If you’re a writer – you know the drill. Write a character-driven book.
I’ve been writing for some time now. I’ve been around. I went to Hamline University and completed my M.F.A. in Writing for Children and Young Adults. I contemplated character, wrote essays on character, read a zillion and one character-driven books and asked myself endlessly – what makes a good character? Is it all in the name? The voice? In some dark secret that he/she is carrying from page one to the bitter end? Is the extreme characteristic – the BEST, the WORST, the MOST POWERFUL, the WEAKEST… Maybe it’s a talent that only he/she possesses. Maybe he/she is an outsider – thinks differently than everyone else in the book. Is he/she the hero? The only hope? The last of a line? The first?
Characters are important. No doubt about that. Especially if you want to sell a book.
Believe me – I write a ton of books that do not have character driven plots (much to my agent’s chagrin – Sorry, Sean) — BUT I have been thinking about writing a book with a real, honest-to-goodness character-driven plot. The NAME of said character will be prominently displayed in the TITLE. It will happen.
So, with character in mind – it’s not surprising that when I heard Jill Davis of HarperCollins speak at a recent event – and she said that a strong character will be able to be printed on pajamas – or bed sheets – I took note. That makes sense – right?
When I think about my books to date – I would say Frankie 
the truck from my book BIG RIG could be awesome pajamas. Also, I would vote for Fred (the bear from my book BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!) as a charming sheet set.
So if I have done this – why is it so hard to do this when I sit down to write? The main thing I am going to focus on is giving a character in the book an actual NAME. You roll the eyes (I see you) – but seriously – I write a lot of sense of place poetry. There might be dogs, cats, fish, children – but they do not always have NAMES. Plus, when I read to the young folks, I tend to pick books that give kids an overall feeling – such as I LOVE SPIDERS by John Parker or ALL THE WORLD by Liz Garton. These are fantastic, poetic, lovely books for twos and threes — and they do not have named CHARACTERS. Still, they would make nice pajamas – or maybe wallpaper.
What have we learned here? That editors would very much like a character to sell, and we, the authors would also like a character to sell. We also know that kids like characters (because they like pajamas with Curious George or Spiderman on them). So, with you as my witness – I am going to TRY to write some seriously character driven books – but I will very likely keep writing those other books too. Because they are important and all fun to read too. Even if they don’t translate EXACTLY to a twin comforter set. hee hee hee …
