I’m returning to one of my favourite subjects; characters. When writing romance your characters are pretty much as important as the story in itself - if not more so. If the reader doesn’t like your characters they are most likely not going to finish the book. I know I don’t. Why should I read a book about a person I don’t even like?

Does this mean that your character has to be perfect? Of course not! In fact, I would advice you not to make your character perfect, but give him or her some flaws - make your character realistic!

It’s a precious balance, really. To make your characters realistic and flawed, but still interesting and characters that you can care for and connect with. Someone you can understand. Sure, you can make your hero a total jackass, but he has to be a jackass that we can understand and feel with - someone we can see can change (if it’s a flaw that needs changing - there are other kinds of flaws as well that are not relevant to your story in such a degree).

(As a side note though, I think that I - and many readers like me - do balk at a hero that is too big of a jackass. Sometimes we rather see them get the boot than be redeemed, because you doubt that they will not return to being a jackass.)

Another thing I like to do with my characters is give them some little quirkiness or something that they do without necessarily being aware of it. For example I have a heroine who tends to chew on her lower lip when she is thinking. A hero of mine is forever running a hand through his hair messing it up. Yet another heroine has a quirky thing that she loves to walk barefoot in the grass (which obviously she hides as much as she can).

You can think of so many different things - large or small - that will make your characters special to you (and hopefully to readers).

Can you think of anything specific you do when writing characters? Are there any characters in books you’ve read that you especially liked?