We’ve talked a lot about writing for your audience, staying true to your readers, getting into their heads—so that you are writing what they want/need. But it is equally important to your readers for you to be true to your characters.
In the story I’m currently writing, I’ve portrayed a new character as someone who is dedicated to helping cats and, in particular, the cats in the colony she cares for. When she met with a serious life-threatening incident I have a lot of things going through her mind—many thoughts—and not once did I have her thinking about what might be happening to her precious kitties while she is unable to get home to them.
Once I took some time to become better acquainted with my character and began thinking in terms of “what would she do—what would she be concerned about—how would she react” it occurred to me that certainly, she would be spending some time worrying about her cats.
If you want to create believable characters, you must flesh them out to the point where they become real. The more real they are to you and the more true to character you portray them, the more believable they will be to your readers. And if your readers cannot feel some sort of connection, affinity or even dislike for a character, they will not care much about what happens to him or her. Readers who do not care, will not keep reading.
My blog tour for the Klepto Cat Mysteries starts Monday, February 10, 2014. I hope you will visit our first stop here: http://www.readalot-Rhonda1111.blogspot.com
We’ll both get to see the first review for my latest published Kindle book, Sleight of Paw. And you’ll learn a little about my world of animals, my current family of cats and how some of them inspired me to write this series of books.