ARCHIVE TREASURE: DO NOT MISTAKE PLOT FOR CHARACTERISATION

(Originally posted November 2012, now retrieved from the archive, gently dusted off, and re-posted for your reading pleasure)

Hello, Dear Readers! It's time for another one of my opinionated posts about writing. Half of the credit for this one goes to the inimitable and lovely Holly of my online writer's group, with whom I was recently grousing on this topic. Hi Holls!

So, what were we grousing about? The fact that both of us (reading on opposite sides of the Atlantic ocean, no less) had lately picked up stacks of books which had fantastic central premises, which were well paced, pretty well written, full of exciting incidents and maybe even had some initially interesting characters but which - despite all this! - somehow in the end left us feeling... unsatisfied. Cheated. Unmoved. Convinced, somehow, that the whole exercise of turning pages - despite the exciting incidents and great premises and decent writing - had been a waste of time.

After we'd been talking in detail for a while about the various books which had disappointed us this way and trying to figure out just what was WRONG with them, one of us suddenly put our finger on it. The problem was character development. Or, rather, a strong lack of it.

Now, you might think this would be an obvious problem for two writers to notice and figure out. But what we realised was that the lack of character development in these books was masked by the fact that the main character's life was often left totally transformed by the end of the story. All kinds of seismic shifts in their abilities, their home environments, their romantic lives and their understanding of the world. It seemed crazy to say that these characters weren't changing. But they weren't.
 
In all these books, the hero or heroine saw massive changes in their situation by the end of the story, but they very rarely experienced any shift or development in their character. They were always essentially the same person by the finale of the story, no matter what they had been through. And the finale normally consisted of this person getting what they had wanted all along - without ever having reassessed those desires, made a significant sacrifice to fulfil them, or even question why they desired what they did in the first place.

In fact, it was like the authors had gotten confused on the difference between plot and character.

In my head, I could just imagine these writers proudly saying: 'Look at my character's amazing arc! She goes from a lonely teenager with no idea of her true heritage to a superpowered elf with a hot elvish boyfriend and lots of elvish friends!' Or maybe: 'My character develops from a cold and solitary existence as a lab rat in a secret government facility to a free person and a member of a warm, happy family!' I found many reviews which talked about the plot and the character development in this way, as if they were interchangeable.

But those descriptions above do not touch on any character's arc at all. Nor do they count as character development. They describe plots. And when a plot is serving double duty - trying to be a character arc too - the events (no matter how well paced, well written and exciting) of a story will feel essentially empty. It doesn't matter if the stakes are as small as a girl longing for a date to the prom, or as epic as The End of the World. If the change in the character's situation isn't significant enough to change *them* in any way, then how could the book feel satisfying, let alone leave the reader feeling changed?

These books would turn the POV character's whole world upside down. They might kill off a dear friend or family member right before their eyes, remove them from the only family or environment they'd ever known, or reveal that they had a secret heritage they never knew about. They would pit the main character or characters against life-threatening danger, maybe force them to develop frightening new abilities, offer them the chance to fall passionately in love. I should have been gasping, crying, thrilling.

Yet none of those events, no matter how outwardly shocking or traumatic or wonderful, ever really moved me. They were just that. Events happening to a person. The narrative skimmed over the surface, failing to explore or even acknowledge the profound emotional effects that should have been the point of those story events in the first place. It was as if the writers thought that these Big Important Events by themselves were enough to involve my heart. But the End of the (story) World and everyone in it means absolutely nothing to me if the writer cannot show me what this means to the POV character/s.

In the best books, characterisation and plot are so entwined, so integral to each other and to the events of the book, that they do almost feel like the same thing. But they have fundamentally different functions within a narrative, and trying to create a decent story without one or the other is like trying to have spectacles without frames, frames without the lenses.

Even if you do turn your plain, lonely teen into a superpowered elf and give her a hot boyfriend and an elvish family, you still need to make sure that her established traits, beliefs, insecurities and priorities are challenged, strengthened, destroyed or resolved by the end of the book. We need to see that everything she has been through has affected her meaningfully.

Remember that you're a writer, not the wish-granting fairy from Cinderella. Don't just look at your plot as a series of events that get your hero or heroine to their desired outcome. Not even a series of awesomecoolsauce events. Look at them as ways to push and challenge your character, to expose her deepest traits and develop her personality. Readers long to see the main character become the person they could or should be, not just get the stuff they want.

Your main character doesn't need to evolve into into an entirely new being by the end of the story. In fact, it's better if she doesn't. Changes that happen to the character throughout need to grow naturally from who they are at the start - their core qualities - and the particular pressures that the story and the plot events put on them. The last thing you want is to have the character do a complete u-turn and become someone unrecognisable. That's not satisfying either.

So maybe your elvish heroine started the story as a selfish and insecure girl who was callous to others because she was afraid people would see how vulnerable she was - and in order to get the family and the love she always wanted, she first had to realise that she must treat others well, and be willing to risk giving love, with no guarantee it would be returned?

Maybe she was frightened and timid, a girl who refused to take risks - and she had to find the seeds of courage inside herself, even risk losing the ones she hoped would love her, before she was worthy of them?

Or maybe she was filled with self-loathing, yearning for affection but still convinced she didn't deserve it - and had to learn to value and care for herself first, before she could finally find a place among people who would value and care for her the same way?

Those are CHARACTER arcs. See how they differ from the plot ones? They're about learning, changing, growing, not about getting stuff.

You need to ensure you're putting time and thought into your character's development even if you're writing the first volume of a trilogy or series. In fact, it's even more vital, because if I think you're holding stuff back from me in book one I'm probably not going to bother to go and buy book two. I need to feel that you've got a character arc in your mind as well as a plot one.

An easy way to figure out if you've achieved worthwhile character development is to give your main character or characters a choice. A pivot-point, somewhere near the end of the story. Arrange events so that things could go either way - disaster or triumph - and make the whole thing hinge on a moment of choice for the character. If they act the way they would have at the beginning of the story? Disaster. Even if they act the way that they would have midway through the story. They need to have grown and developed enough that you feel they could reasonably go in the other direction. Then you and the reader will be able to see that they have become who they were meant to be, and that they deserve their happy ending (if you've been nice enough to give them one!).

A great example of this is Katniss' decision at the end of The Hunger Games. At the beginning of the book Katniss' one priority is to win, to survive the Games by any means necessary, because she believes that Prim needs her - and because she doesn't believe in anything other than that. By the end of the book, she is willing to swallow poisonous berries along with with Peeta rather than sacrifice her soul by trying to kill him, and let the Capitol win. She has changed significantly because of the events of the story - but we still see the qualities of bravery, strength and self-sacrifice that Katniss had at the beginning of the book, too. Those traits have just been strengthened and honed by her ordeal.

In Closing: plot is about going places, doing things and getting stuff - changes in situation. Characterisation is about changing, growing and learning stuff - changes in the character's core. Make sure you have both these things running side by side, and you will make Zolah a very happy reader.

I hope this makes sense to you, my lovelies. Any questions? Pop them in the comments.

MERMAID MADNESS

Hello, hello, hello, Dear Readers! I hope you've had a great week since you read me last. Thank you so much to everyone who reached out to me after my appeal in that previous post; I appreciate every single person who got in contact. I know that it probably wasn't easy for many of you to email a stranger out of the blue, and even though I've told you this individually in private, I think you also deserve to have your generosity, courageousness, and beautiful creative spirit acknowledged collectively and publicly here too. You're all amazing.

I'm not replying to comments on that post anymore because frankly the discussion there ballooned out of control in a way that the Blogger comment function is simply not designed to handle. Please consider emailing me if you'd like to get involved as well. I have now completed a detailed synopsis for Codename: DtH incorporating the spirit of as much of the advice I was given as possible, and sent that off to Super Agent. I'm waiting for her to get back to me about it, and then we'll hopefully pitch it to my publisher.

In the meantime I've been writing deleted scenes for the Frail Human Heart blog tour that's going to start at the end of the month (more on that when the details are finalised) but this was interrupted for a little while by a spate of what I've mentally dubbed The Mermaid Madness online, when I noticed a certain post on US author Maggie Stiefvater's Tumblr, made my own version, and then fabulous fellow UKYA author Keris Stainton took it to Twitter.

To say it caught on would be a bit of an understatement. For a couple of days there everything was mermaids and nothing hurt. The delirium seems mostly to have passed off now, but I thought it would be nice to share the results anyway. So first of all here's Mermaid Me:

The only thing that actually resembles me here is the hair - bit that is 100% accurate

Then Alexandra from The Swan Kingdom:

Zira from Daughter of the Flames (this is after she's crowned queen and has let her hair grow out a bit):

And Suzume - or rather, Yue - from Shadows on the Moon:

But the biggest demand on Twitter was for Mermaid versions of the Name of the Blade crew. So here's Jack:

 Hikaru:

And Mio and Shinobu:

Annoying that only the male mermaid had a weapons option, yes - but let's pretend it's Mio's day off or something!

Plus Mio by herself:

Yes, Mermaid Mio has more than one outfit. I couldn't give her a sword - there were no swords - so she got glowy magic instead

And as I type this, I realise I never did a mermaid version of Rachel, which doesn't seem fair? So I'd better go and get on that, hadn't I? Purely, of course, or fairness' sake...

*Skips away, cackling*

NEW STUFF!

Hello, hello, hello, and happy Tuesday, Dear Readers! I hope everyone had a productive weekend and, if you were lucky enough to glimpse the sun, that you made an effort to get out and soak a bit of it up (through properly applied sunscreen, of course).

Today I bring some updates. First of all, Book Two of The Name of the Blade, aka Darkness Hidden, aka The Sequel That Ate My Brain is FINALLY finished, approved and off to copyedits, whhooop! No more structural changes, no more arguing minute yet vital points of character motivation, no more asking myself and my editor 'Wait, does she know that yet?' no more waking up in the night in a cold sweat crying: 'What about the tone of the first scene in chapter three?!?' The ms will, of course, be back to me in no time at all, covered in precise and picky notes in red ink - but after everything it's taken to get the book to this stage, frankly, I care not at all not at all. Tee hee!

*Jumps in the air, clicks heels together*

Onto the next thing! Remember when I told you about this anthology, to which I had been invited to contribute, and mysteriously hinted about the story I was going to tell for it? Well, having spoken about it to both the anthology editor and my U.S. editor at Candlewick Press, I can now share a few more details.

I'm hoping to tell the story of a young Akira (from Shadows on the Moon); what her life was like, how she ended up dancing for the Moon Prince at the Shadow Ball, and what happened next. The working title for this story is 'Stormclouds Fleeing from the Wind', although that may change as I go on. I'm thrilled to be able to shed light on what's always struck me as an incredibly romantic and tragic backstory, which sprang from one of my all-time favourite characters ever. I know from talking to readers that many of you love Akira as much as I do, and are really keen to know more about her. So I'm also a little tense and apprehensive about writing this. It's a lot of pressure; Akira deserves the best. This has to be goooood.

I have a clear stretch of time from now until the 31st of October, when I'll be heading off to World Fantasy Con in Brighton, and I hope to get at least the rough draft finished before then. Wish me luck with it, my duckies.

Which brings me onto the next thing: The Name of the Blade Book Three! Soon (soon, my precious!) I will be able to concentrate my full attention and love on this trilogy ender which I adore sossososososo very much. I cannot wait. I've got just over 50% of this drafted and a very clear idea of how everything should proceed but still - wish me luck with that as well, OK? I left the ms at a really tricksy moment and I'm hoping I'll be able to enmesh myself back into it all again without too much rending of hair and garments. I normally find the middle and ending of a book much easier and more enjoyable to write than the beginning, but you know trilogies. They don't always follow the rules. And this is going to be pretty emotional to finish. You guys literally have no idea what... er. Hmmm. Spoilers. Never mind.

*Evil laughter*

Anyhoo, that's what-up with me. What about you? Share in the comments!

THE NIGHT ITSELF: CHIBI

Hello, my lovelies! First the news that after slipping down quite a few places on Waterstones Not Just For Teens Bestseller Chart, today The Night Itself shot back up again to No. 45, its highest ranking yet! Thank you so much to everyone for helping this happen! Again, I'm not entirely sure what it means in terms of actual sales numbers, but I do know that it must be a good thing - at the very least for my peace of mind. Let's all cross our fingers it stays there for a little while, or maybe even climbs higher. *Hugs for all*

As a way of sharing my sheer happiness over this, Thursday's post brings you adorable The Night Itself fan-service goodness and a link so that you can enjoy adorable fan-service goodness for yourself (or your characters) if you'd like.

I give you... CHIBI THE NIGHT ITSELF!

Mio, the heroine of the pice! Isn't she so cute? There was no hand-held katana in the Chibi-Maker arsenal unforunately, so she had to have a normal longsword instead. Boo! Everything else is pretty good, though.

Ah, Jack, our mischieveous and wise-cracking sidekick. The minute I saw that skull t-shirt and tights, I knew she would be happy. Shame I couldn't add the pink and purple highlights to her hair, though. Just imagine those.

Shinobu! Look at his gorgeous worried little face. The Chibi-Maker did offer twin katanas for his back, but they got lost in his hair, so again he got a normal broadsword and a ninja-knife to symbolise his katana and wakizashi.

Rachel, Jack's sister and perpetually exasperated baby-sitter, with her beloved mug of tea. This outfit is so her, I clapped like a seal. 

Last but not least, fan-favourite Hikaru! Oooh, you cheeky rascal you - is that a foxlight in your hand? Who did you pinch that from? Don't swish your tail at me, either! I know your tricks!

Making these gave me a disturbing amount of satisfaction - but they're cute, darnit! I regret nothing! Here's a link to the Chibi-Maker for all your own fanservice/character building needs.

If you'd like to know my answers to 20 intriguingly random questions, pop long to Sister Spooky's new feature.

Oh! And another link to where you can buy the fancy-pants hardback version of Shadows on the Moon (with different haiku to the UK edition, and red foiling and endpapers) for under £4 with free postage and packaging! Anyone who loves to own hardbacks or wants to know how the US haiku turned out should get in there pronto, before they run out of stock.

That's all for today, my duckies. Remember, next week is the final InCreWriJul Check In, so if you want to be entered into the prize draw, make sure you've commented on ALL the Check Ins so far and that you turn up for this one, too. Happy writing!

A QUESTION OF SHADOWS

Hello, Dear Readers! Happy Thursday. After Tuesday's long, serious post, I thought it would be nice to have something a bit shorter and more cheerful today. Hence, a rather lovely reader question from the rather lovely Tanya:

I was really captivated from your book called shadows on the moon. It is by far the best book I have read in my life. It was so emotional yet strong. I really loved how you changed the concept on Cinderella. I was wondering if you can make a sequel to this book because I love it and love you and your stories.

D'aw, so sweet. Thank you, Tanya! I'm incredibly happy that you liked the book this much. Emails and comments like yours always make my day; these words are literally worth their weight in gold to me. Now, as to your question: I've answered this one a few times for a few different people in a few different places, but it keeps coming up again. It seems like a good idea to answer it here, definitively, once and for all.

So... is there any chance of a direct a sequel to Shadows on the Moon starring Suzume, Otieno and Akira?

Nope. At least, not right now.

Why is that?

Well, although I do have a very strong idea of what happens to them after they leave Tsuki no Hikari no Kuni and travel to Athazie, that strong idea does not include any events interesting enough to write a book about.

Basically, in my own head (and of course, you are free to have an entirely different version of this, and ignore everything I've written here) they get to Athazie after a long sea journey and have a slightly awkward adjustment period for a little while. Suzume struggles with everything that she has done up to now, and the feeling that she does not deserve happiness. She is not sure how to build a new identity that she actually wants to live with. But eventually, with everyone's love and support, she settles down. A large part of her own healing process is based in learning to heal other people like her - people who have been traumatised and left with scars on their minds and hearts - using her musical gift. She and Otieno stay together and eventually have children whom they love dearly and who fill their lives with laughter and a bit of craziness. Akira, in the meantime, becomes very famous because of her amazing dancing talent. She travels all over the country, performing to worshipful crowds. After a few years, she and Otieno's father admit that they have fallen in love, and get married. They, too, are very happy.

After reading that, you might be thinking - hey, that sounds pretty awesome to me. I'd read that. Why can't you write that?

Because it's a happy ending - not a story. The events I've described there wouldn't generate enough excitement to fill even fifty pages. There's no conflict. Nothing changes significantly. No one gets hurt. A book in which the only events are everyone quietly being happy and having peaceful, contented lives might sound soothing but in reality it would be the b-word. Yes, that b-word. BORING.

In order for me to actually write a book about Suzume and Otieno and Akira's lives in Athazie, I would need to have a revelation about what happens to them in their future. I'd need to wake up one day and realise that there was going to be a terrible plague, or a war, or that one of them was going to die and leave the others bereft. And you know what? I don't wanna! I don't want to take a wrecking ball to their contentment. I want these guys to fade happily into the sunset. I've already put them through enough, don't you think? They deserve to retire.

It's possible that I might write a short story one day about their lives in Athazie. I have an idea for that, and an idea where it could be published. But unless my muse decides to be horribly cruel, I don't think I'm ever going to write a proper sequel.

HOWEVER.

That doesn't mean you'll never get to visit Tsuki no Hikari no Kuni again. I love that setting deeply and I feel as if there are lots more stories to be told there. After I've finished writing The Name of the Blade bk# 3, the next book I'm going to work on will actually be a companion novel to Shadows on the Moon, set in The Moonlit Lands. This will be another fairytale retelling - Beauty and the Beast this time - and while the characters from Shadows on the Moon won't be making an appearance, their influence will be felt in the story. I'm very excited by this book. You can get an idea what it's going to be like by visiting the Pinterest board I have set up for it.

I hope that makes you feel a little bit better, Tanya. Thank you again for your email :)

A LETTER TO MY CHARACTERS

Dear Characters of The Name of the Blade,

Hi! How are you all doing? Ha ha - do you see what I did there? Asking how you're doing when of course I know because I'm the one that put you all in that position in the first place!

Ahem. Er. Sorry about that.

Anyway, yes, it's me, your author - the big, blinky lady you occasionally notice looming in the sky above you. Yes, the one with the scary look in her eyes and pens in her hair. Yes, and occasionally pen on her face too. But please don't be alarmed! I'm just here to let you know about some - ah - some changes.

Remember that other nice lady who periodically comes along and scrawls red notes all over the margins of your adventures? It's her job to make sure that your triumphs (and tragedies, let's not forget about those) are as clear - as effective and exciting - as possible. She helps to make sure you have enough to do, all evenly spaced out, without long boring chunks or bits that feel rushed and under-developed, and she's concerned about showcasing all your characters at their best and making sure that you grow. She really does have all your best interests at heart. And she and I have had a couple of long chats recently. About you.

So... here's the thing. I wrote a new first chapter for you. You guys don't know about it because I wrote it in a new document rather than amending the master draft. I wasn't keeping secrets! I just didn't want to subject you to all that upheaval and confusion until I was sure that I had got that new first chapter right. It's... it's a very different first chapter. It starts at a completely different place than the one you have now, and it leads into a somewhat different first half for the book you're living in.

Well, the Red Pen Lady (we call her Wonder Editor up here, but I appreciate that you have a different point of view) has read this new first chapter and she likes it. Which is great! It means that I'll be putting that new chapter in place in the master draft today, though, so prepare yourselves for some minor side-effects. The usual sort of thing - dizziness, light-headedness, a bit of confusion. Wherever you are, just sit down until it passes.

When this new beginning is in place, of course you're going to notice that things look a bit different. You, yourselves, will be a tiny bit different. Now, I don't want you to panic when you see that! I promise that I know what I'm doing. Or - well, Red Pen Lady does anyway. So try not to stress out about it too much.

I'm not going to lie. This isn't the end of the process. I'll be making changes - some fairly subtle, others that are more major - throughout the whole manuscript. Some scenes will be cut, others trimmed down. Some scenes will be extended. Many of them will turn out differently than they did before. Some of you will find yourselves saying things you might not have done, or doing things you might not have done before. Some of you may... cease to be. It will all be done as painlessly as possible.

Just follow this new flow of action where it goes, act as your instincts tell you to, and everything will be fine. All of this is intended to help you shine, to help your story shine. And, as always, I am ready and willing to listen to your input and to alter and amend according to what you tell me.

So if you respond to any of this by freezing up and refusing to speak to me, and then I get it all wrong? You will really have NO ONE BUT YOURSELVES TO BLAME.

Ahem.

OK, I think that's everything! Have a lovely day, everyone! Well, as much as you can, with the [spoilers] and the [spoilers] and the [spoilers] right in the [spoilers] [spoilers]. But it could all be much worse. You could be living in a Cassandra Clare novel. She'd do far worse things to you than I can. So bear that in mind.

Much Love,
Zolah xx

DEVELOPING CHARACTERS: Harder Than it Looks

Hello, Dear Readers! It's time for another one of my opinionated posts about writing. But half of the credit for this one goes to the inimitable and lovely Holly of the Furtive Scribblers Club (my writing group) with whom I was recently grousing on this topic. Hi Holls!

What were we grousing about? The fact that both of us (reading on opposite sides of the Atlantic ocean, no less) had lately picked up so many books which had fantastic central premises, which were well paced, pretty well written, full of exciting incidents and maybe even had some initially interesting characters but which - despite all this! - somehow in the end left us feeling empty.

Unsatisfied. Cheated. Frustrated. Unmoved. Convinced, somehow, that the whole exercise of turning pages - despite the exciting incidents and great premises and decent writing - had just been a waste of time.

After we'd been talking in detail for a while about the various books which had disappointed us this way and trying to figure out just what was WRONG with them, one of us (who knows which one - it was a loooong moaning session) suddenly put our finger on it. The problem was character development. Or, rather, the lack of it.

Now, you might think this would have been an obvious problem for two writers to notice and figure out. But actually the lack of character development in these books was being masked by the fact that the main character's life was often being totally transformed by the end of the story. All kinds of seismic shifts in their abilities, their home environments, their romantic lives and their family situations were going on. It seemed crazy to say that these characters weren't developing. But they weren't.
 
We realised that in all these books, although the heroine - it was normally a heroine - might have experienced massive changes in her situation by the end of the story, she very rarely experienced any change in her character. She was always essentially the same person by the finale of the story, no matter what she had been through. And the finale normally consisted of her getting what she had wanted all along - without her ever having reassessed those desires, or questioning why she desired what she did in the first place.

In fact, it was like the authors had gotten confused on the difference between plot and character.

In my head, I could just imagine these writers proudly saying: 'Look at my character's amazing arc! She goes from a lonely teenager with no idea of her true heritage to a superpowered elf with a hot elvish boyfriend and lots of elvish friends!' Or maybe: 'My character develops from a cold and solitary existence as a lab rat in a secret government facility to a free person and a member of a warm, happy family!' After a bit of checking, I found many reviews which talked about the plot and the character development in this way, as if they were interchangeable. It seems this is a common misconception. Common enough even to fool the editors who should have caught this and helped their authors to overcome it.

Because, you see, those descriptions above do not touch on any character's arc at all. Nor do they count as character development. They describe plots. And when a plot is serving double duty - trying to be a character arc too - the events (no matter how well paced, well written and exciting) of a story will feel essentially empty. It doesn't matter if the stakes are as small as a girl longing for a date to the prom, or as epic as The End of the World. If the change in the character's situation isn't significant enough to change *them*, then why on earth would reading the book make the reader feel changed?

These books would turn the heroine's whole world upside down. They might kill off her best friend right before her eyes, remove her from the only family she knew, or tell her that she had a secret heritage she never knew about. They would pit her against life-threatening danger, maybe force her to develop frightening new abilities, make her fall passionately in love. Surely I should have been gasping, crying, thrilling?

Yet none of those events, no matter how outwardly shocking or traumatic or wonderful, ever really moved me. The way they were depicted simply skimmed over the surface of the profound emotional effect on the character that should have been the whole point of those events in the first place. It was as if the writers thought that these Big Important Events by themselves were enough to involve my heart. But the End of the World (the world the writer has created) and everyone in it means absolutely nothing to me if the writer cannot show me what this means to the POV character.

In the best books, characterisation and plot are so entwined, so integral to each other and to the events of the book, that they do almost feel like the same thing. But they have fundamentally different functions within a narrative, and trying to create a decent story without one or the other is like trying to have spectacles without frames, frames without the lenses.

Even if you do turn your plain, lonely teen into a superpowered elf and give her a hot boyfriend and an elvish family, you still need to make sure that her established traits, beliefs, insecurities and priorities are challenged, strengthened, destroyed or resolved by the end of the book. We need to see that everything she has been through has affected her meaningfully. If the heroine starts the book longing for someone to love her and ends up with a family and boyfriend, that is all well and good - but it's still plot and not characterisation.

Remember that you're a writer, not the wish-granting fairy from Cinderella. Don't just look at your plot as a series of events that get your hero or heroine to a desired outcome. Not even a series of awesomecoolsauce events. Look at them as ways to push and challenge your character, to display her traits and develop her personality. Readers long to see the main character become the person they should be, not just get the stuff they want.

Your main character doesn't need to evolve into into an entirely new being by the end of the story. In fact, it's better if she doesn't. Changes that happen to the character throughout need to grow naturally from who they are at the start - their core qualities - and the particular pressures that the story and the plot events put on them. The last thing you want is to have the character do a complete u-turn and become someone unrecognisable. That's not satisfying either.

So maybe your elvish heroine started the story as a selfish and insecure girl who was callous to others because she was afraid people would see how vulnerable she was - and in order to get the family and the love she always wanted, she first had to realise that she must treat others well, and be willing to risk giving love, with no guarantee it would be returned?

Maybe she was frightened and timid, a girl who refused to take risks - and she had to find the seeds of courage inside herself, even risk losing the ones she hoped would love her, before she was worthy of them?

Or maybe she was filled with self-loathing, yearning for affection but still convinced she didn't deserve it - and had to learn to value and care for herself first, before she could finally find a place among people who would value and care for her the same way?

Those are CHARACTER arcs. See how they differ from the plot ones? They're about learning, changing, growing, not about getting stuff.

You need to ensure you're putting time and thought into your character's development even if you're writing the first volume of a trilogy or series. In fact, it's even more vital, because if I think you're holding stuff back from me in book one I'm probably not going to bother to go and buy book two. I need to feel that you've got a character arc in your mind as well as a plot one.

An easy way to figure out if you've achieved worthwhile character development is to give your main character or characters a choice. A pivot-point, somewhere near the end of the story. Arrange events so that things could go either way - disaster or triumph - and make the whole thing hinge on a moment of choice for the character. If they act the way they would have at the beginning of the story? Disaster. Maybe even if they act the way that they would have midway through the story. So they need to have grown and developed enough that you feel they could reasonably go in the other direction. Then you and the reader will be able to see that they have become who they were meant to be, and that they deserve their happy ending (if you've been nice enough to give them one!).

A great example of this is Katniss' decision at the end of The Hunger Games. At the beginning of the book Katniss' one priority is to win, to survive the Games by any means necessary, because she believes that Prim needs her - and because she doesn't believe in anything other than that. By the end of the book, she is willing to swallow poisonous berries along with with Peeta rather than sacrifice her soul by trying to kill him, and let the Capitol win. She has changed significantly because of the events of the story - but we still see the qualities of bravery, strength and self-sacrifice that Katniss had at the beginning of the book, too. Those traits have just been strengthened and honed by her ordeal.

In Closing: plot is about going places, doing things and getting stuff - changes in situation. Characterisation is about changing, growing and learning stuff - changes in the character's core. Make sure you have both these things running side by side, and you will make Zolah a very happy reader.

I hope this makes sense to you, my lovelies. Any questions? Pop them in the comments. See you on Tuesday :)

RETROTUESDAY: WHO DESERVES A HAPPILY EVER AFTER?

Hi guys! Happy Tuesday to all. I'm working on a reader question post for Thursday, but today I felt it was a good time to unearth an essay that I wrote last year (mainly because I've come across yet another review which raised the same issues). So sit back, relax, and enjoy the ranty stylings of:

RetroTuesday: 

WHO DESERVES A HAPPILY EVER AFTER?

Over the weekend I got a Google Alert to tell me that an early review of Shadows on the Moon had appeared on a blog. I checked it out and the review was generally positive and had lots of nice things to say about the book, but despite this it caused me to nearly fall off the sofa in utter horror at two issues the reviewer raised.

I'm not going to name the blog or provide a link. For a start, I don't want to cause a dogpile. More importantly, I know that the reviewer has the absolute right to think and say whatever she wants. In many ways, her opinion on my book is none of my business. I have no problem with her at all, and I don't take issue with her review.

My horror had its origin in the sudden sinking sensation that the points the blogger raised were going to come up again. And again. And yet again. We live in a prejudiced world full of unfair assumptions and privilege, and when I wrote Shadows on the Moon I didn't think about any of that. I just wrote what I wanted and needed to write. My horror came from the realisation that we live in a world where people can still make statements which I feel betray a terrible lack of understanding for those different from them, without any apparent consciousness of the fact. If these points are going to end up being common in the discussion of the book - and I feel worried that they will - then I really want to make a definitive statement about them now.

The first thing that slapped me in the face was the language used to describe Otieno, the male main character in the story. Otieno is a member of a diplomatic party visiting the heroine's country from a foreign land. He's highly educated, softly spoken, funny and intelligent. He is emotionally articulate, polite, loves music and is an accomplished archer. The reviewer acknowledged much of this. Yet they still used the terms 'exotic' and 'savage' to describe him.

Why?

I bet you've already guessed. Otieno is black.

I think any regular reader of the blog will know how I feel about writing books that reflect the beautiful diversity of the real world, especially in fantasy (if not, go here, you'll soon get it). Shadows on the Moon is set in a faerytale version of Japan, so the vast majority of the characters are what we in the Western world would describe as 'Asian' in appearance. I created Otieno and his family to provide a contrast to this mono-ethnic world. I also created them to provide a contrast to the heroine Suzume's repressed, rigid, emotionally barren life. Otieno is, in many ways, the heroine's moral compass within the story.

I want to make it clear: Otieno is not 'savage'. Animals are savage. He is not exotic. Fruit is 'exotic'. Those terms are what is known as 'othering' language - language which isolates and alienates people, which subtly portrays them as less human, just because they are different to you. This is not okay. When you discuss characters of colour, please consider this.

Now we come to the second point which disturbed me: the attitude to mental illness.

The blogger very rightly picked up on the fact that Suzume suffers with depression throughout most of the book, and her ways of dealing with this are often self-destructive. No one who had been through the ordeal the heroine had by the age of fourteen could escape without suffering deep emotional trauma. Especially not if they had any vestiges of control wrenched out of their hands and were then forced to repress all their emotions about what had happened. I think it's also clear that Suzume's mother had depressive tendencies and passed these onto her daughter (just as my mother passed depressive tendencies onto me, and her mother passed them to her). To be fair, the reviewer had no problem with this.

What she did have a problem with? Was that Suzume was not cured of this depression by the end of the book. The blogger said she found it hard to believe in Suzume's future happiness because her depression was not fully 'addressed'. She wanted to know that Suzume would 'prevail' over her self destructive behaviour.

Look. This...I don't even know how to express how wrong this is. But it is sadly representative of a strong underlying assumption made by many neurotypical people (and, in fact, many people who themselves have mental health problems): that mental illness is a kind of fatal flaw in the personality, a stain on the character, an inescapable shadow on the life of the afflicted person. That it must surely be impossible for anyone to live a normal life if they're, you know, a bit cuckoo, and that in order for a fictional character to complete their story arc, they must throw off their mental illness and take their place among the normal people.

*No.*

PEOPLE WITH MENTAL ILLNESS DESERVE HAPPILY EVER AFTERS.

There is no cure for depression - not even in this day and age. Sometimes it goes away on its own, and sometimes you suffer with it periodically for your whole life. Sometimes it's as mild as feeling sad and low for no reason and sometimes it's as extreme as feeling that all you want is to kill yourself. And guess what? Millions of people live with it. I do. That doesn't mean we can't be happy, or that we need to be in limbo until we somehow figure out a way to escape from our mental illness. It doesn't mean the only worthwhile stories about us need to be stories of finding a mythical cure for the way our brains work instead of stories of having adventures *despite* our mental health issues.

And here's another fact: people who self harm also deserve happy endings. They can HAVE a happy ending even if, now and again, they may revert to self-harming again during times of stress.

How can these issues be addressed? How can a character prevail over their depression and their tendency to self harm? Well, they can take control of their own life as much as possible. They can isolate the things that trigger depression and work on that. They can make the decision to try to resist self-destructive behaviours. It's not a dramatic-flash-of-light-chorus-of-angels kind of thing. It's an ongoing process, and it's hard. This is what Suzume decides to do at the end of Shadows on the Moon. Because there is no super-special-awesome-sparkly cure for mental illness or self-harm. And the young adults who are going through similar trials in their own lives KNOW THIS.

How much of a cop-out would it have been for me to show my character shrugging off her trauma and suffering like an old cloak and skipping away with unalloyed, undamaged happiness at the end of all she had been through?

Just what message would that have given to anyone reading the book who has a mental illness? 'Get over it or you'll never get a happily ever after?'

You know what? Imma say it again:

PEOPLE WITH MENTAL ILLNESS DESERVE HAPPILY EVER AFTERS.

So do people with scars and disabilities (which is why Zira and Sorin don't get magically healed at the end of Daughter of the Flames)! So do all kinds of people who are not perfect, normal, typical and beautiful. So do people who have made mistakes, done awful things, and hope one day to redeem themselves. So do people who are lost and lonely or isolated or 'othered' by the society where they dwell.

These are the people that Shadows on the Moon was written for. And to them I offer a big virtual hug, and a virtual cookie, and the assurance that there are people out there who do understand. You are not alone.

A QUESTION OF PREPARATION

Hello, Dear Readers - and Happy Monday! I hope you've all had a productive weekend. I enjoyed the tiny bit of autumn sunshine we got, and also watched Disney's Tangled for the first time (and adored it! Animated films really are better than live action ones at least half the time these days).

Today I'm going to tackle a couple of reader questions which are looooong overdue for an answer.

On Twitter, the lovely Liz asked me: "When does the world building stop?" Followed by (as far as I can remember, since TweetDeck ate the rest of the question) "If you want a complex, intricate world with lots of detail, obviously you need to do a lot of planning and world building. How do you know when you should stop, and start the actual writing?" My apologies if you actually said something different, Liz!

Then, in the comments, Megha said: "I'm not much of a person to plan - it's horribly hard. I know I need to do it, and I do plan before I start a story, but I feel like I don't plan enough. I know what will happen, but I don't know my characters as well as any other writer. Is this because I am young, because I am a sort of beginner writer, or because I'm one of the people who can work finely without planning? Is it okay to be one of those people who don't plan as much and like to improvise as they go along, or is that a bad thing? I can't control this urge of plunging into my book. You know when you have a special beginning scene in your head? I just need to write it straight away, and hence I start my story. Is there any way I can plan enough? I really think I need to plan more, I'm just horrible at it."

Since these questions are basically coming at the same idea from different directions, I'm going to save on waffling by answering them in one go. 

First of all, I think it's important to state that every book is different. Some stories and characters will shape their own world and their own narrative shape as you write, and you'll find yourself throwing all kinds of stuff in there that's pure invention, and then knitting it together into a coherant whole later on, when you revise (this is how I worked with The Swan Kingdom). Some characters and stories respond very well to planning, and need a lot of forethought into how the plot will unfold, and research into real world analogues before you can see a clear way to make everything work (this is how Shadows on the Moon was).

And some books (like Daughter of the Flames) are somewhere between the two.

I've seen writers say that they find it easy to get very carried away by their research, that they love diving into reference books and making notes and reading up all about their topics. That before they commit a single word to paper they produce intricate, bullet pointed synopses which break down every chapter into colour coded lists, and that they always know just what their characters are supposed to do.

I've seen other writers say that the very idea of figuring all this stuff before they begin their story makes their soul die a little. That it literally sucks every bit of fun out of their process to try and plan ahead, and that if they don't know what happens next they make a note that says 'Research this!' or 'Insert scene that makes sense of the stuff in the river' and then move onto something else, letting the characters do whatever they want and finding out about the world and story that way.

And then there's me. I'm somewhere between the two.

What am I trying to say here? Really, that there's no foolproof way of doing this. Not only is every writer different in what helps them, but every book is different in terms of what it needs. There's no calculation you can run which will work out if you've done enough planning or enough world-building. You can't pencil in two weeks or two months of planning/world building and then know, for certain, that you've done enough. And no one is going to point a finger at you and say 'Hey! What you doing there, diving into this story without a plan?! Stop it at once!' or 'Oi! That world building is way too intricate! You're wasting time!'

The only way to know if you've done enough preparation for the story is to start writing it.

If you get past your brilliant first chapter and then feel at a complete loss because the world feels like a fuzzy mess that you can't visualise and you don't know how to move forward with the characters? Then you didn't do enough preparation. Go back and start again. It's not the end of the world. If you spent six months researching and planning and then find, a chapter or two into the story, that your characters want to do something entirely different and that you need to change key details to make that work? Does it hurt anyone or anything? No.

When you find yourself aching to write and holding yourself back from writing because you just need to research this one thing? You probably ought to just write. Similarly, if you start to feel like you'd be happy to keep world-building forever and have no urge to write the story at all? You may have taken it too far.

A key thing to remember:

The only way you can truly reveal your world to your readers - the way you make their ears ring with strange and haunting songs, choke them on dust, cause them to shudder in the cold, taste the sweet, soft flesh of ripe summer fruits or experience the warm breath on the back of their neck - is through the protagonist(s).

The way that your readers will experience the plot and other the characters - the surprise of a story twist, the horror of a betrayal or the joy of falling in love - is by the protagonist(s) is experiencing them.

Trying to figure out EVERYTHING before you begin work will always be impossible. Until your characters experience it in the story and make the readers do so, it's not real in the story world anyway. If you're in doubt about whether you need to plan in more detail or do more research, go back to your characters. Put yourselves in your character's skin, ask yourself what they will be or are experiencing (and how their unique perspective shapes that experience) and then you'll understand what they need to know, what their world and their story needs to provide.

You can do this before you begin work to show you how to start, or twelve chapters into the book when you start to feel lost, or (as I did) in the very last chapter of a book when you need an ending that resonates with everything that's gone before. You can do it as a planner or a pantser. I honestly believe that the characters are more important than anything, and that if you always place them at the apex of your list of priorities, you won't go far wrong.

I hope that's helpful, my lovelies! I'll be back on Wednesday with more shenanigans. Read you then!

RETROFRIDAY - TO CRY OR NOT TO CRY?

Hello, Dear Readers - and a happy, happy Friday!

A couple of days of solid work on revising Big Secret Project Book One have put me in a much better mood than the one you saw on Wednesday (sorry about that - hope no one was traumatised), as have other factors which I'm not really allowed to talk to you about (but never fear, I'll share as soon as I'm given the OK). So don't worry. That beastie with the fangs and the manic eyes is well-and-truly back in the box
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For today's RetroFriday I have once again trawled through the perilous archives of the Zoë-Trope to find an article that some of you may not have seen before, or may enjoy reading again. I give you:

TO CRY OR NOT TO CRY?

Today, I have been crying. Not wailing, sobbing, or beating my breast, mind you. A few dignified, crystaline tears slipping down the cheeks, the odd sniff. That sort of thing. But fear not. Nothing bad has happened to your favourite author (second favourite? Third? Fine, an author you might have heard of once, maybe). I've just been re-writing some emotional scenes in FF.

I quite often get a little het up when I'm writing. I don't set out to do it. I'll just be reading some dialogue out loud to myself and suddenly there's a catch in my throat. Or maybe there's no dialogue, and I'm working hard to capture a certain, intense moment in a character's life, and suddenly PLOP, there's a tear there on the page. There have definitely been times when I've finished my day's work with swollen nose and eyes, and headed straight for the chocolate stash. Shadows on the Moon was probably my weepiest work - but TSK and DotF had their moments too. FF is coming out somewhere near Shadows, but I haven't finished revising yet. It may get worse (O Joy).

Since I've always been this way it never occurred to me to question it, and I probably assumed that most other authors were the same way (whether they admitted it or not) up until recently. I remember reading a quote once that said 'No tears in the author, no tears in the reader' and thinking: Well, I've got that covered anyway.

But it turns out there are some authors who scorn this kind of rampant emotionalism, and who say that it's all just silliness and getting carried away. Do carpenters weep over their dovetail joints, these writers ask? Does an engineer get emotional when applying his wrench? No! Writing, they say, is a craft, like any other, and in order to use the tools of craft correctly one must maintain a proper emotional distance and realise that IT'S ALL JUST FICTION ANYWAY FOR CRISSAKES!!!

And hey, before we start badmouthing these guys - we're talking Maggie Stiefvater, Meg Cabot and Veronica Roth here. People whose success and opinions need to be respected. I do respect them.

I'm not just not sure I really agree.

Of course I can see, logically, where writers who say things like this are coming from. Anyone who feels the way they do is absolutely right - when it comes to their own work. But it seems a little prescriptive to be implying that people who do get very emotionally involved with their characters are just being silly. Writers, like all people, are famously individual. One writer's block is another writer's inspiration.

Yes, writing is a craft. A craft like carpentry or engineering. It has its own tools and it can be learned and improved with practise. But it's also an art (I'm not being pretentious here, because I think anything, really anything, can be an art if you love it and do your absolute best with it and believe in it). And contrary to common belief, the stuff of a writer's art is not words. Words are the medium. Just like a glassblower uses glass as a medium in which to capture light, so a writer uses words as a medium to capture emotion.

That's what being a writer is all about, right? Whether we want to make people laugh, or get angry, or feel sad, or happy, the important thing is that they feel. We create characters and stories and worlds with the specific intention of influencing a reader's emotions, of changing their feelings in this minute with our story. A writer of fiction wants to engage the reader's heart - and sometimes, some of us need to invest our own to get that. If I can't believe in a character enough to forget, now and then, that they're not real, then I don't think my readers will ever feel my characters are real at all.

On the other hand, fairly recently a very successful author Who Shall Not Be Named (*cough*LaurellKHamilton*cough*) annoyed and amused a lot of authors, including me, by putting out a blog post where she claimed that writing her novels was so emotionally painful for her that it resembled being dismembered, and that she was bleeding on her keyboard. Which. You know. Euw. And her major point seemed to be that anyone who doesn't feel this way is a BIG FAT SELLOUT FAKE and NOT A REAL WRITER.

Eeep. Pretty sure I don't agree there either. Any activity which caused such intense pain that I felt like I was bleeding all over the place would not be for me. Isn't writing supposed to be fun? Yes, it's hard work. Yes, it's emotionally draining at times. Yes, it can also be frustrating and (let's not forget) BADLY PAID. But if you hate it so much that it hurts you, for Sweet Baby Jesus's sake stop it. Whether you're doing yoga, competitive tap-dancing or ecologically-friendly beaver wresting, there is a difference between 'good pain' (muscles working, sweat rising, feel the burn) and bad pain (oh my god with the ouchy and the stinging and the make it stttooooppp). We writers might like to pretend that we're all eccentric oddballs for laughs, but this level of angst is bordering on some kind of personality disorder.

I guess what I'm trying to say here is: there are a lot of people in the world who will be telling you This Is How To Be A Writer. Some of them will say things that seem dead on. Others will apparently be talking some strange crazy language that sounds like a penguin gacking up its breakfast. Take what you find useful and move on, and, ultimately, do what works for you and makes you want to write more.

Because no one likes Mr Judgy-Writer-Pants.

A QUESTION OF UPSTAGING

Hello, Dear Readers. I'm not sure I can quite squeeze out a 'Happy Monday' this morning, as today I was woken at 6am by a panicked call from my mum. She'd gone to check her emails before leaving for work, and found that her laptop wouldn't start up. At all. Black screen of death. Horror.

I couldn't fix it before she had to leave, but two and a half hours later I was able to boot the thing up and now I'm back at my own computer guzzling coffee and trying to stuff my brains back in my ears.

So! Onto a question that came to me via email from a reader called Rachel. She asks:

"What do you do if two of your characters want to be the main character? I have a 10 year old boy and a 20 year old woman, and the boy should be the main character, since it's technically his story, but I feel like the woman has a story to tell as well, and I don't want to give her too much voice in case she just floods the actual story. What can I do?"

I call this upstaging, and it's a surprisingly common problem. In fact, looking back, I'd say I've had this problem in every single book that I've ever written. Just to make it a bit clearer: upstaging is where a character who was originally supposed to be minor or secondary turns out to have such life and magnetism that every scene they're in warps around them, pulling attention away from the main character and the main story.

When it happened to me while writing The Swan Kingdom and Daughter of the Flames, I dealt with it by panicking and cutting those upstaging characters down to mere shadows of their former selves. Being forced to do this left me with a nagging sense of guilt which I've never quite escaped, and which hasn't been helped by readers repeatedly mentioning that they wished they'd learned more about these characters, and asking me for their backstories. Readers can sense that strange magnetism pulsing away even though those characters are barely on the page anymore.

When I came to write Shadows on the Moon the same problem reared its head in the form of Akira. She was originally planned as a rather cold and emotionally distant character, lonely and cut-off, someone who would serve as a warning to the heroine about the perils of her chosen path. Instead, she immediately manifested as funny, charming and brilliantly, vividly ALIVE. And of course I panicked, just like normal. But by then it was too late, because I was so in love with her that I couldn't bear to cut her down. I just couldn't.

So...

I let her do what she wanted.

Which sounds completely mad. She wasn't the main character! How could I just let her go off and take over the story? She wanted to act in ways that completely messed up my plan for the plot! She made my main character a different person! She intruded into places she was never supposed to be!

And she made the story TEN TIMES BETTER.

You see, I don't think that your secondary character really wants to take over the story. She just wants to make it better. Your subconscious brain is telling you that you have a chance to make your main character more realistic and complex, and your main story deeper and more compelling. But you can't do that by working on that character and story directly - you're already doing the best there that you can. You need to do it indirectly by utilising the magnetism that this secondary character brings to the book and by using their story to reinforce the main one.

Look at this secondary character and her backstory. Look at what she wants. Where is she intruding? What is she changing? What does she want to say? Search for the ways that her story, her personality, parallel the main character and main plot. Search for the ways that they differ.

Just as Akira's story of transforming passion and love serve as a negative image of Suzume's feelings in Shadows on the Moon, I think you'll realise that if you give this character a bit more room to grow, her journey will complement and reinforce the journey of the main character and make the book richer, more complex and more moving than it ever could have been without her.

I hope this is helpful, Rachel!

Just a quick reminder today as well - I've had a few emails of the 'Please read my story and tell me what you think' variety lately. Here's a link to my website page where I address this, but in short - if you send me stories or samples of work, I can't and won't read them.

See you on Wednesday, folks!

A LETTER TO MY CHARACTERS

Dear Characters,

Exactly what are you trying to tell me?

Speak up! I can't stand all this muttering you young people do these days - in my day people spoke their minds so everyone could understand them. I can tell that there's something going on. I can hear you whispering behind my back and I'm bright enough to notice that you always fall silent when I walk in. Just what is the problem?

I mean, here we are, 70% through this wonderful story which - I fully admit! - you've helped me with in the most generous way. The plot has developed in all kinds of interesting and unexpected directions thanks to your input, and so many exciting things are going on right now. We've been looking forward to this section of the book since we first started writing it together, and I thought we'd be skipping through fields of daisies, hand-in-hand, at this point.

But suddenly you've changed.

You're dragging your feet. You keep sighing and looking over your shoulder and finding excuses to stay just where you are in this flaming scene where we've been stuck for a week. Instead of witty banter you're giving me grammatically correct dialogue with all the spark and humour of oatmeal.

I just can't tell what you're THINKING anymore.

Obviously there's something you want to share. So come on - out with it! I'm happy to listen to any concerns you've got. You want to add something? Take a few steps back and handle that last bit of action in a different way? Make time for smooching or a blazing row? Whatever you want, I'll do it!

We've been such good friends for so long. I can't cope with this silent treatment. Talk to me again, that's all I want. I know that our relationship is strong enough to survive, so long as we keep communicating.

Just stop ignoring me. Please.

Much love,
Your Worried Author

A QUESTION OF CHARACTER

Happy Monday, Dear Readers! I hope you all had a great weekend.

You'll be (vaguely) interested to know that my achievements this weekend included completing and posting back the U.S. copyedits for Shadows on the Moon (woooh!) and also breaking the 43,000 word mark on Big Secret Project (waaah!). Hopefully I should be able to share some more details of Big Secret Project with you within the next few months. I said hopefully. Cross your fingers!

After last week's blog extravaganza over on The Book Memoirs, today we're back to our regularly scheduled programming - which means answering some reader questions! The first questioner has chosen to remain anonymous, and says:

"I’m having boy trouble in my ms. The love interest is a supernatural creature who is helping my main character save the world. But the thing is...I don’t “feel” him. I know what he looks like but am worried he’s just a 1 dimensional character and I’m really struggling to put meat on him, which is making me worry a lot obviously. He is both cursed and blessed with various gifts but I’m thinking he’s just a bit meh. Too nice perhaps, too pouty...I don’t know. How do I rough him up, dirty him up, to make him attractive and a viable love interest for my main character?"

Strip it back a bit. You're telling me all about his outer attibutes here (Note: there was a more detailed description in the email, which I've redacted for confidentiality's sake), like who he is by birth, how he looks, his position, his talents. Clearly you've put a lot of thought into that, and that's great. But who is he inside?

That's what is really important. In order to 'feel' him, you need to dig into his soul and get to know him. Then I think the problem will solve itself. So, how to do that? Based on what you've told me about him, I think this might help.

1) Why is he helping the heroine in the first place?
What is his investment in trying to save mortals? Presumably there's some danger involved - why is he willing to risk it? Is he rebelling against something, trying to make amends for something, just doing it to impress a pretty girl? The reasons will be revealing.
2) What internal conflicts is he facing due to his decision to help the heroine?
He's a supernatural creature and the heroine is not. I'm guessing that supernaturals in your world don't generally go around offering a helping hand to humans just out of the goodness of their hearts, and unless your character has no family or friends within his own community (which, again, would be revealing) there must be some resistance from people he cares about to what he's doing. Is he betraying anyone, or putting his own life or someone else that he cares about in danger? How much does that matter to him?
3) What is his backstory?
What drives him to make these decisions, and take these risks? What has been the moment of supreme fear or anger or joy in his life so far, and how do the events of your story stack up against that? Has he been through so much in his past that nothing scares or moves him anymore, or is he really freaked out about what he's doing/risking?
4) How does he feel about the heroine?
He probably finds her attractive, but how does he really FEEL about her? What does he like about her? Dislike? And WHY? Is he scared of his feelings, or does he accept them easily? Does he conceal them from others, or even himself? How do these feelings interact with everything else he's been through in his life?

At the moment I think you're maybe focusing too much on what the heroine sees of him, or feels and thinks about him. Don't get me wrong - that's important, because (I'm guessing), that's the viewpoint you're telling the story from.

But the heroine is only seeing him from the outside. As the author, you need to see him from the inside, even if the reader and the POV character never do. In order to make him real to the reader, he needs to be real to you. Look at him as a person in his own right, not simply as a foil for the heroine. Look at the heroine and the world and his actions from HIS point of view.

Sometimes I find it really useful to let a non-viewpoint character ramble in my head a bit so that they have a chance to express their own internal monologue. The hero's viewpoint may never make it directly to the pages of your ms, but that doesn't mean he doesn't have one. Sit him down in your head and ask him to tell these events in his own words. What events would he start with. What would he have to say about the heroine? How would he describe himself? What are his justifications for his actions? Does he big himself up or play his role down?

Just free-write it, like a long, meandering dialogue. Hopefully soon you'll start to know and understand him not as Main Love Interest #1 but as a person - a complex, maybe conflicted individual with his own hopes and fears and dreams.

Onto the next question, which is from Aimen:

"I have this sort of pathological fear of my main characters. I'm afraid that all of them will turn out to be mean, unlikable b*stards who are unsympathetic and selfish and will eventually become tiring... I'd love to have any tips you can give on characterization and when a misunderstood character becomes so annoying that it is impossible to sympathize with him. I suppose that it also depends on readers somewhat but even if a character is ridiculously immature or in denial, what sort of becomes his redeeming quality? Or is that a question I have to answer?"

On the surface this question seems completely different to the first one - but in fact, you're having the exact same problem as Anonymous, Aimen. The exact same one.

You're looking at your characters from the outside, from the point of view of the reader, and worrying about what they will see. But you're the writer! You shouldn't ever be afraid of your main characters or feel that they're unsympathetic - because you can get inside them and see exactly who they are deep down. You can understand exactly what fears and insecurities and good intentions and fantasies dive them to act the way they do.

I think you should follow the advice I've given the first questioner. Stop worrying about what readers will see right now, because what is important is what YOU see. Ask yourself about the *inside* of the character - what is most important to them, what they fear most, what they love most, what they will fight to escape or protect. Trace their actions in your plot back to events in their past that have shaped them. Write a summary of the events of the story from their point of view, or get them to describe it themselves, or to give their opinions another main character. Get to really know them.

I think when you've done this you'll find that instead of a bunch of people who make you feel uneasy and worried and whom you feel are probably going to turn out to be b*stards, you'll end up with a group that you care about deeply and understand very well. And when you write them, that understanding and compassion will translate onto the page in such a way that readers will grow to care about them too, even if sometimes their actions are off-putting at times.

One other note (for both questioners!): I find readers have a lot of patience for characters who initially seem abrasive or unlikeable so long as they evolve throughout the story. That doesn't necessarily mean they need to undergo a startling transformation and become a whole new person, but the reader needs to see different aspects of them and watch their relationships with others develop. If they're evolving, that means they're a real person. If they stay static, that means they're cardboard.

More questions on writing, reading or publishing? Feel free to drop them in the comments or send me an email through my website. See you on Wednesday :)

READER QUESTIONS ANSWERED

Hi everyone - I hope you all had a great weekend! I had a signing on Saturday at my local bookshop and despite it being a very quiet day in the shopping centre (it was a beautiful, sunny day and everyone wanted to be out soaking up rays) I managed to sell a fairly good amount of books. Then I spent Sunday recovering because WHOO that was an exhausting ordeal.  

Just a little reminder for you again that once the Shadows on the Moon book trailer gets up above 1,000 views, there will be...goodies. Very good goodies. Keep watching it, recommend it to your friends, send the link out - it would be great if the trailer went viral.

Just in case you missed it, the final stop on the Shadows on the Moon Blog Tour was at the Overflowing Library with the lovely Kirsty. She had an extract of the book and a swag giveaway, so head on over there if you haven't already.

Now onto some reader questions! I really meant to get to these much much earlier, but all the release day stuff kind of derailed me. Sorry about the delay.

First up, then, is Gabbi, who emailed me about a dozen questions. A lot of them were things that I really think only Gabbi can answer for herself, and others were things that I've already answered here or on the website. So I picked out the question which I really think is vital:

"...my question to you is that even though it's very unlikely for me to get published, is it silly to plan a series of novels, rather than just a single debut. I know most author's debut novels are the first in a series, but most of them have also completed a book before. Needless to say, I haven't." 

Gabbi, you won't ever get published until you finish a novel. Unless you're a celebrity or a respected university professor with lots of non-fiction publishing credits behind you, you will ALWAYS have to finish at least one book for a publisher to take you seriously. They're not going to publish any first time novelist based on a few chapters and a synopsis, no matter how brilliant they are, because there's no guarantee you'll be able to finish what you've started. But publishers don't care if you have thirty bad novels hidden under your bed or if the one that lands on their desk is your very first. All they care about is that it's good.

So, bearing that in mind - no, it's not silly for you to plan a series if that's what you really want to write. In today's publishing climate, as you note, many debut authors begin their careers with a trilogy (Cassandra Clare, Veronica Roth, Sarah Rees Brennan). Publishers and agents now seem to negotiate multibook contracts as standard, and knowing that you've got a plan in place for the follow-up books is very reassuring for the publisher, I think.

What you have to do is write the first book, create a really good plan for the next ones, and then start trying to get an agent/publisher with that (noting in your queries that you're hard at work on the second book). But remember that writing a series is a really challenging undertaking. If you're doing it because that's just the way you think things need to be, then stop and consider whether the story you really want to write can stand alone. There are still many single volumes being published.

Good luck with it, Gabbi!

Next up we have a great question from Borko, who asks:

"I have a problem with my characters (In my book). More specifically, one of the main. I'm worried that people would hate him or like him less then others. He reacts a bit sharper, but ... But this is not a reason!"

I sympathise with you on this one. When I was writing Shadows on the Moon I worried that my heroine's often self-destructive behaviour would put readers off. When I was writing FF I was anxious that one of my main characters would never get any sympathy from readers because he made such a bad impression initially. But I couldn't change who those characters were, make them more sensible or less harsh, because that was who they WERE. That was who the story needed them to be. 

So, it's possible that the reader will react as you fear and dislike this person. And that's OK, so long as the plot doesn't depend on the reader sympathising with them. 

It's no good trying to create a sense of tension and jeopardy with life or death situations if the reader doesn't care that the main character is in danger. You're going to need to give them something else to care about. 

Maybe a wider situation (the world is going to end!), or some innocent's life at stake (the crying baby in the corner). If this sounds a bit complicated, then you can go a different route. The easiest way to get someone to keep reading is to give them someone to identify with. Readers normally need and want at least one person whose motives they can get behind as they begin the journey of the book. If you give them that - even if the character providing the contrast is only a sidekick - they'll hang in there long enough for you to begin to show the more vulnerable, softer or more loveable sides to the character who might initially have repulsed them.

That's the secret of getting away with an anti-hero. They might seem flat out nasty at the start, and maybe they are, but in real life everyone has depths and a reason for being who they are. Once you realise that, you begin to view their actions from a different viewpoint and while THEY may not change, the reader's opinion of them does. A person who is cruel, cold and even violent will suddenly shine with the light of a hero if we see that s/he's also unflinchingly honourable and never breaks her/his word. A weak, fumbling, obnoxious character will become an object of sympathy if we're given an insight that shows us they were once proactive and strong, but they have been emotionally crippled by some terrible loss. And once you've shown us that they're more than just a shell, you can begin the task of having them develop and change via their interaction with other characters and the ordeal of the plot.

The final thing to bear in mind is that readers will often develop an unexpected soft spot for the most unlikely characters. Look at the legion of fans that Draco Malfoy has. He's written as a villain, and he gets in Harry Potter's way at every turn. He's bigoted, cruel, unprincipled, and at the end he shows that he's also weak and cowardly. Yet (to J K Rowling's astonishment!) he's actually an object of adoration for a lot of readers who are convinced that one day he will be a hero. 

So go ahead and write your character the way he needs to be. Just bear in mind the points I've made here.

I hope that was helpful, guys! Barring anything unexpected coming up, I'll probably tackle a few more of your questions on Wednesday, because I think you've all been waiting long enough!