Developing Characters in Your Book in 2 Simple Steps

Siddhi Khankal author of A Good Stranger

 

Okay, I had a fantastic story in my mind – a love story with a medical backdrop. I was rearing to go. The main character was clear in my mind – Meera, I knew there must be at least 2 more characters since this was to be a love triangle – Dr Arjun Gokhale and Dheeraj. But I had not thought of developing supporting characters – the crazy friend, the kid from the neighbor, the chacha-chachis, nana-nanis… It sure felt like one hell of a job!

The characters are the main ingredient in any novel and presenting them to the reader should be like giving TADKA to a DAAL. It makes the daal  tastier, that’s why we all love daal tadka, and that’s why your readers will love your book that much more.

Once I had the characters in place, I thought I was through but it was not so. To write an interesting book I also had to develop each person’s character or personality for which I had to think deeply about each character in my book. Should I make him boisterous or calm and collected, tall or short, handsome or ugly or someone in between, humorous or lacking in humour……. I tell you it wasn’t easy at first but once I started, it was almost addictive, I could create characters to populate my stories to suit my imagination. I knew who were the good guys even if they slipped now and then. I knew who were the bad guys even if they seemed good at times and then there were those who display little character of their own. This was fun, I made the good guys like what I liked but I made sure that the reader could identify each character as having a different personality. The reader should like a character in my book and would want to root for that character – Meera. I put in bad or grey characters to shake things up a little to keep the reader hooked.

Now my book is done and available at all online stores and from the looks of it the readers are loving the characters I created and the storyline I plotted. You can read a sample of my book A Good Stranger, in this link given:  http://bit.ly/2lvIFxX

I’d love to hear from you, leave your feedback in the comments below.

 

So what are you waiting for? Write down the all the characters in your diary first, get your laptop/PC, open Word and start typing your story.

Good luck with your writing!

 

-Siddhi Khankal

(Author of #AGoodStranger)

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