TIME TO TORTURE THE CHARACTERS

One of my favorite things to do when creating my characters is to give them a wound. Not, like, a bruise or anything. An *internal* wound. Since I write romance novels, it's something the hero/heroine has been dealing with for years that gets triggered when they meet their match.

I'm a big fan of internal conflict in stories. Yeah, I like some external conflict, too. My previous books have a mix of both. The balance of the internal/external battle that my characters have to overcome makes the story so much more interesting to me.

One of my favorite resources to use is "The Emotional Wound Thesaurus." Sounds like a page-turner for the beach, right?!? 😂

But seriously, it's a great way to start digging deep into your character's backstory. The more well-rounded you can make them, the more depth you can give them, the more they'll jump off the page and draw your readers in.

And that's what this is all about, right? Giving your readers characters to root for, get frustrated with, understand, relate to, etc. As an author, it's the characters that move the story along for me. It's their struggles, joy, triumphs, losses, awakenings.

Your characters (in my opinion) should be the story's biggest strength. The reason why someone can't put the book down. 💋

How do you go about creating characters?