Hidden

Goddess Fish Promotions is organizing a Virtual Book Tour for HIDDEN by M. Lathan, a YA Fantasy available now. During this tour, the author will be giving away a $50 Amazon or BN gift card to one randomly chosen commenter. To do so, please use this Rafflecopter link: http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/28e4343/

I asked the author how she considered the creation of her characters, and here’s what she answered:

Creating characters is the most important part of being a fiction writer to me. It’s why people read and keep reading your book. The story itself is about what happens to this person or these people, so building them is sort of a huge deal.

Here are a few things I like to keep in mind when creating characters.

1. There are no perfect people, so your characters should not be perfect. They should be flawed physically, emotionally, mentally, or a combination of these things. They should want things they can’t have, be irrational at times, take risks and fall on their faces, lose, and lose some more. It makes them real. Drop a real character in an interesting situation, and people (not all people but some) will want to read your book.

2. Merging Characters

Several times, I’ve come up with a character by blending two or more characters into one. Hidden used to have more adults that my main character encountered. Eventually, I saw that they were essentially serving the same purpose and made one, dynamic character, Sophia, from those people.

3. Inspiration

I look for inspiration everywhere. The people I know, the people I wish I knew, the interesting person behind me in the checkout lane. I’ve never written a character based solely off a real person, but I have borrowed elements from friends and acquaintances.  I also find music inspirational. A song may capture a feeling a certain character will bring into a story and inspire you to write about them for hours.

4. Naming characters

First, check your genre, you don’t want to accidentally copy a name that’s already out there. Then, you also want your character names to have meaning and coincide with who they are. For name inspiration, I use baby name websites. I look at the list of names and choose based off the character’s personality. For example, I don’t like for a sweet person’s name to have harsh sounds.

Give yourself a bonus if you can tie the name into the plot. For example, the nuns named my character Leah – biblical, weary. It sums up how they thought of her as a child and her painful past in one name.  It also has a deeper connection to the plot that I don’t want to spoil for anyone who plans to read it.

However you get there, remember that the characters are the most important part of the story. I try to make mine real, honest, believable, and flawed. The story will develop around them into something you can be proud of.

 

Now something more about the book…

Sixteen-year-old Leah Grant has given up on being normal. She’d settle for stopping the voices in her head, intrusive visions of the future, and better odds of making it to her seventeenth birthday.

That’s the thing about pretending to be human in a world where magic used to exist – at any moment, her cover could be blown and she’ll be burned to death like the rest of the witches.

Everything changes when she loses control of her powers and flees the orphanage she grew up in. She desperately wants to be invisible but finds her face plastered on every news channel as humans panic over the possible resurgence of her kind. And now the hunters won’t give up until they find her.

Making friends for the first time in her life and falling in love with one of them drives her to discover why she is unlike any being she’s ever met – human or otherwise. The dangerous powers inside of her that would repel Nathan, her new, handsome reason for living, are priceless to some. The locked up forever kind of priceless. And to others, they are too dangerous to allow her to live.

Let’s hope she can stay hidden.