Writing: Creating your Elizabeth Bennett, an award, and an apology

Characters vs. Real People - And why I prefer to read about those in my head...

1) Characters are honest. People lie. No real person will tell another that he stinks ... not if he wants friends anyway. However, because we can enter a character's head, we know what they're thinking even if it's not politically correct. Even if a character may not be aware of his own feelings, we know what's on his mind. That's why characters often stick in our heads more than real people. Do we really get to know humans?

2) Characters lead exciting lives. People are, for the most part, boring. People spend most of their lives doing boring, mundane things - such as showering, picking up dog poo, sleeping, eating, and hating their in-laws. Good writers prevent their characters from doing these mundane things in books. They live in a world of relationships and emotions... even when their picking their noses they are exploring the meaning of life.

3) Characters are not burdened with diversions from the plot. Humans live a life that often have no plot whatsoever. Characters don't have to live through a weekly grocery or school run or don't have to balance their checkbooks. Humans die at an arbitrary point with many unresolved issues. Characters end their story at significant points and often their stories are resolved.

Basically, characters get to skip over all the boring bits. Because characters are often the most exciting personages we know, readers want to believe they are real.

How can we make our characters more real?

1. Know yourself to know your character.
Shallow people can only make shallow characters. Because (as we ascertained above) people lie, the only person who will honestly express their feelings with us is - our self. There is no good writing without self examination and brutal honesty. We can find within ourselves the different aspects of life and feelings to construct our characters with. We can even write about what we don't know because somewhere in our world we can link it to knowledge of ourselves.

2. Let your characters develop on their own.
Don't force them. Characters, like humans, will open themselves up to you over time. They will become more and more real to you and you can then show them to the reader.

What do you think? Have your characters started to express themselves over time? Did you find out new things about them as time progressed?

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Talli Roland, also a coffee lover, gave me the Sugar Doll award. (Pictured above) Thank you so much! You should check out her blog... here's why: 1) She's from London 2) She drinks coffee 3) And, oh, she has an awesome blog about writing and a few days ago she wrote about how to play your blog...

Now, I'm suppose to give this award away... here's my picks: (I chose those without the award and those with fewer followers - go check out their hard work!)

1) Wandeca at Wandeca Reads - she's a fellow Canadian

2) Marce at Tea Time with Marce - she loves Earl Grey Tea...also my favorite tea.

3) My pal from India, Rayna at Coffee Rings Everywhere

4) Elspeth at It's a Mystery

5) All my fellow writers at Journey in Ink

6) Anne Rooney at Stroppy Author's guide to publishing - She has written hundreds of books.
7) Margot at Confessions of A Mystery Novelist

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Also, I want to take a moment to apologize to my characters... you know who you are. I can feel you tapping on my shoulder and whispering in my ear to keep writing. I hear you. I've just been too busy to really listen. I know some of you have been sulking and not talking to me - which I have to say hasn't really been helping me. So I'm telling you this now - I'm here again, tell me your story. Talk to me.

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