I believe that creating characters is one of the most DIFFICULT, TIME-CONSUMING THINGS you will ever dwell on while writing a story.

For example, when creating a character you should always create their personality before anything else (appearance, friends, etc.). However, while doing this, you should always make their personality contribute to the story and, most importantly, accommodate to the value they will have in the story. For example, I might want my character to have a role in a play during the course of my story, then succeed in getting the part she/he wants. That means she would have to be one of these:

1. good at acting
2. a cheater
3. the only person who wanted the role.

The choice you make will also shape your character’s personality. If you chose the first one, this shows that they are true to what they want to do and passionate about it, so much so that it wins them the role. If you chose the second one you’re probably the kind of person who likes character development. What I mean is that, if your character was a bad character already, it would show just how willing they are to do things for their own benefit at the expense of others. However, if they were depicted as a good character earlier on, this could show another side to them or a change in their personality. If you chose the third option, your character’s personality is not shown so clearly by your choice. They could either be a person who doesn’t want to fight with the crowd for a popular position, so gives up what they want just so they could choose the easier option, or they could be someone who stands apart form the crowd by going for a position that is perhaps seen as too difficult, easy, boring or unimportant by other characters. By making this choice, your character is showing that they don’t care what others think about them. Either way, choosing the third option shows that your character doesn’t like to make choices in the middle. They’re now or never kind of person.I hope this helps you grasp the idea of what I mean by a character’s personality accommodating to the story.

Once you’ve finished with all of that, you need to think about something I mentioned earlier. Relationships with other characters; whether they are family, friends or love, your character’s personality will need to change to fit in with their relationships. I mean, have you ever read a story about someone who hates humans who has a million best friends and is close with his family? That’s right. If your character hates humans, he doesn’t want to spend time with humans. If your character is a person who is fatally allergic to dogs, he isn’t going to have a dog. Why? Because he will have DIED before you are finished reading the contents page. Now you may be thinking, “My character isn’t any of these! Plus, these are all unlikely situations to happen in a book.” Well you know what, you’re right; they don’t happen in books. For the reasons I have given you. See, this is why we don’t ever see books called Jim Jimham and the Cornflake Company. And I’ll tell you why that is; because that book is about a certain Jim Jimham who hates cornflakes, but is best friends with a man who owns an international cornflake company. Doesn’t work.

Now that we’re done talking about personality, let’s move onto appearance. Most of the time I try to make what my character looks like match their personality as best as I can. Let’s use Kiwi and Candie as an example. Candie is half a cat, so she has cat ears and a tail. Kiwi loves to make food, therefore I gave her an apron and chef hat. These are very basic examples. Did you know in Disney’s original Beauty and the Beast movie, it was made sure that Belle always had a strand of hair escaping down to her forehead to signify that she’s not perfect? You could try things as simple as that! It just adds all the more to your character.

With all that being said, I’m not saying your character should be completely and fully planned out at the very beginning. I changed Candie’s character significantly during my story. At the beginning she was self-absorbed and stubborn. She was designed to be a trying and tedious character who would play a bigger part later on. However, later on in the story I utilized her strength to be of use to the other characters. This greatly impacted her personality. I began to continue using her for these kinds of tasks, such as volunteering to look ahead for danger. I gradually began to like her more. She was no longer the lazy, arrogant character that she was when I designed the base for a love-hate character for my story. She was funny and loyal, though her protective attitude would lead to problems later on- big problems….

Anyway, my point is that it’s OK for a character to change and develop over time, just like a drawing. At its base you can barely see a fraction of its potential.

Wow my desktop is full of these… Oh, anyway, I found some inspirational anime memes on the internet. I’m going to put them in a blog post….. on a book blog… Well, you need inspiration to write books, so this kinda counts, I guess? Well, let’s do it anyway.

Well, that was deep and meaningful. I need to find something a bit more cheerful…. GGGOOOOGGGGLLLLEEEE!!!!! Come help me!

Lilian who was the loneliest made them feel like they had the most company.

Candie who was the most betrayed stayed loyal to the end.

Kiwi who worked the hardest helps others do the their own work.

It’s better with a friend.

You should forget the bad times but not what they taught you.

You should forget the things the friend did wrong

But not forget what they saw in you.

So you’ve just completed your latest book. It’s gonna be a bestseller, one of your best yet. You close the book, thinking of nothing but your bed and the look on your publisher’s face when he realises you completed it before he could think of some way to invent a new law and get rid of you, but then you notice that there’s something missing. The title. Those three lines on the right-hand corner of the cover are empty. You scowl at the photograph of your main rival in publishing that may or may not have been “accidentally” splashed with boiling hot tea three weeks ago when they had released their new book that had won twenty-one grand awards within forty-three hours of its release, and sit back down. Tonight’s going to be a long night.

See?! This is exactly what I’m going to be like when I’m twenty-six! Except for the boiling tea part….. I’d use boiling oil…

But this is exactly what happens to me every time I write a story, even now. You want your title to be eye-catching, memorable, original and to overall make the book seem just that bit glossier. You’ll just know when you’ve found the right title. Trust me, you’ll take several tries, but in the end it’s worth it. There is no feeling like the feeling of finding the right book title, but the key ingredient to a good title is that it sticks. Something you can’t keep in your head for more than 2.7 seconds probably isn’t the right title for your bestseller.

“So, sir, tell me, what inspired you to write your amazing book?”

“Uh, well, when I was about to write a new story I had the idea to base it on a true event and I called it…. uh…. what was it called again?”

This could be you in a future interview! Anyway, back to the point. Sometimes I am completely blown away just by a title. It could be a clever title, a funny title, a deep title or even just a short, conclusive title! It just makes me want to try the book even more! It makes you think, who thought of this? because it seems so obvious that no-one would ever have thought of it.

Though most of the books I write about on the blog are… well… normal, worded books, I love books in a more comic style as well; graphic novels and manga. (I put these in two different categories because I know the next person who reads this is going to have a different opinion than every other person ever to read this, so for simplicity I’m keeping them in two different categories, even though they are essentially belonging to the same definition;

Candie had never had a Mum or Dad. She had always just travelled with a group of other cat-humans. She had full faith and trust in all of them. One night they were out hunting for water so that they could find fish to catch. They were all running along in the moonlight when the woods suddenly stopped. Candie was the only one who didn’t notice. She was too busy laughing and looking back to her friends. Suddenly she felt her foot slip and the ground begin to crumble underneath it. She looked down, only to realise they had run out of the woods to a sheer drop down a cliff. She fell, but caught onto the edge of the cliff with her very fingertips. She yelled for help, but her friends all ran away without a second look back. As she fell all she thought about was that the ones who she had grown up with, trusted and protected had betrayed her. She was sure she would die, but by pure chance a vine caught at the back of her t-shirt and she could scramble back up the cliff. She didn’t try to follow her ‘friends’. She spent the rest of the night sitting on the edge of the cliff, wondering if she could ever trust anyone again.

One of the hardest things I’ve ever tried to do when writing a story is to plan my characters a love story. It’s amazingly difficult put those kinds of feelings on a piece of paper. Whenever I write a story that’s taking place in real life I always try to communicate a character’s feelings by their actions and thoughts. However, that’s not so easy in a romance story. Whenever I’ve tried to give my characters feelings, I’ve always read back over the page and asked myself, “is this really what happens when I feel like this?” If the answer is yes, I happily continue, satisfied with my work. If my answer is no, I rub out the page and start again.

Usually I always say feeling are essential to a story, but in some stories I wouldn’t even think twice about adding a love life to a particular character. For example, in my new story The Nights of the Unknown, the only character I’ve ever thought about adding a love life to is Lilian. If this does happen, it would most likely be a huge part of the story. She would meet the guy/girl, she’d fall in love with them, and then she would have to make the huge decision of whether to stay with the love of her life, or the loyal friends who had given up everything else to come with her. Knowing Lilian, she would probably choose her friends because she values loyalty most. However, if she chose the love of her life, what would happen to the story? Would it follow the journey of Kiwi and Candie, deeply disheartened by their friend’s betrayal? Or would it stay with the protagonist, Lilian? Following my judgement of story structure, it wouldn’t switch back and forth; I always find it makes for a less gripping story in most of my cases, probably because I don’t have enough practice in that kind of stuff. I would probably have it follow Candie and Kiwi, and that’s where I come back to my point of how hard it is to write about love. I just can’t think how I would write about days, maybe weeks, of Lilian simply being happy with her new-found love.

Let’s pretend for a second this has actually happened. As the story follows Candie and Kiwi, there are 7 possible outcomes:

#1 The two friends are simply strengthened by their loss and survive the journey with victory.

#2 The two friends stay together, but are weakened by their loss. They do not survive the journey.

#3 One friend sacrifices themself for victory. The other, motivated, continues to victory.

#4 One friend sacrifices themself for victory. The other, weakened, does not survive the journey.

#5 Both friends decide they cannot go on and return home.

#6 Lilian returns to her friends.

#7 The two friends’ friendship is weakened and they seperate.

Only two of these results in victory with survival of all three friends, so I think it’s safe to say we can push love out of the equation for this story.

That doesn’t mean love is necessarily a bad thing to put into a story. It can add drama, plot and suspense. It’s just better with a different plot and character cast than most of my stories.

Finally! At last! Once and for all! It was destined to- Sunni! What on earth are you talking about?! Is it the thing again with one of your posts getting more than than five comments- No, it’s not that. I’ve thought of a name for my story! Yay! A while ago I made a post asking for suggesting for names…. but no one suggested anything…. so I have taken matters into my own hands instead! My idea is- oh, let’s put it in bold to make it more important- The Nights of the Unknown!!! *silence* Uh… nobody? *deadbush rolls by* OK, OK, I get the picture! Well… if you have an opinion on my idea please tell me. Bye Bye!

Sh! You! Yes, you! Who are reading this and wondering why I am telling you to shush! I have a secret to tell you about the blog! Coming soon there will be- *click* Morton: Sunni! What are you doing in here with the lights off whispering to your laptop?! Uh, nothing! Heh! Heh! Morton: OK… you better not be making a post about a new writer on the blog coming soon or anything like that! Heh, eh, no, nothing like that! Umm… WAIT, WHY ARE YOU IN MY HOUSE?!?!

I have a very special and important announcement to make! It is– oh. You read the title, didn’t you. Ah. Weeelllll….. Anyway! I am going to have a new writer on my blog! Of course there is me, I write about recent books, favourite books, important book related events and I do short stories. Ah, I think that’s everything. Hmmm… I feel like there’s something missing… Oh yeah, that’s right! Book reviews! But… I do too many things on the book blog already… Aha! Idea! You’re probably aware that there is already someone on the blog who writes book reviews; Timothy! He even has his own category on the homepage. He does mostly reviews on Diary of a Wimpy Kid, and also reviews on some of my stories. However, I believe variety is an important component of a project, so a new writer will be joining us to get more fantastic reviews on the book blog; Robbie! He is my cousin, he is in my class, he sits two seats away from me, and he loves Adventure Time! So, when he asked me if he could write on my book blog, I was thrilled. He is peering over my shoulder as I write. So, ahem, expect to see more fantastic reviews than ever before! (^^)