Little touches that make for memorable characters

Art by Jennifer Fraggle Dee
You can learn more about
Jennifer: HERE

There are few joys in life that equal the feeling of bringing a smile to your child's face.

When you look at them and know that they feel happy and loved, it brings joy to you as a parent.

In those moments of self-doubt when you ask yourself "Am I a good parent?", you can find validation by simply reading or telling a story to your child.

My children like to ask for stories about favorite characters.

So I find myself inventing stories about Peter Pan, Scooby Doo, and other cartoon and story characters and improvising tales to the children.

I find, that as I tell these stories, my children build an interest in the characters, and have noted that the Peter Pan story books in my home get quite a lot of attention.

In your own writings take note of the continuity of the characters.  Build upon things that are associated with the characters to preserve the identity and theme.

By way of example:  from my children's bed time story improvisations, Peter Pan always flies and Scooby Doo always begs for a Scooby snack.

These little touches are immediately noticed by the young reader as being central to who/what the character is and does. They are nuances a child can comprehend. Don't leave them out or you will jeopardize the character's identity in the child's mind.

So if you are writing stories in series, look at your prior stories, identify what traits are key to the character and incorporate those to your tales.  The children reading or being read your stories will certainly remember if character "X" has wild hair that is always falling in her eyes, or if character "Y" is a dog that runs away when the doorbell rings, or other little details unique to those characters.

Preserve your characters personality as well as habits and they will seem very real to your children.

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I hope this helps you experience the joy of happy children.

Create and bring joy through your words.

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I write under the pen name W.S. Quinton.
I hope you will join me next time, for more on my work in children's books and on observations about the genre and things I learn along the way.

Comments and questions are always welcome.

Thank you for reading.