There’s nothing more I love than creating characters. Not than I can take the sole responsibility of  forming these people. More often than not they present themselves in staggering vividness, and I have only to put finger to keyboard to allow their personalities to start appearing.

Over the past few weeks I’ve been seriously working on the sequel to Inside Evil. For my main character, Roberta Arlington, there’s a great transition to take place and I’m finding that, rather than being the strong willed and determined women I thought her to be, she’s actually decided to be far more fearful than I imagined. This has had a great effect on another major character for book two, who seems to be positively flourishing. Though only mentioned in the first title of the series, this secondary character plays a large role in future titles. However, I’ll refrain from actually writing their name here, for those who haven’t thought ahead and worked out who it is. 🙂

One of the things I love most about creating characters is how they transform and flesh themselves out with little help from me. A small grain of an idea, from a name, a face shape, or a simple spoken word, starts to snowball. Before long, you have this creation who has, by all accounts, pushed themselves into your mind and text on their own. I almost see it as a flashing of images. You never can quite catch their entire face in one moment, but the glint an an eye or the clench of a jaw pushes its way through the subconscious and makes them real.

I’m already loving writing again, rather than being plagued by the long winded editing process. It’s once again shown me just how intense and incredible writing can me. Where pages right themselves, and events which you’d never plotted, burst into animated life and start to shape your book. Though I had a specific idea for Roberta, she’s simply not playing ball. However, her resistance has proved vital for someone else’s growth, and I’m excited to see where this leads.