Do Your Characters Come Alive in Your Novels

[angela t. pisaturo]

I am known as the Character Creator because my novel characters are just that - novel!
When I create a character, I go into my reserve of personas - in other words, I refer to my list of character traits then choose the traits and character type I want to portray.

The way to get a character traits list is by observing people you meet or pass by in everyday life. What made you notice that person. Was it their haircolor? The way they walked or their accent? Was it their style of dress or some odd habit?

Whatever made you sit up and pay attention are things you will want to jott down first chance you get.

A list will look something like this:

Middle aged female
eccentric dress
blue eyes
brown hair worn in a bun
drinks chamonile tea
likes antiques
reads a lot of biblical archeology books

By the way, this is the character profile of Nellie Parker in my new novel Treasures in Clay Vessels. Your lists can be index cards and you can pull them out when you need to punch up a character. If you want to hear me as Nellie Parker and enjoy a short teaching on character persona you can visit www.filedby.com and look up Angela T.Pisaturo's webpage, there you will find a link to the MP3 file.

[angela t. pisaturo]

Thank you, Gene. I truly love to teach. I have an mp3 file on filedby.com. under angela t. pisaturo. Where I act out my main character's persona then teach about vivid character portrayal from it. I intend to make it an ongoing teaching series.

[Gene Cartwright]

Very instructive. I hope many others see your blog.