[Guest Post]: Character Development Techniques by Daniel V. Meier, Jr., the author of Guidance to Death

My today’s guest is Daniel V. Meier Jr. His murder mystery Guidance to Death (Book One in the Frank Adams series) was released in May by BQB Publishing. Daniel is talking about his techniques of characters’ creation and development.

Character Development Techniques

Characterization can be tricky. The author does not want to ‘tell’ the reader what the character looks like, they wants to let the reader get to know him.  Following are a few techniques that makes it easier.

1. Spy

A great way to know your characters more intimately is to see how they behave when they think no one is watching. The easiest way to do that is simply to spy on them.

Watch your protagonist through a window or plant a hidden camera—whatever works for you. You’ll see his private moments as he goes unsuspectingly about his business at home. 

What are his morning and bedtime rituals?What are his secret snacking habits? Late night?
In the car?What does she try to get away with when no one
is looking?What websites lure him away from his workday?

2. Zoom In

Follow your character anywhere he goes—cafés, parks, the office, the gym—and fire up your X-ray. What just arrested her attention, repulsed her, alarmed her, made her smile? What is she fiddling with in her purse? Pills? Pepper spray? 

3.  Follow the money

You can tell a lot about a person from his choice of products. Are his cleaners additive-free, organic and compostable, or rubber-glove and gas-mask-requiring germ-annihilators? Does he buy only the brand that’s on sale, regardless of whether it’s what he really wants? Does he own 14 kinds of cologne, or one signature scent?

4. Gossiping

Catch your character’s friends, co-workers and family at a party, in the break room, or at a reunion and get them talking. You might develop entirely new perspectives on your character’s relationships, choices, issues and untapped potential—including things your character doesn’t even know herself.

Who can she trust? Who happily trash talks her at the drop of a hat.

Ask what your character:

is like when he’s madwas like when she was youngeris good atis bad atneeds to do to fix his lifetakes too seriouslydoesn’t take seriously enoughhas going for herhas working against him.

5. Eavesdropping

When we’re at a loss for putting words in our characters’ mouths, that’s often when it’s time to stop thinking and start listening. 

If your character does her heavy communicating in a private space, you’ll just have to put a bug under the kitchen table or behind the therapist’s fish tank. Now you can get into that privileged territory of secret plans, sordid pasts and private pain. Instead of thinking up a backstory for your character, listen in as she divulges her childhood trauma to her psychologist. Or write what you hear as she whispers her most fragile longings to her secret lover, or unloads her guilt onto a priest. 

And above all, make it fun.

About the Book

Frank Adams Series, Book One

Genre: Murder Mystery, Thriller

Date Published: 16th May 2023

Publisher: BQB Publishing

It was cold and rainy, with low visibility. A perfect morning for sabotage. The company jet carrying a Senior VP mysteriously crashes shortly after taking off from Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) says it was an accident. The victim’s wife says it was murder. Frank Adams, an independent aviation accident investigator has been hired to find out. Mounting evidence and an additional murder convince Adams that there was indeed foul play. 

As what seemed to be disparate events become increasingly linked, Frank reveals a crime of international dimensions. Accustomed to working independently, Frank is forced to call on the help of an old girlfriend as well as a retired DC cop. But unraveling the truth could cost him his life as well as the lives of his friends.

About the Author

A retired Aviation Safety Inspector for the FAA, Daniel V. Meier, Jr. has always had a passion for writing. During his college years, he studied History at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington (UNCW) and American Literature at The University of Maryland Graduate School.  In 1980 he published an Action/Thriller, Mendosa’s Treasure, with Leisure Books under the pen name of Vince Daniels.
He worked briefly for the Washington Business Journal as a journalist and has been a contributing writer/editor for several aviation magazines. Guidance to Death is a return to a favorite genre of his, Action/Thriller with the added intrigue of Murder/Mystery.
Other books by Dan are Blood Before Dawn, the sequel to the award-winning novel, The Dung Beetles of Liberia. Bloodroot, also an Historical novel is about the Jamestown settlement in the early 1600’s and No Birds Sing Here, is a work of Satirical Literary Fiction.
Dan and his wife live in Owings, Maryland, about twenty miles south of Annapolis and when he’s not writing, they spend their summers sailing on the Chesapeake Bay.

Contact Links

Website: https://danielmeierauthor.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/danielmeierauthor

Twitter: https://twitter.com/AuthorMeier

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/53590968-daniel-meier-jr

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dvmeierjr/

Purchase Links

Barnes and Noble: 

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/guidance-to-death-daniel-v-meier-jr/1142524888?ean=9798886330021

Kobo: 

https://www.kobo.com/us/en/search?query=GUIDANCE+TO+DEATH

Giveaway

$5 Amazon Gift Card and an eBook Copy

http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/408264011732