After the second week of the Constructing A Novel course at Nottingham Writers’ Studio I am bowled over by the amount of information being presented by Victoria Oldham, our tutor.  This week we concentrated on characters. In a very intense session we covered the basics of development and motivations,  discussed archetypes and then the character arc as they move through their story. I know all this is going to help me,  I’ve always struggled with characters in longer pieces,  they don’t feel as I’d they are fully round people. After last night’s lesson I think this is because I’ve tended to jump in, rather than spend time thinking about who it is I’m writing about.  The answer is always there, when you can see the problem. 
The most important aspect of character is the simple question, why? Why does the character behave in this way or that way?  Why do they react to something in the way they do?  Always ask why?  Which is,  of course,  what novels are about,  how events change the characters and why they do so.
As the end of the evening Victoria said she could run the entire course just on characters,  I think I can understand why.