Pursued by characters

I read a blog post recently about how characters can come alive and take on a life of their own. They do not follow the paths that we have neatly devised for them. They make up their own minds.

A life beyond the story

Our characters are with us only for a limited time. They have a life before they joined our story and they will continue to live after we’ve finished telling it – unless we’ve killed them off! They have an off-stage life. This is true whether we’re writing a novel, a short story or a piece of flash fiction. We need to take as much care as with them regardless of how long they stay with us.

The first person immediate: creating an ideal voice for a young adult novel

It dawned on me as I was teaching my second year Writing Novels for Young People group.  I’ve noticed that a first person narrative works well for young adults, especially when it is in the present tense, even though in other contexts I argue that a third person close narrative  allows us to experience the growth with a character. The first person narrator has already had the growth.