Today I have the FABULOUS Amanda Shofner on the blog. Why’s she fabulous? She’s talked me off a writing edge once or twice and she helps make my books better (there would be a lot more throbbing without her input, guys. A LOT MORE.). Since Amanda has a new book out (*squeal*), she’s here to talk about characters. Namely, her wild child heroine, Janey.
*hands the mic to Amanda*
Like many writers, I was a reader first. And as a reader, I’ve always favored character-driven books. But hard-headed and stubborn characters who stuff down their problems and make less than wise decisions used to drive me crazy.
Then I wrote one.
A beta reader called Janey a “feral child.” It’s entirely appropriate. It took me three tries to write her story, then careful revisions to get it right. She is prickly and closed off and so broken I spent a good amount of time muttering, “Oh, Janey” while I wrote.
Broken characters, like Janey, who run away from everything that could possibly help them — heaven forbid they should admit weakness! — are tough to love. They’re also tough to make sympathetic. To humanize them and make them someone you can relate to.
An easy way of doing that is to give them a friend. It’s easier to care about someone who cares about someone else. But Janey is a loner, not someone who makes friends. Friends mean caring and sharing secrets, and that’s the last thing Janey wants to do.
So I needed something else.
One of my favorite writing craft books is Wired for Story, which says that stories are really about characters and that your characters need a defining life event that shapes who they are and the decisions they make. Characters like Janey have that in spades.
For Janey, it was seeing her mother murdered, then being captured and tortured by the Hunters herself. Combine that with a father whose first choice for dealing with problems is violence and you’ve got a character who’s not easy to like.
But Janey’s past also gave me material to work with. Even when you write a book from a specific character’s POV, as the author, you can include certain “tells” that show the reader the character isn’t quite as reliable as he or she thinks. In other words, you show how the character isn’t being completely truthful to him or herself.
Janey had a bracelet she fiddled with every time a particularly hard-hitting moment popped up. The bracelet was something she was working on when the Hunters came to kidnap her, and she added one of her mother’s charms to it, so it became a symbol of everything she struggled with.
The truth is, characters don’t necessarily need to be likeable to be sympathetic. They just need to be understood. It does mean readers may love or hate (or love to shake) your character. But — and this could just be me — watching people’s reactions to Janey is partly what’s so much fun about feral child characters.
Hidden Illusions (The Hunted #2) by Amanda Shofner
She’s driven by one purpose
Janey Jones may have escaped the Hunters, but the scars they inflicted still mark her, inside and out. One goal keeps her moving forward: kill Captain Reed, the man who tortured her, destroyed her Gift, and murdered her mother. She’ll do anything to succeed.
He’s seen what blind ambition can do
Will Brown protects people. First his family, now the people he leads in the Gifted army. He knows what needs to be done to keep everyone safe: destroy the Hunters for good. And that’s exactly what he plans to do. The right way.
But one secret binds them, and its ramifications are explosive
When Will and Janey are thrown together, they’re forced to put aside their differences for a greater purpose: find a way to stay alive—and salvage the mission to cut the Hunters down, once and for all.
What they uncover will change their lives forever
Series order
1. Elusive Memories
1.5. The Unexpected Gift
2. Hidden Illusions
Buy links
Ebook: Amazon US | Amazon CA | Amazon UK | Amazon AU | B&N | Apple | Kobo | Smashwords
Paperback: coming soon!
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