Life & Books: When Characters Surprise Their Writers

I LOVE reading books where the characters surprise me. A few weeks ago, I was listening to HIDDEN BODIES by Caroline Kepnes. Joe her main character did some things that had me literally yelling out loud.

“No, Joe. No.”

“Joe. Don’t do it.”

“Oh, my God.”

“What the f…”

You get what I’m saying. Joe surprised the crap out of me!

I sat in my car in my office parking lot listening to the book, counting down the minutes until I had to stop listening and go into work. Surprising characters keep a reader reading or in my case listening!

You’ll hear more about Joe from HIDDEN BODIES in next week’s Life & Books.

This week on Life & Books, me and Brinda Berry discuss which of our characters surprised us and how being plotter or a pantser contributes to that surprise. Don’t know what a pantser is? Watch the see!

While you’re here check out our series on characters:

Life & Books: Brinda Berry Builds a Character

Life & Books: Abbie Roads Builds a Character

SAVE THE DATE AND TIME!!!!

Tomorrow evening at exactly 7:22pm right when it’s starting to get dark on the East Coast, I’m going to reveal the cover to my emotional, gritty romantic suspense novel RACE THE DARKNESS. You seriously don’t want to miss this!

Abbie Roads writes dark emotional novels featuring damaged characters, but always gives her hero and heroine a happy ending… after torturing them for three hundred pages. Her first novel RACE THE DARKNESS will be published October 5, 2016.

Abbie Roads