The Fascinating Adventure of Character Developement

I have really become a believer in developing strong and interesting characters in my books. The time I put into thinking about my characters rivals the time that I put into plot development. It has actually become one of the most fun parts of writing for me now.

There have been several occasions when the character or characters that I was writing about told me what they were going to say next. That’s happened with both Eldan and Rush in my first book, Tales of Larkin: Hawthorn’s Discovery. I believe it also happened with Lars and Berk in my second book; Tales of Larkin: Larkin’s Journal.

I will be writing dialog when the character in my mind suddenly says something that I hadn’t intended to write. Sometimes when that occurs the unexpected comment takes me so much by surprise that I have to stop writing and just laugh. I get some real strange looks from the family when that happens.

Most of the time I become good friends with my characters and they tend to be very helpful to me as I put the story line together. The most difficult time I ever had with my characters was in book two when I eventually had to bend Larkin and Lily to my will.

In the first book as I told the history of the Larkin people I explained that they were all descendants of Larkin the Great and his wife Lily. When I was halfway through writing the second book, which is a prequel to book one, I found myself so caught up in describing the irritating and somewhat combative relationship between Larkin and Lily that it suddenly dawned on me that I had to figure out some way for these two to like each other and eventually get married. They both fought me on that but I did succeed in the end.

If you have been gracious enough to read this far you’re probably thinking by now that I need counseling. That suggestion has been made to me before. But if I get the counseling there will probably not be any more Larkin stories and my children would be very disappointed. So all of you true Larkin fans will just have to put up with my “Looniness”.

Hopefully I’ve made you smile and enlightened you a little about what it’s like to write the Larkin stories. Please consider subscribing to my blog at no charge to you. Just click on one of the two buttons on the right and then each of my future uploaded blog posts will be sent straight to you.

May God’s richest blessings be on each of you,
Alan Harris