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Everybody has an agenda. We all have desires, hopes, and dreams. We all have principles. We all have goals, whether we formalize them or not. We all have a background and a historical perspective that shapes our actions and our outlook. In our interaction with others, we are at least somewhat aware that the person we are interacting has views and goals that may or may not be the same as ours.

Even the people we love, the people we support, and the people we usually agree with are individuals with their own way of thinking. Every interaction we have is colored by the perspectives and viewpoints of all people involved.

How often have you argued with somebody or watched two people argue when both sides are saying basically the same thing? That happens because we are all individuals and we each have our own agenda, and to some extent, we recognize that our agendas don't always agree, even when the points we are trying to make are the same.

So why should the characters in our stories be any different?

If you want your characters to ring true, they must each have their own world view, their own wants and needs, and their own goals. Their own agendas.

Characters on the same side take that position for their own reasons. Characters on opposite do the same thing. Your protagonist and antagonist might seem like enemies, and since your story is told from the POV of the protagonist (probably), the antagonist may seem evil. But from his point of view, he's probably taking his position as a matter of conscience, because he thinks it's the right thing to do. From the antagonist's point of view, and that of his followers, the protagonist is the bad guy.

But agendas are not limited to main characters. Every time a character appears in our story, even in the most minor of roles, we need to consider what that character wants. Maybe we don't need to create a detailed character analysis of our most minor characters, but we do need to know what each character hopes to achieve. Each character has a life outside the story, even if we don't know anything about it.

Too often, we write a character out of convenience, to fill a story need, without thinking about that character as a real person with hopes and dreams of her own. Usually, when we read and come across a character like that, we're unsatisfied. But still we write them.

Each person in your story world is there for a reason. Not just your reason, to fulfill a story need, but a reason of his or her own. Each character wants something out of his interaction with your other characters or your setting, or whatever he is there for. Even if the character is there solely to offer support to another character, he is offering support for his own, usually selfish, reasons. Even two characters who agree can have agendas that create conflict, and conflict creates story.

So remember that as you write. Every time a character is in a scene, consider why that character is there and what he or she hopes to get out of it. This is one of the most effective ways to turn characters into people.

1. Tell us about your favorite writing project/universe that you’ve worked with and why.

Such an unfair question to start with--I love them all. Okay, I guess I'll plump for my otherworld in 'Theatre of Curious Acts'. And as to the why--because it's chock-full of madness - dragons, fairy tale villages, inns balanced on top of pointy hills, train stations that stretch into forever, back to front theatres, and the four horsewomen of the apocalypse 'live' there.

2. How many characters do you have? Do you prefer males or females?

I'm assuming this means per project, otherwise thousands upon thousands of poor, dejected things. And I have no preference whatsoever as to male or female. In fact, I think I have a nice, healthy (okay, they're rarely healthy) mix. My book 'Last Seen Drowning' (may it rest in peace) had about seven POVs - I wonder why I never sent it anywhere. Actually, thinking on the previous question, I really liked that little universe and it had a suicidal (non-sparkly) vampire. Oh crap, now I want to work on that rather than NaNoWriMo.
Note to self: Seven POVs--you don't want to go there.

3. How do you come up with names, for characters (and for places if you’re writing about fictional places)?

I steal them from spam emails, or I type in a search in twitter and pick out a first and second name, and for all emergencies I have my huge first name, surname and place name dictionary. I'm never happy with a story until I get what I feel is the right name for the character.

4. Tell us about one of your first stories/characters!

The first story I sold way back in 1993 (actually, I use the word sold loosely as it was 4theluv, though I did get a free contributors copy) was called Bethany's Dream and it was majorly blah! Girl has a dream that someone is trying to kill her, gets really nervous, but hey, guess what it's a surprise party. I don't think she even bothered to kill the guests.

I still have fond memories of my first novel 'Fading in the Summer Sun'. I spent years with those characters and they were nice folk (if slightly twisted).

5. By age, who is your youngest character? Oldest? How about “youngest” and “oldest” in terms of when you created them?

Bollocks. I think Molly in 'The Drawing of Dolls' is about seven, but I'd have to look her up to be sure and I'm far too lazy to do that. Oldest, double crap. I'm going to say the suicidal vampire in 'Last Seen Drowning' - he's definitely mega crinkly. Oh, wait. I guess my true oldest would be Old Father Time. Old Father Time would have to be as old as time I guess.


Now onto the (supposed) daily NaNoWriMo catch up:

Daily Word Count: 2154 (go me!)
Total Word Count: 3099
Characters Playing: Amelia Darling, Cally Darling, Danny Levine (who???), Meg Cooper, The Press Gang
Time Frame: Dystopian Future - 2241 (yay, we have a year)

Things that surprised my book: Ha, so the book wants to be a YA eventhough I declared it wouldn't be, well I threw a spanner in its works and added the word Bollocks at the top of the page -- what do you mean, I can edit it out later!!!
Things that surprised me: Dead Parent (okay not that surprising) / Instead of trying to make my first pages perfect, I'm adding comment boxes with things I need to fix/reconsider - go non-obsessive me)
Googled: The Bends--Diving.