Original subtitles

in this lesson we're going to bring your

characters to life we're going to give

them names and descriptions and we're

going to get to understand their

passions and their Hobbies so that when

you come to write your characters each

one will have a voice of their own

continue to think about your ideas and

your story structure as you develop your

characters because they all go hand in

hand most love stories have two or three

main characters

usually there's the hero or heroine

who's your main character there'll be

the main love interest and there might

be a contender for the main love

interest so it might be someone that

they're already with or someone who

might come along later so you might have

three really strong main characters

these main characters are the ones that

need to feel the most real to you so you

need to do more research on these than

any other characters in the book as

you've been working through your ideas

hopefully your characters have started

to come to life a little bit so what you

really need to do now is have a think

about them and try to picture some of

their main characteristics Only Love Can

Hurt Like This my new book has two main

characters Ren and Anders but Ren's Half

Sister Bailey and ander's brother Jonas

are also really important to the plot so

I needed to make sure they felt as real

to me as possible the other person who

needs to also feel very real is Ren's

fiance Scott who is the man that she

Witnesses falling in love with someone

else at the very beginning of the novel

of course there will be other characters

family friends co-workers and they all

need to feel really realistic so you

could do these step steps and put all of

this planning into your novel and

believe me it will help you so much more

when you come to write it but the most

important ones to focus on are

definitely your main

characters for me the one that needs to

feel more real than anyone else is the

main love interest because that's the

character that I am going to be falling

in love with as I write this book and I

really want you to do the same your main

love interest needs to feel the most

real because you'll be writing from the

perspective of the person who's falling

in love with them so you need to fall in

love with them too remember if you're

not connected with your emotions then

your readers won't be connected with

them either so you need to create a main

love interest who makes you feel it all

I think it's really nice when you're

developing characters to start with a

name it doesn't matter you know you

might change this name later and I've

done that plenty of times when I've

started writing a book and I've thought

actually that name doesn't really fit

the character that I'm writing about so

that's okay but it's lovely if you can

come up with a name and especially one

that you end up sticking with because

it's the first thing that makes your

character start to feel real readers

often ask me how I come up with the

names for all the characters in my books

and It's Tricky I have to say I've

written 20 books so coming up with that

many names especially names that make me

feel inspired is really quite hard but

somehow something always comes up and

you know it's a name that I feel

inspired to you know create a character

and really bring them to life one of the

first places I look are baby naming

books and I also use baby naming

websites a good tip is to work out

roughly how old your character is

because this is another thing you'll

need to know anyway work out roughly

when they were born and then search up

online names that were popular during

that decade sometimes you'll find a name

that just sort of stands out to you that

you really love other times you can copy

and paste that name and then you know

search for similar names and then that

might bring up another name that you you

know quite like but also have a think

about where your character comes from in

Only Love Can Hurt Like This as you

remember I decided to make my um farming

Brothers American but I also wanted to

make sure they were living on a family

farm that had been there for you know

a long long time so that meant that I

probably needed to make their ancestors

come from somewhere else so I decided to

make their ancestors come from Sweden

because I knew that that area of Indiana

had quite a lot of Swedish settlers

initially so I looked up names that were

popular in Sweden um and the names that

stood out to me were Anders and Jonas

I'm sure I'm not pronouncing ander's

name correctly it's probably supposed to

be Anders but in my head it's Anders and

that's how I imagine his family speaking

to him so and as it

is so now you have to really imagine how

your main character looks and it's

really important that you fancy them so

just use your imagination or look up

images online you know see if there are

images of people that inspire you and

especially if you start with things like

hair color or eye color all opens up

other ideas and starts bringing your

character to life so start with the

obvious descriptions like age height

build hair color eye color and then

start filling it out with even more

detail what other distinguishing

features might they have do they have a

very straight nose or an angular jawline

or sort of high cheekbones like just

really try to imagine in the case of

Anders I imagine that he had quite sharp

eyebrows and also I imagine that he had

a Fleck in his eye which I'd been

inspired by a female contestant on The

Great British Bake Off and I found that

really intriguing so I thought I'm going

to make my main character have a floor

in his eye like that and it becomes part

of the story line so like I say do have

a look online because sometimes it's so

much easier to describe what you see

than having to imagine everything just

have a look and see how much you can be

inspired and then start to piece

together an idea of this character

inside your mind and my characters don't

look like anyone that I know they never

do they may be inspired in part by you

know other people I might even

occasionally be inspired by a movie star

but they never look like that person

inside my head by the time I start

writing the book you know to me they

look like their characters I get asked

this question so many times by readers

if

they were to make a movie of one of your

books Who Would You cast in the main as

the main characters and I find it almost

impossible to answer because they feel

so real to me inside my head that they

don't look like anyone else so really do

draw inspiration from anywhere but make

sure inside your head they are their own

unique person so once you've got a

general idea of how they look go even

deeper what do they look like when they

smile what do they smell like you need

to make them as real as possible your

main love interest might wear like a

really nice After Shave or perfume if

it's a woman you know just really kind

of think about all of those little

details that start bringing them to life

and also do some research by hunting out

other descriptions in other people's

books obviously don't copy but do Be

Inspired you know look at the way that

people might describe muscles even I

find it really hard to sort of write

about body posture sometimes and just

about bodybuild but you know I've seen

really nice ways of other that other

people have used to describe it so you

know be inspired by the things that you

see and then try to find your own unique

way of saying it or if it's literally

just describing like the angle of a jaw

or the way muscles look as they you know

stretch and tighten then that's fine you

can totally copy it's some everybody

uses the same descriptions somewhere

just make sure that you're not

plagiarizing if you're using something

that it seems really really unique to

that author cuz you don't want to sound

like anybody else remember you've got to

sound like

yourself so when you're starting to

describe your characters you also need

to know what they dress like so this is

all about their personal style I find

it's really really helpful to look

online at this point so I'm going to

show you when it came to Anders I

imagined him wearing check shirts and

black jeans so I literally went into

Google and I typed in check shirts men

black jeans and then I clicked on images

and a whole bunch of men wearing check

shirts and black jeans came up to me I

knew that Anders was going to be home on

the farm and this was the sort of image

I imagined him wearing as his casual

wear but obviously his other career and

what he does for a living normally also

played a part but at the moment I'm just

thinking about the moment that Ren meets

him in the bar and what he's wearing and

this was the image that stood out to me

the most it's this guy I can't see his

face I don't want to see his face

thinking about Anders with his blonde

hair and green eyes with this floor in

them that's how I've pictured him and

the slightly sharp eyebrows so I'm just

thinking about what he wears you might

find that there's an image that really

appeals to you and you decide to model

your character Loosely on you know what

this person is wearing too but for me

I'm just thinking about what he wears so

I imagine that the check shirts that he

wears are sort of more of like a flannel

shirt with big checks I can see him

wearing them with open over a t-shirt

underneath and with black jeans and

desert boots like I like this look so

I've gone for this look because I think

it's a really cool look and this

inspires me to want to write about this

character if you find a whole bunch of

images that inspire you you know you

might want to think about printing them

out and sticking them on your wall or

certainly save them into a folder on

your desktop because when you later come

to describe what a character is wearing

it is so much easier to describe what

you see rather than having to make it up

from scratch and sometimes you know it

can really hold you back I've talked

about using the blah method you know

that's sometimes what I will do if I

don't have an image to be a to pull from

but it really saves you so much trouble

in the long term if you can just decide

in advance what they're going to be

wearing in different scenes and be able

to pull inspiration from it when you

come to write that

scene it's also important to know what

this character does for a living and

what their hobbies and interests might

be so you might think that it's quite

late in the day to be thinking about

stuff like this but I've just found so

many times that I have no idea what my

characters are going to do for a living

until I'm actually writing the book so

it's quite good to be able to pin those

down really early on remember what I was

saying earlier in another lesson about

writing a lived in experience that's

really helpful because later if you can

go and do an interview with a magazine

or a newspaper and talk about how you

came up with the idea for the book if

you can say well I came up with the idea

for this character doing this job

because I've done that job myself and

I've got all these funny interesting

anecdotes that happen to me that's all

really good publicity so as much as

possible try to draw from your own

experiences when you're deciding what

your characters are going to do for a

living in ander's case I decided to have

him work for an indie car team this is a

motor racing team the Indie 500 is a

really famous motor race that takes

place in Indianapolis and because he

lives in Indianapolis and is coming home

to Indiana for the farm to be there for

his brother I thought well it would

really work for him to work for an indie

car team I didn't want to make him a

racing driver because I've written about

a racing driver in my third book and my

dad used to be a racing driver so I have

experience of being on the racing scene

I know about sort of drivers and

accidents and things that can happen so

I've already covered that in my third

book but I did think that Anders could

maybe become he could maybe be an

engineer a race engineer because you

know that involves a certain level of

intelligence and my character my main

character I already knew the profession

that she was going to be doing and it

seemed like a nice fit but it's still

quite helpful that I made him work in

racing because that's a lived in

experience for me so it might be

something that I can later talk about in

an interview my experience of growing up

with a racing driver um and a dad who

raised in the indd 500 and being able to

write a little bit about that when it

comes to Anders and his

profession so once you've decided what

jobs your different characters are going

to do or what their hobbies and

interests are going to be then obviously

you need to research them if you have

loads of lived in experiences then this

is going to save you a lot of time

because you can just write about what

you know but I mean I've written 20

books and I have to always have to do so

much research into what my characters do

inevitably I will end up doing more

research than I need but it still really

helps me get a good idea of what the

character loves to do or what they have

to do when they're at work and it makes

them feel more real to me in the case of

Anders even though he worked for an IND

car team I had no idea what a race

engineer did so I contacted somebody who

worked for an IND car team who was able

to tell me what his day-to-day life

would be like they were able to tell me

about his racing schedule I was able to

look up that online to work out the

latest racing schedule for the Indie Car

Series and work out which weekends he

would be where and I just got all of

this information that I could then

factor into the timeline for my book so

it's really helpful you need to do all

of this other research that definitely

will will play into you know the

timeline and the plot structure and when

you're interviewing someone make a list

of all of the important questions that

you'd like to know and obviously ask

them all of those questions but see if

you can get their contact details so you

can follow up because you'll probably

always have more questions that you'll

need to ask and remember to ask them if

it's okay for them to appear in the

acknowledgements of your book because I

think it's really nice to mention

someone and say thank you to them but

just double check with them that they're

okay with having their name printed in

your book because some people are a

little bit funny about that whether it's

for privacy reasons or whatever I've had

that happen to me once so I always

always check and as I said you can't

really do too much research it cannot

all go in your book believe me I've

tried to put in extra research because

I've thought well I found this really

interesting and then my editor was like

this isn't interesting and she cuts it

all out and you know sometimes that will

feel like wasted work but it is not

because every bit of research that you

do will be it'll bring you closer to

your characters you'll understand their

passions and what drives them they will

feel much more real when you come to

write about them so it's not wasted but

don't include it all because honestly

you will bore your readers