I often find when writing characters for my books, that I try to give them all characteristics that people can remember because they have something in common with them. We sometimes think that the problems we have within our lives didn’t have that same effect on people in ages past. But some things on the human plane remain the same across epochs of time, often the only difference is how we may solve problems. Today, there are medications, advanced medical procedures and medical professionals in countless specialties to help us cope with our lives today. Imagine over 3,000 years ago though when those things weren’t available, and it wasn’t until the last century that medical breakthroughs ensued?
In building Twilight, a character in my Pharaoh Memnet Series, I had to explain why he is the way is the way that he is today in our modern times…a Bipolar, Manic Depressive Vampire who has been alive with these conditions since the days that Abraham walked past the Ziggurat’s on his way to Canaan! Can you imagine having to go through thousands of years in a depressed state, and not be able to see any end in sight?
Often, we can’t escape whatever is ailing us without external help, and making characters without relatable flaws can often stifle the ability of readers to relate to your characters. Try to infuse them with something that we struggle with today if you’re writing something contemporary. If you’re writing something historical, do your research on methods over the ages that were used to ‘cure’ people that were often worse than that which they were suffering from. This is especially important when writing books with multiple characters that readers have to keep track of. Introduce those traits slowly, with symptoms peeking through bit by bit. Put some humor into things, we all like to laugh at our shortcomings with self deprecating-humor. Make a list of characteristics for each of your characters that you can refer back to from time to time, so that connections between reader and character remain fluid, easily relatable and concise. I like adding modern touches to my characters, especially where popular and pop culture is concerned. Can you imagine having to deal with Netflix when there wasn’t even a point of reference to such a thing when you were born thousands of years ago? Explore the march of time in all of its facets through your characters and the atmosphere in your works.
I hope that seeing these couple of pages gives you some ideas of why my character is the way that he is. The music that goes with this playlist is a carryover from the previous book which is about Twilight, but it carries over in this book. Many of the stories in this series have overlapping instances of characters and situations to keep the story moving forward. Reach out to me if you’re stuck on how you are representing a character. Most of my works are available on Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited if you want to go over and see how I build worlds, characters and background for those books.
Music from Spotify
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