Hello, once more, Mr. Lothian. I hope it's not too much to ask but I'd also like if you'd read my novel if that's okay with you. I'm looking for reviews from professional authors so I really hope it wouldn't be a bother on you. It's science fiction and I also tried to make it character driven.
Denzel, I read some of the preview pages and it does look suspenseful. You certainly have an uphill battle with so many characters (unavoidable in a story like this, so you are brave to tackle this with your first book). This is not my usual genre, but I have downloaded a sample and may read it in full. I wish you well -- if you write for the love of writing, you are already successful.
Hey, Denzel - thus far I tend to try and have fun with names and characters. I may use a friend's name to give them a nod, but I rarely use any of their character attributes to create the full persona. You can use character attributes from friends and celebrities, but I would certainly mix in other attributes to blur any resemblance. In general, in writing - if you have a beginning and an ending (A & Z), then you are ready to write. I had so many characters in my last book that I did a spreadsheet to help with naming, their history and other attributes. As you begin to write -- inserting points B, C, D...in between A and Z -- you need to give each character a full form. When you reach a new character in your writing, stop and build them out in a spreadsheet or in a journal to help lock them into "their" part of the story. You can have characters with hidden attributes or even one who learns to act differently (as part of the story), but you should not have characters acting out of character. I also find that if you plan out your whole story and all your characters from the beginning, then you may not give your story a chance to breathe or evolve. You can plan a vacation, but you cannot control who you meet on the elevator, so go with it. In reality other than your main characters who should be fully fleshed out, the other characters are there to support the story, so they can be molded as you see fit (though you do not want a repeating character to be one-dimensional, so they should have some attributes. history or quirks that fit into the story and that make them memorable). I hope this helps in your future writing endeavors. -Scott
