A Character Has to Commit

I’ve mentioned before that any man or woman worth following in a novel has to have (1) character and (2) a conscience.

My character shown here, Louise, needed something else as well: commitment. She started my novel as a pampered and protected young woman who, within the first several pages, lost everything that kept her going: her money, her husband, her father and even her son. They might be dead, or still alive. She didn’t know. But she discovered that she had enough character that she knew she had to try to find them.

She also had a conscience. Because she was so pampered as a girl, she had never learned to care about anyone but herself. As my story unfolded, Louise learned to care about others. After all, what reader would care about a character who doesn’t care about anyone else?

Finally, Louise needed commitment. For whom, or what, was she willing to put herself at risk? More specifically, what was she willing to risk her life to save or protect? The picture above shows you the answer. That’s her son, at a climactic moment in the story.

Character, conscience, commitment. You cannot reduce writing to a formula, but with this person, in this book, these qualities made Louise who she was.