Authors Electric

  Pablo Picasso Self Portrait 1965 It’s an absolute privilege to be invited to write a guest blog for Authors Electric. As a newly published author I find myself among very distinguished writer company here, and ever so slightly intimidated! My first novel was published in March of this year. It is historic fiction, set in medieval Wales in the time of Llewellyn the Great, but it is also a faith based story, set against the backdrop of Cistercian abbey life. I knew from the start that I was writing a book based on my own life experiences, but of course fictionalised to another time and place. Inevitably, my main protagonist bore more than a passing resemblance to myself - although he is a thirty -something world weary knight, and I am a fifty -something semi -retired grandmother. I did not set out to paint a self- portrait in my characterisation. That is referred to as ‘author surrogacy’ I believe, and a device used by manyan illustrious writer to tell their own story in the guise ...

One of the ways in which we bring life to characters is through dialogue. Unless you’re writing fantasy or science fiction, you must create a world with believable people in it who do believable things. How they talk and what they say is integral to that world. An author can create characters by giving them specific personality traits such as being rude, boastful, kind, courageous, tender-hearted, etc. This is all well and good, but the reader needs to experience these traits. In other words, show me how a character is boastful or tender-hearted. Effective dialogue is one way to reveal such details. Good dialogue is all about listening to your characters. It’s the process of: writing a line of dialogue, listening, and then writing down the next line, and so on. Characters come to life through what they say and how they say it.   For this reason, I often talk to my characters as if they are real people. I suspect I’m not the only author who does this! I refer to char...