Today we have a new segment on the blog which will be coming to you weekly called Writing Tips.

These posts will be shared with you every Wednesday throughout 2022 and will feature writing tips from authors on a variety of subject that are there to help authors and new writers.

Our first post is from author Virginia Crow on the subject ‘How to Create Strong, Believable Characters‘. This post contains affiliate links.

How to Create Strong, Believable Characters

One of the aspects I take most pride in is the importance of character development. It’s one of those things which is impossible to overestimate, it’s so crucial to drawing in your readers. Characters and plot are the two necessities for creating a story. Personally, I always put my time and effort into creating the characters first. After all, an adventure is always someone’s adventure so, if you know your characters well enough, you’ll know how they’ll reach the end of the book.

It’s a bit cliché, but generally I know where my characters should end up, and I let them take their own route there. And it works because my characters are as three dimensional to me as any tangible people! I’ve had praise for my character building across my writing, so I must be doing something right!! Here are a few tips I’ve learnt…

Using these steps, we can turn a thought of a person into a deep and believable character. Here’s an example:

These are three characters from one of my WIPs:

What’s the first thing you notice about the one in the middle? Probably the fact he’s wearing an angry snake and nothing to do with his manicured facial hair or scarred neck. He has a peculiar understanding of the world, imagining he sees and hears things which aren’t really there. His greatest fear is being abandoned, and he loves spending time with his adopted parents who are in the picture with him. Here, he is staring straight at you and his hand has moved to his knife. He has trust issues! The other people are both holding him back, something he is content to accept. What would happen if, one day, they were not there to hold him back?

Throw every question you can at your characters, including those you can be quite sure they will never be asked. When you know their answers then – and only then – you’re ready to share their adventures!

Virginia Crow grew up in Orkney, using the breath-taking scenery to fuel her imagination and the writing fire within her. Her favourite genres to write are historical fiction and fantasy, sometimes mixing the two together. She enjoys swashbuckling stories like the Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas, and is still waiting for a screen adaption that lives up to the book!

When she’s not writing, Virginia is usually to be found teaching music. She believes wholeheartedly in the power of music, especially as a tool of inspiration. Now living in the far-flung corner of Scotland, she soaks in inspiration from the rugged cliffs and miles of sandy beaches.

She loves cheese, music and films, but hates mushrooms.

It is 1074, eight years after the Battle of Hastings changed the cultural and physical landscape of the country forever.

But England is about to be shaped by another legacy: one which is truly immortal.

Liebling of the Hall, Edith, knows the year will be cursed as soon as the yule block burns out prematurely. Nonetheless, when she meets a mysterious figure in the Fens who claims to be a changeling, she finds herself falling in love with him, ignoring the concern of her brother, Robert, and continuing to visit. But when her brother’s nemesis, Henry de Bois, kidnaps her on one of these visits, events are set in motion which will change England forever.

A gripping historical fiction with an astonishing twist!