Giveaway and Guest Post with Forever Girl by Rebecca Hamilton

Hello and welcome to this stop on the Forever Girl tour!! Be sure to read all the way through to find out about the book details and giveaway info. I was lucky enough to catch Rebecca and ask her about how she came up with her fantastic characters.  This is what she had to say:

I was asked about my character development process, and I find this a really fun question to answer. I know it sounds clichéd (or perhaps just stark raving mad) but my characters come to me. All I do is uncover them. I’ll try to explain this in better detail.

The first thing that I get is usually a situation and a voice. The idea might be sparked by something I see or it may come to me out of nowhere while trying to go to sleep one night or while my hair is dripping with shampoo foam in the shower. It might just be a line or two in their voice.

Once that happens, I start writing them. I have to, or they will haunt me until I do, taunting me that if I don’t get those words down on paper soon, they will be lost forever. Once I start writing them, this is when I start to get to know them on a deeper level. As situations arise, I ask myself, what would this character do, and why? I’m known for writing unusual characters that think differently, and I like that perhaps I’m shedding some light through my fiction on why some people do things that others would never dream of.

I learn their personalities through what they feel like to me and I learn their histories as I try to understand them. Usually it’s not until after I’ve finished writing them that I look further into things. After I’ve written my draft down unfiltered, and think I have a pretty solid feel for what their character is naturally like, I take some personality tests from the head and heart space of that character. The results usually give me further insight and help me smooth out any unexplained inconsistencies in their personality. It also helps me see how they are uncommon, so I can make sure that I convey those things and work to make sense of them for the reader.

That said, my habit to write unusual characters isn’t always easy. Sometimes, the reality is that no matter how hard I work, I might not be able to write a character everyone can relate to or even understand. I suppose that’s true of any character in any story, but I’m probably not making things any easier for myself.

I love my characters, though, and they’re a lot of fun to write. It’s amazing how each feels like such a real and distinct person to me. But I think it’s those revisions that help me make that a reality to my readers as well.

Thanks for the amazing insight Rebecca!!  Now let's take a look at the book details:

 Sophia Parsons’ family has skeletons, but they aren’t in their graves...

Solving the mystery of an ancestor’s hanging might silence the clashing whispers in Sophia's mind, but the cult in her town and the supernaturals who secretly reside there are determined to silence her first.

As Sophia unknowingly crosses the line into an elemental world full of vampire-like creatures, shapeshifters, and supernatural grim reapers, she meets Charles, a man who becomes both lover and ally.

But can she trust him?

It’s not until someone nearly kills Sophia that she realizes the only way to unveil the source of her family's curse: abandon her faith or abandon her humanity. If she wants to survive, she must accept who she is, perform dark magic, and fight to the death for her freedom.

Sounds like an amazing read!!  So what can you win?  Well Rebecca has offered up an E-book copy of her book to one lucky commenter, and if that commenter happens to be in the US, they get this as well:

Awesome giveaway!!!  Just fill out the rafflecopter for your chance to win!!  Also to follow Rebecca's tour just click here: http://darkmindbooktours.blogspot.com/2012/02/forever-girl-now-on-tour.html.

a Rafflecopter giveaway