Michele Foulk asked Doug Romig:

How do you develop characters?

Doug Romig Very carefully. Each character has a little bit of me in them. Some - like Tone from The Spiritscape Chronicles - have more than a little bit. Tone sprang fully formed from my imagination. He is basically my sense of wonder without any filters. He says the things I would like to say, but I hold back unless I've had a few cocktails. Zeke - also from The Spiritscape Chronicles - has undergone the most changes of any character. He was actually created before Tone and was going to be an angel going on a walkabout. Then he became the warrior/hunter angel. When I finished Angelcide, he got a rewrite. He was just too nice so I made him into more of a bad-boy angel.

Once I have the character's personality and values established, they take on a life of their own when I'm writing. For example: Ian in the Cryptos Files will always act in his own best interests whereas Abby in Shrink will be moved by the losses she has experienced.

I really don't know what they are going to do until the situation happens. Then they act and react, glow and grow. Each one changes based on their experiences in the stories. You can see it the most in New Fallen as Zeke goes through some major changes.

Does that make sense?

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