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once you've done all of this Research

into what your main love interest looks

like you might want to create like a

page which just gives you all of their

main characteristics just so it feels

really real to you and it's something

that you can put up on your office wall

and you know refer to it if you're ever

needing inspiration I'm going to show

you what I mean with Post-it

notes so it's worth just doing this

exercise just to really make sure you

know your characters what they look like

what they like as a person so start with

the name in my case it's

Anders remember that the name for me

I've decided to make him have Swedish

ancestry so I'm just going to write that

down

too I know that he's about 35 I want him

to be a little bit older than my main

character Ren so she's about 33

I know that he's tall and he's Broad and

that he has blonde hair sort of slightly

messy with sharp eyebrows and green eyes

with a floor in

them I know that Anders works for an

indie car team so I imagine that when

he's at work he probably wears a team

uniform but when my character Ren meets

him for the first time I picture him

wearing a check shirt a mustard and

black check shirt in fact cuz there was

one image in particular that really

appealed to me me over a black T-shirt

with black jeans and desert boots so I'm

going to write that down because that

image for me that's the way that I'm

picturing and is more often than

not and then in terms of profession and

hobbies for Anders I know that he works

for indicar as an engineer but he's also

really passionate about farming because

of his family farm that's been passed

down for generations and also because he

meets Ren and almost runs her over on

his motorbike I'm going to make that one

of his passions too I like the idea of

him using a trail bike and doing jumps

and tricks and that being a way that

might cheer his brother up too with his

mental health because biking can really

provide a big sense of freedom and I

think that might be something that might

help him and be a nice way for these two

brothers to bond so I'm going to put

down that as one of his hobbies and I

will obviously be doing research on that

too so I think that's a pretty good idea

of what Anders is about it's certainly

enough for me me to really start

daydreaming about his character and

imagining him coming to life inside my

mind and interacting with my character

Ren so I can stick this on my wall if I

want to and just refer back to it in

some ways it just inspires me to just be

thinking a little bit more about his

character and the most important thing

right now is to daydream you do need to

do these same steps again for your main

character and any other really main

characters in the book so let's do that

now with Ren who's my main character

so for my main character I really liked

the name Ren and it sort of fit with how

I was beginning to picture ha which was

sort of slighter frame dark brown hair

and also I liked you know brought about

this idea that you know maybe her father

could call her little bird and it could

be something that you know tied into her

childhood and you know also I decided to

make her mother called Robin and you

know have this being a way for me to be

able to describe what they both look

like and

my character Ren says at the beginning

of the novel aside from our names and

the fact that we're both named after

small birds we have nothing else in

common and then that gave me a way to

describe the mother and then describe

Ren so you know the name might sort of

be able to work some way like that you

know you have to be looking for

different ways of being able to describe

your character without just saying this

is what I look like because that can be

a little bit boring to read so I'm going

to follow the same steps again okay

Ren so like this name because it's sort

of fits with how I'm beginning to

imagine her which is slight a frame with

dead straight brown

hair and remember also that I have this

nickname for her little bird which might

tie into her childhood feelings about

her father and may give her a

conversation that she can have later

with Anders which leads to a bit more

depth and a bit more character

development I decided to make Ren's

profession an architect because I hadn't

written about architecture before and my

husband is an architect and we've been

married for nearly 20 years so I know a

lot about architecture anyway it was

extremely easy for me to be able to

interview my husband at any point that I

needed to and to really get sort of to

the bottom of the sort of job that Ren

would do and try to make it as realistic

as possible because I think architecture

is a profession that is often glamorized

and you know made to look like this a

really incredible profession but knowing

the realities of how humdrum and boring

sometimes it can be you know I thought

that might be quite a nice thing to be

able to write about and make a really

real IC so architecture that's what Ren

does it's also a really nice fit for

Anders because as I was saying I wanted

them to be quite similar intellect wise

it's one of the things that Ren doesn't

so much have in common with her her

fiance who was left her for his coworker

he works as a gardener and landscape

design and Landscape gardening But

ultimately he doesn't feel necessarily

on the same wavelength as Ren in a lot

of ways so I think thought that was

quite a nice contradiction between who

Ren was with and who Ren becomes you

know attracted

to one of the things my husband has

joked about is how Architects always

wear black he doesn't always wear black

obviously a lot of Architects don't

always wear black but I decided to make

this a feature of Ren's personality that

she's really attracted to dark sort of

structured designs and was able to look

up online clothing brands that do quite

sort of structured clothing and start

trying to get a sense of the sort of

clothes that Ren might wear and I saved

a lot of these pictures and could refer

to them later when I wanted to choose an

outfit for her on a night out or just to

go over you know and have a swim at the

lake on the farm next

door and in terms of Ren's age I wanted

to be a couple of years younger than

Anders but still at a point in her life

where she was hoping to settle down and

have kids and so it needs to be really

quite heartbreaking for her to have her

fiance decide that he's in love with

somebody else so I wanted her to be

around the age in her early 30s but I

decided to make her 33 so there you go

that's Ren in a nutshell obviously in my

head she's so much more than these

descriptions but it's just helpful as a

building block and if you do this same

exercise for all of your main characters

it will just help you before you start

writing your book to really get a sense

of who they are and it will make them

feel so much more alive to you as you

start developing the

story so I recommend for your first book

at least to make sure that the hobbies

and the careers that your characters do

are either things that you've done

yourself or things that interest you

because if you end up becoming so bogged

down in research with things that don't

really interest you then it's really

going to slow you down and isn't going

to excite you so definitely choose

things to interest you because at least

then research will be fun another

General tip about your characters is

just make sure they stay consistent

throughout don't have them suddenly do

something that is completely

uncharacteristic for how you initially

described them so just keep checking in

make sure they stay realistic and

relatable throughout the entire novel

and again daydreaming is so important

here like once you have the ideas for

your characters you just need to keep

thinking about them and really sort of

be inspired by things I listen to a lot

of music when I'm thinking about my

characters and for example the song the

nicest thing by Kate Nash really

inspired me when I was thinking about

Anders I could really imagine Ren

falling for the character that's

described in this Kate Nash song so that

was a song that inspired me and really

started bringing Anders to life and

finally so much of my work happens when

I'm not sitting down at my laptop so

really make sure you give yourself

enough time to just Daydream and really

build on developing your characters

along with your idea in the next lesson

we're going to talk about how to create

really Vivid realistic settings that

bring your story to life and we'll also

talk about the importance of research

and how wonderful it is if you can go to

the places that you're writing about