Thursday Thoughts - my character development

When I started writing The Healing Season I didn't have a lot of ideas about the story or the characters - that's usually how I start, so I wasn't worried.

Jennie, Lisa and I had come up with our town and we'd decided to have a newcomer for each story. I immediately decided my local would be the woman, and she'd be a farmer. Jennie and Lisa both had their female characters as the newcomers - which suited me, I like being different.

And that's where the story started. I have to write to find my story and my characters, so I began here.

My mind churns over questions and ideas. It's sort of planning without actually planning! And this must happen before I start a story, although I'm often not conscious of it, but it continues as I write.

The questions I asked were things like - as a farmer, how does my female character work? If she's young, how could she own/manage a farm? That seemed a little too difficult to explain, plus I have another story with a young male farmer, so it was a bit too similar. Scrap that plan. What else could Alicia do that kept her with agricultural knowledge and a local?

An agronomist. In the local produce store.

But the town was small, how does it have a produce store? Maybe she could have a franchise and work as part of a larger network. Maybe she's always dreamed to do this...yet something's making it difficult for her. Maybe her folks don't want this life for her...but that seemed kind of odd...but not if she was emotionally battered in some way and they were trying to 'do what was best for her'.

Alicia and her grief was born.

For my newcomer, he had to somehow understand Alicia's grief. He had to be a deep enough character to see her, feel her pain and loss, yet never try to take that away from her. He had to be a friend, not a romantic interest. Why? I don't really know. That's just how my mind worked, and how I saw her accepting another man in her life.

I wanted him to come to town looking for roots but scared about the decision he was making. He had to want to stay...but also be reluctant to give the town his all. He had to hold something back, so that Alicia could draw something from him as she began to open up.

The lead male and female in a romance have to have personality traits that complement and/or antagonise each other. As a reader, to keep your interest in the romance, there has to be a push-pull effect between the couple. You can't read and just 'know' that they're going to be together - you have to question 'how' they're ever going to get together.

I'm hopeless at doing opposites who antagonise each other - I just don't understand that attraction and so I struggle to write it. I like sameness, but that can be quite boring because they do gel together so well. So my question became - what same values could these two have, which would also keep them apart?

Grief and the aloofness that grief can bring seemed to be the way to keep Alicia and Lachlan apart, yet trying to be together. Their friendship could be a slow burn towards love, catching them almost unawares.

As I wrote, Lachlan had all this depth and a scary past that kept coming out ever so slowly. He'd been badly hurt and poorly treated...but how on earth had he changed? He changed because he wanted to. He knew he had to break the cycle. He had to get away from his past. He had to make a decision to be the best person he could be and start fresh.

And Alicia and Lachlan developed.

I don't sit down and plan this first. It happens as I write. As I find the story and discover the characters, the words appear. It's an amazing thing, my mind. And just a bit scary :)

If you're a writer - how do you develop characters?

If you're a reader - what sort of character(s) do you enjoy reading about most?