Suzan Shares About Writing Artistic Characters

It's interesting how as writers we will always somehow develop an essence in characters. For my characters, especially the female characters, an artistic aspect will always be enveloped into their personality. For Julia Mendoza from my novel Mad About the Boy, Interior Design would be a big part of my life as I wrote her story.

I've studied in many different fields of interest and love to research. Art was one of my favourite subjects at school and so naturally I incorporated my creative love of art into my characters. While developing professionally I came across a book called The Psychology of Colour, an amazing book exploring the different effects of colour in our lives including clothing, buildings, emotional and physical reactions. The perspective and theory on colour was amazing and I highly recommend anyone who has an interest to check this book out if it's still in print.

I learnt many things while developing Julia in Mad About the Boy, including how the design process is created and moved forward, what delays can cause major effects in commercial renovations and the flow on effect. I love both modern, historical and ancient designs/theories and researched thoroughly in these aspects for my own enjoyment. I've especially learnt that customers love to change their minds when it comes to interior design, over and over again and sometimes have a skewed vision of what is fashionable and what is not. You can guide in the right direction, design according to their taste but in the end their vision is not always as clear as you may think. A good interior designer will listen actively and offer professional opinion.

Writing artistic characters is fun for me in particular because I have an interest in the area and can use the characters personality to develop their own taste and artists are also diverse in themselves. I write what I know and love. Someday, I could well discover a love of cooking (which I currently don't know how to cook) and could research the process.

I'm about to drop a secret! I've also worked in construction and landscape companies so understand the design process from a business point of view. Luckily we got sent plenty of brochures which I had to catalogue for the company. Eventually, I plan on designing my own home which will include a library and furnishing/decorating myself. I've learnt a lot about writing artistic characters and one is how much I love being creative whether it's writing a story, painting and drawing or singing (with my bad voice), the arts will always be a part of me and so an essence of my characters.

Thank you Jencey for joining me on the Mad About the Boy Blog Tour.