Character Development
yes, I celebrate character birthdays
Strong, dynamic characters are really important to me as a writer. There’s nothing that gets me to shut a book and DNF it faaster than flat and/or static characters with whom I can’t empathize. Because of that, I do a lot of character development for my own characters, and one of those things is figuring out their birthday. Yes, you can test me on this. Give me one of the characters I’ve written in the comments, and I’ll tell you when I celebrate their “birthday.”
Tomorrow (Saturday 3/21) is Gabe Daniels’ birthday.
Gabe Daniels is from the Cantos Chronicles:
His book is The Bones of Who We Are, the culmination of this entire story. If you’re familiar with the Cantos Chronicles trilogy, you know that Gabe wrote in his journal, and he wrote a lot of poetry which you’ll find in The Bones of Who We Are.
So to celebrate his birthday, he’s sharing a new poem with you:
The Haunted Heart By Cami for Gabe Daniels (character from The Bones of Who We Are) At 18 with a heart rent with love’s loss, both halves were carried in separate hands. At 19, a needle stitched the organ back together with mismatched thread. At 20 the stitches held, but stretched against sadness that seeped in between, missing the soul of love. At 21 to ignore the haunting of a familiar-shaped ghost, the heart drowned in the party of life. At 22 tried another face, another smile, another laugh and became the Infection deteriorating healthy tissue. At 23, diseased and dark, ignored the organ failure to try again. And again. And again to travel through the precarious streams creating induration. Now at 24, home is where the heart is and the return is empty handed, forever haunted by the ghost of “what if?”
So why a birthday? Because a lot is said about when someone is born. I definitely use the Zodiac which I find relevant to fleshing out specific character traits. Gabe is an Aries. It makes sense.
