Tag Archives: Cathy Maxwell

Character Development: Lady Macbeth, Cristina Yang and Anastasia Steele

When I think about Lady Macbeth, Cristina Yang and Anastasia Steele, I wish I had something profound, insightful, and enlightening to say about character development. But it’s a winding road that’s freaking rocky and tough as all get out to wade through. Just ask my underdeveloped character Nikki in my current WIP. Okay, then again, let’s not. It’s only the first draft:)…

This past Saturday at the WRW-DC  meeting, Cathy Maxwell, New York Times Best Selling romance author and all around fabulous gal, conducted a workshop that started with a discussion on Voice. She hit on a number of topics during her talk, but when she shared a story about an author who told her she (the author) wasn’t going to take any more classes on character development it resonated. Cathy’s a theatre and dance undergrad, like moi, and she said the author’s statement struck her as not making a lot of sense (paraphrasing here). She added that Al Pacino still takes classes on character development. Actors are constantly working on character development. The take away – as authors, we should always be working on character development, too. No matter where we are in our career. Continue reading