Sublime

CHARACTER=ACTION Give your characters unique actions and decisions. SHOW their character, who they are, how they feel and how they view the world, through their actions.

In every scene, remember, a protagonist is presented with a mini crisis, and must make a choice as to how to surmount it. Meeting with a subversion of expectation – a blow to their established plans – a character must choose a new course of action. In doing so they reveal a little bit more of who they are.

Archetypes are an invaluable tool often overlooked by writers. By their very nature, they force you to delve deeper into your characters, to see them as not just “Character 1” or “Librarian” but as a type of person who responds in very specific ways to the conflict within your story.

Personality-wise, she reminded Greta of one of those exotic vegetables she was drawn to at the farmer’s market but didn’t know how to cook. Kohlrabi, maybe, or a Jerusalem artichoke. Not very approachable. Not sweet or overly familiar. Not easily boiled down or buttered up. Not corn on the cob. Greta felt an instant kinship with Sabine, since she,

There’s a small crowd forming at the very center of the layered rugs and in the middle, of course, is Charlie Milford. Stella’s half brother. Party boy. Serial charmer. I don’t think there’s a good time that Charlie hasn’t organized, signed up for, or crashed without explanation.

For any world in which the technology, lingo, or rules are not familiar to the average viewer, these characters can be invaluable relayers of exposition.

As E. M. Forster reminds us, in Aspects of the Novel, certain characters are intentionally one-dimensional. Still others serve a functional role in our stories. But the characters we are meant to care about must be round: complex, contradictory, capable of evolving, and thus surprising the reader in a convincing way. This standard applies not just

A mama’s boy, loner, intellectual, voracious reader and gourmand, Dimitri was a man of esoteric skills and appetites: a gambler, philosopher, gardener, fly-fisherman, fluent in Russian and German as well as having an amazing command of English. He loved antiquated phrases, dry sarcasm, military jargon, regional dialect, and the New York Times cross