In light of the recent five star rating and comment on Shadow Over Avalon, I have gone into a quiet corner to think this through. My characters explode in my mind in the form or dreams and they are fully fledged individuals set on a certain path. I don’t work to construct an interesting character. Honestly, I have no idea how to do this. It is a visceral thing.
My story lines come through dreams. A scene pops up and I run with it, wherever it leads. What is important to me is that I must be able to see through a characters eyes. The characters must live in the eyes of the readers and therefore, they must live and breath in mine. I had not really thought about this before, but they do come alive.
Not one character is totally good, or totally evil. Life isn’t like that. People are an admixture between the two. A foul toad may well have reasonable wants or needs of his own. A hero/ heroine will have character flaws. None of us are perfect people and this must be reflected. Good people do make mistakes and bad people do have mitigating reasons in their own minds. It is what it is.
Not one single character from my books was taken from real life as far as I am aware. I have been told by physics that I am an old soul, who has had had previous lives. Opens mouth wide to shovel in a ton of salt with this. Wherever my characters come from, they are very real to me. The only life form I have ever brought into my books from real life was an amalgam of my cats for the character of Kryling, a firedrake from Darkspire Reaches, so there you have it.