- Show your characters’ moods well and how they change. After all we’re not in one state of mind all the time so neither should they be. Moods affect actions which affect consequences and plot!
- Show your characters learning from their experiences - what not to do again for example - and where appropriate where a character refuses to learn. Look at why they have that refusal - is it just stubbornness or are they afraid of change? Have they good reasons to be afraid?
- Show your characters’ expressions. I tend to get Eileen to grimace a lot (!) (though to be fair she does have cause).
- Also show your characters trying to hide what they really feel - after all we do it so why shouldn’t your creations? What happens when a character fails to hide how they feel or shows their emotions to the wrong person? What catastrophes could be unleashed?
- How do your characters conduct business? Have you got the Del Boy type? What are the rules? How are these circumvented (someone’s bound to try aren’t they?) and what are the punishments when folk are caught out? Is there a fantasy Inland Revenue?! (The mind boggles here. Can you imagine? Instead of the £100 penalty fine per day if you’re late filing your return, the Fantasy Revenue could turn you into a toad, smash you into a pulp, cast imaginative curses if you put the wrong stamp on the envelope and so on!).
- Let your characters have their own lives. Whilst you invent them and control them, that control should not be to the extent they lose any personality. You don’t want puppets.
- Think about flora and fauna. Even sci-fi/fantasy worlds have their ecosystems, predators and prey and so on. And especially in a fantasy world have a look at how magic affects them. For example does it make them more aggressive? Do they need magic to livel? Could they survive on earth? Would earth be beneficial or harmful with no magic about?
- Does your world have specialists? Eileen is a specialist in her field, as was Rose. Does that lead to envy in others or are the specialists left to it as they face more risks than most?
- How do your characters’ lives change? Long term characters especially should have plenty of ups and downs. The ups shouldn’t be saccharine sweet. For the downs, there should be some hope they can get out of them. (If you want constant despair, watch your average party political broadcast!).
- Do your characters develop relationships? Think about all kinds of relationships as well as the obvious romantic/sexual ones. Is there part of their personality that makes forming relationships difficult? Do they find a particular type of character difficult and if so have you shown why?
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AuthorI'm Allison Symes and write fairytales with bite, especially novels and short stories. Archives
October 2019
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