Author Spotlight – Peggy Hattendorf and “Son of My Father”
Please welcome fellow author Peggy Hattendorf to the site this morning!
Peggy’s earlier careers helped cultivate and enrich her interest in writing. In her executive positions in the non-profit field, she had the opportunity to compose technical and operational handbooks for staff and volunteers for a number of name recognized organizations. Her management experience guided her to a multi-decade second career in the travel industry highlighted with the co-founding of a nationwide marketing consortium and independent contractor network. With over 5000 members, generating $180 million in annual sales, she wrote daily travel updates and news briefs distributed electronically to the membership. Today, she maintains an ambitious travel schedule and is the Travel Editor for hers Magazine where she writes travel feature articles and Hotel Review blog posts. In addition, she still serves on a number on non-profit boards. Her background with upscale and luxury travel products served as cornerstones in the character development and storyline of her first novel – “Son of My Father – A Family Dynasty.” She is currently working on her second book.
Contact Peggy all over the Interwebs:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/peggyhattendorf
Facebook: www.facebook.com/peggy.hattendorf
Website: www.peggyhattendorf.com
And here’s Peggy’s book!
It was always “Father” never “Dad.” The love and respect was manifest so was the distance – the distance not as evident.
Christiana Lynn Barrington’s life is a carefully constructed world built, presented and controlled by her billionaire father, Jonathan Robert Barrington.
She never knew anything else.
As the only child of Jonathan and Elizabeth Matthews Barrington, she’s the heir apparent to the behemoth Barrington Holdings International.
Frequently, she wondered if her father had wished to have had a son instead of a daughter but never posed the question. Maybe she was afraid of the answer. Even so, she reveres him and has sacrificed her personal happiness, including her marriage, for Barrington Holdings and for him.
But a threat to her hard-earned succession waits in the shadows ready to take everything she’s worked for away from her.
You can buy it on Amazon!
And we’ve got a great guest post from Peggy, too…
Tips about Character development
Character development is vital even if the story is more plot driven than character oriented. Main characters must be identified, given brief descriptions and role assignments, in order to proceed in the writing process.
These are some tips gathered and learned as I was developing characters for my novel.
- Present the character and the goal clearly and energetically early in the story. This builds suspense by explaining the character’s agenda.
- Pace the introduction of characters so not to confuse or bore the reader. Don’t overload the story with a cast of characters and names in the first few sentences.
- Emphasize the first few characters brought to the story. Each introduction enables to reader to know something about that person. While affirming some characteristics, much of the motivations and conflicts that result in the course to achieve the goal, are not made evident to the reader at this stage of the storyline.
- Add secondary characters separately and announce their arrivals once the first or main group has been incorporated into the structure.
- Develop character concreteness – outward appearance, background, profession, residence, location, possessions, associations, dialect, disabilities etc. Further define intrinsic traits – values, habits, beliefs, motivations, goals and vulnerabilities. Now, the reader has information to develop preferences as well as likes and dislikes.
- Determine character definitions – roles, status, relationships and positions.
- Place characters in jeopardy giving rise to conflict obstructing the means to achieve the goal. Impending danger mounts raising reader concern whether the character will achieve the goal. Tension escalates until a satisfying climax is reached.
- Conclude that the characters have grown throughout the story – Character Arcs. They should respond to their experiences by changing or by working diligently to avoid making changes.
Our characters remain the crowning glory of the story as they center and assign meaning to the actions and conflict. They can connect and stay on with the reader . . . long after finishing the book.
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