Advice on creating great characters

by Gayle Bentham
8th January 2012

I'm working on a young adult novel and my two main characters are two brothers. Does anyone have any good tips for making characters that readers can connect with?

Replies

Thanks everyone for all the great advice!

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Gayle
Bentham
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Gayle Bentham
12/01/2012

I always write a profile of my character, age, hight, likes dislikes, hero/coward, scared of highs or spiders, (he may have to overcome them to assist later on in the story.

One of my of mine was a car thief in his youth because later on I needed him to steal a car to get out of a situation. Know your man/woman itimately then you can write about them with ease. Also, it may take you a year to finish a novel so you may have to go back to your description to make sure he didn't have brown eyes in the begining and blue eyes at the end.

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E,Van
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E,Van Johnson
10/01/2012

Hi identify a stranger who you think could be your character and then imagine how that person would run their life, react to situations, their background, the ups and downs of their life, the language they would use etc. Almost climb inside your character ... and I agree with Mark, best not to use people you know - though JKR did!

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Jocelin
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Jocelin Kagan
10/01/2012