Steve Hartley at SCBWI North Meeting

We spent a very pleasant afternoon at the Friends Meeting House in Manchester, listening to Steve Hartley talking about four basic behaviour types – processors, controllers, enthusiasts and supporters. We then looked at some video clips of news items and interviews from the previous week’s television. It was easy to spot all four types, now that we are in the know.

I do feel, though, that there is more to character than this. We probably also need to know where within each quartile our character sits. Then there are all the other thoughts about what they look like, how they think, what presses their buttons and what the problems are in a particular story.

I don’t actually sit for hours thinking these things about my character, though it is useful to now and then spend a little quality time with one’s character. I sometimes do that if I can’t sleep or when I’m driving or racing up and down the swimming pool.

I suppose actually I should count myself lucky that I’ve managed to work twice this week on my characters.