Pros: Highly convincing portrayal of a particular personality. Potential cons: Extensive telling of emotional states, low tension plot. In Willow Thomson’s debut novel, Seeds of Change, plague and catastrophic climate change leave Earth uninhabitable. A wealthy leader gathers a group of space colonists, and they depart for an unexplored planet.
A successful character reads like a complete person with particular thought patterns and reactions, habits and tics. The best characters are consistent and believable, a person one might encounter in real life, for better or worse. How does an author fashion the mental world of diverse but credible characters?
Pros: Clever set up, interesting characters, timely topicsPossible Cons: Video game style climax and villain-tells-all scene. Roving point of view and a fair bit of “tell.” The Echo Chamber is in part a tale of tech-corporate malfeasance, involving a rogue AI, a blender and ruthless Silicon Valley executives who build a social media “echo chamber.”
