It's a given in the writing world that one must have characters that the reader is interested in, can relate to, and cares what happens to the character. A wonderful plot can take one only so far; if you fail to interest your reader in the characters, then you could have the most original, stupendous plot ever imagined, and it won't matter much at all.

Below are some suggestions on what I believe makes a memorable character.

1) Quirky people. Nothing is more memorable than someone who has an oddball habit or personality. Hercule Poirot would walk miles in tight-fitting patent leather shoes because he was a hopeless dandy. He also hated fresh air and had a mania for square objects.

What makes the TV private detective Adrian Monk so interesting and humorous is his obsessive-compulsive disorder and his unending phobias. Monk is, of course, way over the top but creating characters that have some kind of quirkiness will make them stand out in your reader's mind.

It might be little more than a tendency to pronounce certain words in a manner not commonplace. For example, my husband gets highly amused when I say any word that has a double T in it, like bottle. I always pronounce it "bot-tul," and he's never heard anyone else say it like that.

Sometimes a person's peculiarites can play an intricate part in your story. In one novel, "After the Funeral" by Agatha Christie, the murderer is discovered by tilting her head the wrong way when she masqueraded as someone else and tried to imitate the woman's habit.

2) Characters who have a zest for life. These are the people who ,i>live each moment, not just muddle along day-by-day. I am not talking about adventurers who are continously rock-climbing or jumping out of airplanes, but rather people who, no matter what they are doing, enjoy every moment of their life. These types of characters are optimistic, cheerful, humorous, and can see the absurdity all around them. A wonderful example of this type of character is Elizabeth Peters' Sir John Smythe in the Vicky Bliss novels.

3) Characters with vivid imaginations and/or a flair for dramatics. These types of characters are the most interesting because they're unafraid to be silly or laughed at. They can imagine all sorts of possibilites, both realistic and unrealistic.

In short, when developing your characters, it's not enough to give deep insights into their personalities. After all, whatever personality traits you give your characters (kind, thoughtful, boring, determined, vindictive, etc.), none of that will really distinguish him or her from other people.

What makes us different from others is our habits and mannerisms. Develop these little quirks in your characters.

Mary Arnold is an author on http://www.Writing.Com/ which is a site for Fiction Writing.

Her writing portfolio may be viewed at http://www.Writing.com/authors/ja77521

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