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Characters are the flesh and bones of fiction. A writer might have a vivid setting, an intriguing plot, and beautifully crafted sentences. But without fully developed characters a story never comes alive.

The best fiction is inhabited by distinctive and complex characters. “Think of Holden Caufield in Catcher in the Rye, Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice, Sethe in Beloved, or Lisbeth Salander in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” says Elaine Beale. “These characters captivate us. We see them, hear them speak, and feel compelled to keep reading. Good fiction also requires characters that develop and change over the course of a short story or a novel. But their changes must be convincing, otherwise the story just doesn’t work.”

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