Monday, October 10, 2016

Writing a real character

A few years ago I started working on a novel that I planned to self-publish. I decided to title it Hair of The Wolf, but I stopped working on it to work on other projects. I decided to revisit the story after I had finished with Zombie Bite. I was surprised to find that the bones of a great story were there. I began rewriting passages and changing things and adding more details. One major thing I decided to do was make the character struggle with anxiety and depression. Why was this an important part of the story? Well, she’s a werewolf, but not just any werewolf, the one who exposes the existence of supernatural beings to the public. She didn’t do this one purpose, but she still has to live with it. She is forced to live in an apartment where she is always monitored. She has no freedom, but if she did most of the wolves have decided that they would like to cause her harm for exposing them, so she is understandably changed by this. It made sense for this character to be struggling with depression and anxiety. I love to read, yet none of the novels that I have ever read have ever featured a character struggling with these issues. I’m not saying that there aren’t books like this, I just haven’t read any ones that deal with werewolves/vampires/zombies. It doesn’t make sense in some cases. I’m a huge fan of the Sookie Stackhouse novels, but she always gets herself in some kind of trouble that normal people wouldn’t be able to handle. Shouldn’t she feel at least a little anxiety around these supernatural creatures? I just feel like it makes sense and is more realistic for my main character to have these problems.

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