Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Guest Post and Giveaway with A Jacob Sweeny

First I would love to say Welcome to the amazing AJ and Thank you for doing this with us! She is here to talk about the developing of her characters in Pulse Of Heroes.









A few thoughts about developing and writing the characters of Pulse of Heroes - A. Jacob Sweeny

While writing the characters for Pulse of Heroes I had to keep a couple of things in mind, and they were to make the characters believable and at the same time, make them extraordinary.

Michelle is the main character and she is a teenage girl who is experiencing love for the first time. But not only is she experiencing love, she steps into a world where normal adult experiences are like child's-play by her love interest and all his friends.

As I wrote her I constantly had to remind myself not to give her adult ideas and views. I had to go back to the time when I was a teenager and to the world that I saw through those eyes. I also spent a lot of time with teenage girls to get back that sense of what they are like.

Not every teenage girl I met was the same. Like adults, they have their own experiences and backgrounds that make each and every one of them unique. What they do all have in common is the lack of experience. So, a lot of their knowledge is based on logic, common sense, or plain learning, rather then personal experience. I tried to instill that sense of knowledge in Michelle, where she was smart but through learning, or logic. However through Elliot, who has surpassed all human experiences, she also learns that life doesn't always make sense, and neither is it logical at all times.

The title of the book itself lends the reader an eye into the story before they even read it. The word Hero is one that promises characters with extra human, extra-ordinary aspects. But even with so-called heroes, it is very important to give each character a reason to exist other than just furthering the plot along. In a long saga such as Pulse of Heroes, I was able to do that. I didn't want to hurry and tell the main story, I wanted to open up another reality to the reader and invite them in to meet these people as if they were real.

Besides the story arc of each character, it's important to remember that every person reacts differently to whatever is the stimulant, based on his or her background and experiences. The hero's reaction therefore has to be more intense at times, while almost completely subdued at others. They have had lifetimes of lessons to figure out to themselves what is important and what isn't.

Thanks AJ for sharing this with us! I loved hearing all about how you developed your characters :D

Now for the fun part :P She has kindly donated a AWESOME Pulse of Heroes Mini Calendar to one lucky winner! Just comment below with any questions that you have for AJ and your email address. I will chose one lucky winner late tomorrow night.

P.S. Dont forget to join her Facebook page to keep up with all things Pulse of Heroes and more:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Pulse-Of-Heroes/108874512509753

Creating Believable Characters by BK Walker

Whether we write YA or Romance, one thing that is most important as a writer is having your readers connect with your characters. Everyone reads to be able to escape from the mundane. Life is hard, and we all have some sort of fantasy that we wish could happen in our lives. We wish to meet a sweet angel, handsome vampire, sensual werewolf, let's face it, most of us would just love to be swept off our feet. How do we do that? We read...

So what is it in a character that we love most? Placing ourselves in the book, pretending we're the ones that are being romanced, rooting for the underdog hoping they come out on top, having our own thoughts as to how a story might go.

Character development isn't all that difficult, as long as the character is meant for the storyline. It is up to us as the writer, to portray each character so they are easily imaginable to the reader's mind. How do we do that? We put ourselves not only in the shoes of the character, but of the reader as well. What would we like to be reading? What would we do in the same situation as the character? What if???? These are all questions that we ask ourselves each time we write a character's story. In order to create a believable character, we become the character.

When writing young adult characters, we have to remember that it is for the younger audience, and this is when it becomes fun. We get to be a teen again, or young adult. We get to do things over, so to speak, the things we wish we could change. You know that old saying, if I knew back then what I know now? Well, we get to actually change the past for the better.

Stories hold some piece of our past or present, something we've probably experienced at least once. So when writing a character scene, we live through the character. Becoming the character, creating drive, tension, passion, all the things we readers love to indulge in. Most characters people can relate to in some form, whether it be wishing they could be with that hero or heroine, having experienced the situation themselves, or just simply remembering a time when dreams weren't so far out of reach, and maybe can be within reach again.
 
Also a big thank you to BK for joining us and sharing your thoughts as well :D

14 comments:

Loves All Things Books said...

I have been wanting to read this book for a little while now. I absolutely love the cover!

kandlekraze@yahoo.com

Unknown said...

what a great post, thank you AJ and BK and also autum. i love learning how authors come up with the development of characters in books

danielsangel101@yahoo.co.uk

Anonymous said...

It's great to hear authors write about their process of plot and character development. I like it when every character has his/her own dimension, and isn't just there as a plot device. Thank you guys for sharing with us!!
-L

A. Jacob Sweeny said...

Thank you all for your interest. Do hope you pick up a copy and see what it's all about. Lots of hard wor and lots of soul...

dawnmomoffour said...

The cover gives me shivers! I so want to read this book! Thanks for all the information. The interview and information was amazing.
thedoyle6@rogers.com

Alishia said...

I love Pulse of Heroes, my fav read of the year so far.
Loved your guest post AJ. :)

funky_vampire_princess(at)yahoo(dot)com(dot)au

Unknown said...

I myself can't wait to read Pulse of Heroes! Thanks for stopping in during our tour and don't forget you can see our entire schedule for Romancing Your Dark Side Tour at www.vbtcafe.com for a even more chances to win!

Thank you Autumn,

BK

Liss Martz said...

Great post. Developing characters seems to be really hard. I love the cover of the book Who made it? and how many times did you had the "writer's block"? what did you do in those terrible times?

Thanks for the giveaway! I'm following you on FB!

Lissette_125(AT)hotmail(DOT)com

Kristina H said...

How is the sequel coming along? Do you read all your reviews?

I already follow on facebook! :)

kristinsleigh1@hotmail.com

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

Great post !! have forwarded Bks notes to a friend whoose writing a book !! Developing characters is def an important factor !!
I havent yet read Pulse of Heroes but have it read ;) for a book tour with BK I look forward to it !!

thanks kat !
kittee_cat@bigpond.com

A. Jacob Sweeny said...

Hi all and thanks again. The cover gives me shivers too ;-) still.

1) I designed the cover,in fact the girl's hand is my own!!! But a very talented artist named Chris Cummings of Poetic Image put all the elements together and made those haunting eyes!

2)Believe it or not I never head writer's block while writing Pulse Of Heroes. I think this is because I never planned to write it, so I never had to really figure things out. I was told that they way I wrote is called Channeling- The story just kept coming out and I can't rest till it's over. I dream about it and the characters haunt me until I finish their tale. I did have to figure out where certain elements went in the story, but that was it.

3)The Pulse (Volume II) is coming along fine.From the one person who has read it so far, I got nothing but praise-saying that I am about to take my readers on another ride :) It keeps me up at night so I am editing like crazy.Release date Oct.31st 2011 Halloween!!! Boo.

4)I am an indie author and I take every review to heart, although there are a lot more now than there used to be. They keep me going!
Thank you everyone! Pick up a copy while on tour!! Discounted pricing on Kindle and Smashwords E-book!

Anonymous said...

Hello!
My question is :What inspired you writing this book ?
Thank you ! Following on facebook with name :Ifrah Kamil
Starlight023@hotmail.com

A. Jacob Sweeny said...

Hi Ifrah,Thank you for following and for the question...

The deep inspiration to write this book was my drive to teach others about history and humanity as I see it. Part of the thematic elements in the story are views about society as a whole. I believe that knowledge of our past and understanding our own shortcomings as individuals, groups or even countries, is the way to truly bring about world peace.
Another social theme is the ethical treatment of women around the world, whether it was thousands of years ago, or what is still being done today. I wanted to open the readers eyes, to make them understand that the world still needs a lot of work, but also to never lose hope in change.

I used to want to teach high school history , but I was very disappointed by what the public school system allowed to be taught. I am NOT politically correct, and neither his history.

I decided to take my voice into books and reach a wider audience. And of course also make it a lot more fun. If I hear that history is boring from someone after they have read my book- I haven't done my job correctly.