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