How I Chose My Candle Beach Characters

It’s all about writing characters I can relate to

In the past, the characters in my stories have been developed based on the story and the genre I was writing it. And, in the past, the genre and the story I chose to write on were based on money.

This time around, I’m not writing the story for the money. I chose this genre because it’s my favorite genre to read in. There’s a lot of competition and there’s a good chance that the story will get lost amid the many other stories in the categories on Amazon and other ebook retailers.

I’m ok with that because money isn’t the main goal this time (although it would be great if the stories did sell a lot and I made a lot of money!).

The stories are character driven, rather than plot driven, so my characters need to be more developed. Also, because it is a series, I’ll be writing and living with these characters in my head for a long time so I figure I’d better like them!

I need to write characters I can relate to.

Bowie, Rio, and even Carma (who is younger than the other two) are part of me in many ways. They are characters I understand. They aren’t me, but there is a bit of me in each of them.

Bowie and Rio are Gen-X women so I especially understand them.

Carma, the younger one, reminds me of bits of myself when I was younger. But there’s also parts of her that remind me of younger women I know and their struggles are reflected in Carma.

It’s become increasingly important for me to write characters that are more than just names on a page. I want my readers to think, “Wow - I totally get why she did that,” or “Yes! I understand feeling that way.”

And writing Bowie and Rio have become really important to me because I feel like women over the age of 40 need to take a more prominent place in fiction.

Developing these characters is exciting to me. I can’t wait to see what they are going to do. I want to let them reveal themselves to me as I write and to the readers as they work their way through each episode of the series.

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