by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
I’ve come up with an interesting quirk to my heroine’s personality that I feel will both be something that audiences will enjoy and help the marketing of the novel down the road. In short, I have something of a “hook” that people will be able to hang their enjoyment of the character on.
I won’t tell you what it is, but I’m reading a book on the subject and every so often, I have an “ah-ha!” moment where I realize I can put a dollop of colorful content based on the subject into the text of the novel.
This fixes one of the issues that some of the early readers have had about the novel, which is I’ve not devoted enough energy when it comes to world building and fleshing out personality. Because the second draft is 80,000 words, I feel pretty confident that I can add about 20,000 words and people shouldn’t get too upset — especially if most of those words are done specifically for the purposes of fleshing out universe building and character.
So, I hope that I can spend the time between now and Sept. 1 read on the subject that I hope will be come to be associated with my heroine. In a way, of course, I’m kind of pandering to the audience because people will really love this particular obsession that my heroine has.
The trick is implementation. The only way it will work is if I lean into this particular obsession on the part of my heroine during the entire course of the novel. I will need some consistency. That is the issue I really have to keep an eye on — not just getting really excited over a neat idea than not using that particular character obsession throughout the novel in a way that seems cogent.
