“Many of the characters are fools and they’re always playing tricks on me and treating me badly.” – Jorge Luis Borges

“Characters who simply have goals opposed by others do not create the effects of a story.” – Bill Johnson

“Whenever I’m asked why Southern writers particularly have a penchant for writing about freaks, I say it is because we are still able to recognize one.” – Flannery O’Connor

“The characters act for reasons that they can’t control and, as readers, we have to believe in their motivations, their sense of choice and in the reality of their suffering, even though, deep down, we know it’s all just puppetry on the part of the writer.” – Johnny Rich

“Don’t let yourself slip and get any perfect characters… keep them people, people, people, and don’t let them get to be symbols.” – Ernest Hemingway

______________

My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional editor who runs Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the manuscript needs of writers both new and published. I also offer a variety of self-publishing services. During the past decade, I’ve helped more than 300 novelists and nonfiction authors obtain their publishing dreams at reasonable prices. I’m also the author of the 7 Minutes a Day… writing guidebooks, four nonfiction hiking guidebook series, and the literary novel Windmill. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres also have been published.