstances were not always so prosperous. I was born in the year 1202, to impoverished parents. My father abandoned us and my mother was forced to sell herself for pennies to keep me and my twin sister Gillian alive…etc - this is the hero from my debut book, SECRET VOWS).

You can complete the worksheet for any character you wish, though I usually do only two: one for the hero and one for the heroine. The beauty of this worksheet is that is doesn’t need to be and shouldn’t be completed in one sitting. You answer only those questions that “speak” to you or resonate with you at that moment; the questions that require too much thought or for which the answers don’t come naturally, you skip until a later time, when your subconscious may “know” the character better.

It really is very effective, even if you don’t actively write anything, but just read it over and answer the questions only in your own mind. It helps you to develop the details that build your story character into a real person. Most of the details will likely never find their way into your finished manuscript. But YOU know what they are, and that will make every action taken, thought explored - every word spoken by your character ring true. It will add a depth and resonance to your character, making him just like a real person, with his own background, likes, dislikes, traumatic memories, happy experiences, and biases. Just like anyone you might meet on the street.

And now quickly, before this blog becomes even longer than the others I’ve posted *g* - a personal testimony to this technique. I used a modified version of this worksheet when I was a very frustrated writer who had been hovering on the cusp of publication for about a year and half, getting some very detailed rejections, but no success in terms of an offer of representation by an agent or an offer of a book deal by an editor. I was in the midst of writing my third full manuscript, having problems progressing with the story, and I was this close to giving it all up and saying I’d given it my best shot. I’d gone with a group of other unpublished writing friends on a mini-retreat for a long weekend (in my pre-children days!), to do nothing more than write, eat, sleep, and in the evenings critique a little.

In a burst of higher than usual frustration, when the story wouldn’t come to me as I wanted, and my heroine was exasperating me with her outlook and her attitudes, I decided to whip off a first person commentary by her, hoping that what was revealed by my subconscious about her, as the result of that exercise, would help me to go forward with my story. In about 25 minutes I did just that, beginning, “I am Catherine of Somerset. A woman without place or time. A woman, God help me, without hope.” When we had critique time that evening I read aloud what I’d written. Everyone got really quiet, and I was worried. But then they all began talking at once, saying it had given them goosebumps, and that I HAD to use that first-person piece as the Prologue to my manscript.

I knew it would be a little unorthodox, having a “letter” written in the first-person from the heroine to the reader as the prologue to my story. But I liked it too, so I kept it.

I learned later that it was that prologue which initially grabbed the agent who eventually offered to represent me (Ruth Kagle, with the Jane Rotrosen Agency) and that prologue which first caught the attention of the Senior Editor at Avon (the very talented Lyssa Keusch, with whom I still work) who made me my first offer for a two-book contract. And if you’re interested, you can read that little 25 minute exercise, shortened a bit in its final form…because it is indeed the actual prologue to my first published book SECRET VOWS.

And now for the question of the day (it’s an easy one! *g*): What American city is considered the “publishing capital” of the world?

See you here for a new blog tomorrow!

–MRM