Yesterday I talked about character mapping. Today, I want to continue on that path. It's important to change your character map with each book you write about that character. Seems simple right? Well I forgot about it. I'm sure other people forget about it too.

Currently I'm writing a series (unless you live under a rock or don't read the other posts, you know about that) and I have the same characters revolving through each novel. But they aren't really the same characters. Seven, my vampire king, isn't the same guy in Awakening that he was in Prophecy. If he was, I would stop writing. So when I map out characters for each novel, I have to remap him.

When you think about it, are you the same person you were yesterday or last year? Absolutely not (well maybe from yesterday, but definitely not from last year). Your characters are the same. Things happen to them in each novel. They lose people or have major life changing events. Those kinds of things change people. Your characters aren't any different.

I made this mistake when I went from Prophecy to Forbidden. I thought Seven was Seven and he wouldn't change. What a mistake. It took awhile to change that in Forbidden when I went through the editting process. If I had done my homework when I started, I would've saved myself some time.

However, if you aren't using the same characters, then you're not in the same boat. But the more lifelike a character, the better the story. At least, as lifelike as you can make them. Since vampires don't really exist (or do they? I'm not going there) I have to do the best I can.

Hopefully this is helpful for someone. I hate making big mistakes.