Know Your Character's Backstory
I consider it a huge compliment when people talk about my heroine Brea from my new book series California Girl Chronicles as if she's a real person. As a writer, this means mission accomplished. When you write a fully realized and well developed character, these figments of your imagination take a three dimensional quality. You hear their voices and feel their emotions. You understand them. You root for them. And most importantly you care what happens to them. Creating a well developed character is a craft, takes time and patience, and means you have thought out the details of their lives, which is their backstory. I've had people ask me about Brea's backstory and her family. The reason I didn't explore Brea's personal family life in the book is that to completely go there would have cast a darker light on an upbeat, escapist book, which is not what the book was intended to do. You have to have a demon or two in your closet to fall for such a bad boy (Drew) and make...