I don't really think that I'm in any position to tell other people how to write. We all have our own process and style. I think to write you just have to write. You have to start. What comes out of you, and the way it comes out, will be representative of you. Who am I to comment on that? What I can tell you is what I do to make my characters believable and relatable.
1) Start with a Backstory
Back Story is wildly important to my writing. Sometimes characters who start off as "side" characters quickly become major ones once they've told me their backstory. This was true of Caio. He started out as a side character for another book, but his backstory was so compelling that I needed to place him in another book. Rather than have him be the POV character, I decided to show him from the eyes of Sarah. He has also become a major character in the whole series. Sarah has also become integrated into the entire series.
2) Avoid Generic Perfection in Main Characters
For appearance don't just focus only on the desirable qualities. Instead, tell readers what's slightly "off" about their appearance? What physical quirks do they have? What do they not like about their own appearance? Also, there is a difference between a character being "perfect" in the eyes of another character and just being perfect. Someone who is "perfect" for me will not be "perfect" for you. When I was in high school, I had a huge crush on a guy who had a "lazy" eye. To me, the fact that he had to deal with this meant he was probably a braver and more empathetic person. I was wrong in that case, but that was how I thought. Creating a male character who is tall, with rippling abs and steely grey eyes, and little more, is boring. Tell me what the hair looks like on his arms, or where her freckles are or if they have a slight overbite. When you pair quirks with the more traditionally positive attributes, the character becomes attractive and not just good looking.
If a perfect appearance is boring, a "perfect" perfect personality is stultifying. Your characters must have some conflict, even if its internal conflict. Your main character must have flaws to help drive the character arc. In the case of Sarah, her flaws lead her to be abused and tolerating it. Caio's personality flaws aren't as apparent because we see him though Sarah's eyes, but they become much more apparent in later books.
In the same way, a perfect environment is hard to take. If stories are set in places that are too glamorous, too perfect, they feel sort of gross. Stories about princesses, models, rock stars, jaded heiresses are very difficult to keep fresh. Stories set in mansions, castles and kingdoms are hard to relate to for your average reader. Of course, there are exceptions when it comes to readers and stories, so this is not a hard and fast rule, but something to be aware of.
3) Use Rapid Characterization:
If you don't have time to tell the full background of a character in your story, then assign quirks or personality traits or skills that can distinguish them from other characters. In my book, Jerry the police officers love of plants. Of course, I think you still need to know their backstory, but having some quirk or trait that is easy for a reader to remember helps them keep track of people and makes your book easier to read.
4) Remember that Characters are People and Not Plot Devices
Don't define your characters only by what they can do in the story. There needs to be more to them. If a character gives information, then there needs to be a reason for them to give it, and a reaction from them upon giving it. In my book, Sarah goes to a spy shop where the owner tells her about her firm's client. He does this because he feels sorry for her, because of her black eye.
5) Characters Should Change
Your main Character should evolve over the course of the book. If he or she stays the same from beginning to end, its dull. I went to the London Film Festival with a friend of mine a few years ago. We saw a Japanese film called "Our Little Sister". The movie starts with a funeral where two sisters discover that their father (who had divorced their mother) had a daughter that they didn't know about. "Here it comes," I thought. "Someone will flip out." But no, the sisters decide to talk to the girl. When she invites them to visit her, I thought "Aha, they're going to say no, and someone will freak". " Instead, they accepted the invitation. After visiting her, and everyone getting along, the little sister accompanies them to their train station to leave. You can tell that she wants to go with them. I was positive that this was the moment of conflict, but nope, they invite her along. It was 2 hours and 8 minutes of unrelenting niceness. The critics loved it, but to be honest, it was a bit boring. We need change in characters to make a journey.
6) Conflict Can be Used to Define Characters
The sort of conflict that character's encounter and how they respond to them helps explore the strengths and weaknesses of your characters and how they evolve over time. In my book, Sarah is surrounded by conflict, and over the course of the book, she begins to fight back rather than just accept what life is throwing at her.
7) Use Photos to Help Create Visuals
I'm not very physically intelligent, so when I'm crafting an environment, I tend to use photos. Sometimes, I want it to be set in a place that I know, but my memory for visuals isn't' great, so I usually use photos of those places that I've saved or find online. For appearances, I tend to do the same, or mix visuals of celebrities with random people that I have taken photos of over the years. I try not to use people I know, or care about, as visual templates. That seems like bad luck to me. Now, people have showed up after I have written a character who has many of the same traits or appearance, but I can't do much about that.
Limerent Series
Book One
LS Delorme
Genre: Paranormal, Romantic, Thriller
Publisher: Limerent Publishing
Date of Publication: Feb 11, 2023
ISBN: 979-8-9874880-1-3 Paperback
ISBN: 979-8-9874880-1-0 ebook
ASIN: BOBSGR1VB7
Number of pages: 294
Word Count: 114030
Cover Artist: Brittany Wilson
Book Description:
Sarah Baker is a paralegal in a law firm in modern-day Brooklyn. Her life is bouncing between her abusive lawyer boyfriend, the voices she hears in her head and her soul sucking work at the law firm. On a New York spring day, she meets Caio as he plays basketball on a street court. He is alluring, intriguing and young. Yet that’s the least of his mystery, for Caio was beaten, thrown into a hole and left to die. In 1905.
Sarah tries to understand this enigmatic stranger while juggling the dubious ethics of her law firm and the ghosts in her head. As she struggles with loss, grief, love, beauty and lawyers, she will need to summon the strength to break all of society’s rules, save several lives and step into a new and potentially magical life.
Caio is the opening book of a new series of supernatural romantic thrillers that will pull on your heart (strings), challenge your perceptions and lead you on a singular journey of discovery and revelation.
Excerpt:
How can you be as smart as you are and have no backbone,
girl? or You’re not pretty enough to be able to expect a man to take care of
you, so you better find an administrative job so you can support yourself, or
Self-consciousness is just another form of vanity. It’s just you thinking about
yourself too much.
That simply scratched the surface of what Sarah heard on a
daily basis growing up. On the positive side, she could take criticism with the
best of them. She had also learned to channel her sensitivity into an awareness
of people’s motivations that coworkers called “uncanny.” On the negative side,
when her parents died, she had absorbed their voices into those that already
spoke inside her head, and now they were the loudest ones.
It was her heightened awareness that told her that something
was not quite right with the Davies case. She wasn’t sure what, and she would
need to be careful about how she researched, but it tickled her curiosity.
Sarah was lost in these thoughts as she left the grocery
store and made her way home, past the park and toward the basketball courts.
When she realized where she was, her heart started to race a little bit at the
thought of seeing the boy she had seen last week.
There were some boys playing on the court. She
scanned them for someone in grungy clothes, but from a distance, they all
looked like they were wearing appropriate attire.
Sarah’s heart sank a little.
Don’t be ridiculous, she told herself. Although she wasn’t
exactly sure what she was chiding herself about, it was nice when the voice
doing the talking was her own.
As she got closer, she saw the tall, red-haired boy miss a
shot and retake the ball. He was one of the regulars. When the red-haired boy
landed, he jostled one of the other boys near him. That boy staggered, regained
his footing, and in the process deftly stole the ball. When she saw his face,
Sarah actually heard herself gasp. The boy who had been pushed, the one who now
had the basketball, was the boy she had seen before. She hadn’t noticed him
because his appearance was quite different. His shoulder-length dark hair had
been cut. He had on a red-and-black striped shirt that didn’t look expensive,
but did look brand new, as did the matching shorts. His sneakers were black
with pristine white soles. And right at the moment, he was dribbling the ball
down the court—straight at her.
Sarah froze. She was standing on the sidewalk behind the
basket on the other side of the chain-link fence. She felt like her feet had
grown roots as she watched him set up, jump, and make the basket. He came down
right in front of her. As he landed, before turning to run back down the court,
he stopped and caught her eye. His eyes widened ever so slightly, and he
smiled.
For a moment, he
looked directly in her eyes and she felt a strange dizzy feeling in seeing him
and being seen by him. No one in her life ever seemed to actually see her. No
one ever had.
Lexy has lived an eclectic life. As a 'navy brat', she grew up in various US states until her father retired to North Carolina when she was 14. As an adult, she has continued this "tumbleweed" life, having since lived in 3 countries, 9 US states, and 21 cities around the world. She has been a musician, scientist and attorney, and was one of the first employees at 23andMe. But, through all this change, her love of writing has been the one constant whether it be songs, scientific writing, legal briefs, travel blogs or fiction. Writing the Limerent Series allows her to combine all of this to help her create new worlds. Lexy lives in Paris with her husband and two very cool sons.
Caio is book one of 8 in the upcoming Limerent Series
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