by Peggy Bechko
Writing is an interesting profession – you create people from scratch. Sort of build them from the ground up, or top down, whichever way you want to look at it. It’s fun, it’s easy, and it’s hard as hell.
In that quest to make characters real, unusual and fascinating to the reader writers look to imparting something special to that character. Something like a unique skill or an unusual talent, some ability that will set hero or heroine apart from the every day, and yet at the same time, keep that character identifiable, relatable. It could be as simple as being a chess master and using that talent in other ways or as high-profile as being a well-known newscaster, writer or movie star.
But it’s a fine line between giving that hero or heroine some special ability and going way over the top to the point where the audience (novel reader or film goer) disconnects. That can happen when the writer doesn’t match the personality of a character and that character’s past experiences and life lessons with the particular skill or unusual talent he or she’s been given. It becomes like a tag on instead of an integral part of the character.
