A Real Character

[image error]

I think the heart of any good story starts with the characters.  And everything else builds around them.  The plot follows where they go.

Usually when I start a story it is the main character that comes to mind first, then the other ones after that.  Then I find the story forms itself based on what drives the characters.  For example, the story I’m working on now, the Mr. Austen series, the main character Russell Neale, also known as Mr. Austen popped into my head.  Then I saw him as liking Jane Austen, and becoming a male romance writer incognito after a challenging divorce.  He’s a “real character”––every pun intended!

Some of my favourite characters are Harry Potter, Holden Caulfield from The Catcher in the Rye, Scarlett O’Hara from Gone with the Wind, and Elizabeth Bennett from Pride and Prejudice, as she reminds me of myself in some ways (as seen in the picture above with Jennifer Ehle as Elizabeth Bennet from the 1995 BBC production).

Also, I believe characters should seem real, in that they can reflect something in human nature that is in all of us.  That they could be someone we could actually meet.  And by that, the story itself can be something we can relate to.  And we ourselves can become part of the story.––L.P. Kirkbride, March, 2019