Sunday, June 10, 2012

The Secret Life of Characters

Today, I spent time moving and pricing stuff in preparation for the garage sale I have having next week. It's something I have been trying to get organized for awhile as I am trying to purge and clean out things I no longer need. My biggest hang up is books. What to keep and what to get rid of? I'm uncertain if I will even put the books in the garage sale. However, this got me thinking about the secret lives of characters. One of the things I love about Jasper Fforde's books is that his characters can go in and out of books and that the characters in books are only living a part on the page, like actors in a movie, and have whole other lives outside their 'home' books.

As a writer, one of the things I love about my characters is learning about them through the story. But, now that my novel, "The Trade Off," has been written in first draft, which I am about to revise, I am wondering what else I can learn about the characters which isn't in the book. I suspect that if I become intimately acquainted with the characters, aside from the story line, that it will help them become more vibrant on the page.

So... I am going to begin a series of posts where I explore aspects of the characters in relation to real life and I hope you will join me on the voyage and enjoy getting to know their secret lives with me. 

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