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• 07Nov2011

  Tom Palmer's writing blog - How I write: how you write, Part Five autumn term

  Posted by Tom Palmer

  “If characters were either completely bad or utterly good, they’d be boring. They’d be predictable.”

  This week I have been writing a chapter in which the British Prime Minister is a character. I’ve not named him, but it’s a man a bit like David Cameron or Tony Blair. Quite young. Smooth-talking. A bit posh.

  I love basing my characters on real people. For a start, I think real people are much more interesting than made up ones. They aren’t so clean cut good or bad.

  Some people don’t like David Cameron. Some people do. He’s the kind of person who is not all good or all bad. Perfect for a book. If characters were either completely bad or utterly good, they’d be boring. They’d be predictable.

  And that is a really important thing in a book: whether it’s predictable or not. If you knew exactly what was going to happen in a story it would be boring. You need to be surprised, shocked, upset by things you’d not foreseen.   

  I think Roald Dahl was the best author at this. Whenever you read one of his books you can never confidently predict what will happen on the next page, can you?

  Think about it.

  That is what I’m trying to do with the British Prime Minister in my book. In public he is kind and thoughtful, smiling and happy. But, when he’s under pressure, he might be different. He might get angry with some of the people he works with. He might lie to get someone to do something. He might have a dark secret of his own.

  With my Prime Minister character I’m having to add extra things to make him seem more interesting. Dark secrets that someone so powerful might have.

  Writers have to do that too. They take a real person as a start for a character. Then add more details to make them more interesting, evil or – even – nicer.     

  Download PDF version of this blog.

  Schools Network members can also download a classroom activity related to this blog entry. View.

  Read Tom’s daily blog from his website at http://www.tompalmer.co.uk/.

   

Tags: Authors and storytellers, Key stage 2, Key stage 3, Schools & teaching, Sports, Writing

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