Characterisation is yeast. Without it, your bread novel turns into a pancake yawn fest. But building well rounded characters that are captivating enough to keep readers up till 3am finishing your book can be a bit of an enigma.

If you’ve hung around long enough you’ll know I like to draw inspiration from all branches of the crazy tree.

Today, I’ve pilfered methodology from a thespian.

I know. I know. *Gasps dramatically* “But we’re writers. We’re introverts.”

*ahem, technically I’m not. Something about a mix up at the sperm bank, don’t tell anyone.*

But whether you’re introverted or not is irrelevant. It’s the methodology that’s important, not the acting itself. Although if anyone fancies throwing a little skit at the Bloggers Bash, I’m more than up for whipping out my inner diva…

Constantin Stanislavski was a Russian actor, director and all round smarty pants. He developed a model to train actors to act…