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"You’re graduating. Rushing headlong into the unknown rest of your life. Your friends are drifting off in every direction. Some are going to college, some are going to work and some are going to their parents' basements to watch reality TV. As you see it, there are two options. Go to college and get ahead or take some time off and go traveling."

That's the opening of Heather McElhatton's choose-your-own adventure book for adults, Pretty Little Mistakes. You start your life over again at graduation, and you actually get a chance to choose where the book goes next. 

McElhatton is our special guest this week, sharing some writing wisdom. Test drive her novel here, and then read her advice for developing the lives of your own characters. 

Welcome to my deceptively simple feature, Five Easy Questions. In the spirit of Jack Nicholson's mad piano player, I run a weekly set of quality interviews with writing pioneers—delivering some practical, unexpected advice about web writing. 

Jason Boog:

Each decision in Pretty Little Mistakes literally creates a whole new character. How did you turn these hundreds of different versions of you into fully fleshed-out characters?  Any specific tips for painting stronger characters in our novels?

Heather McElhatton:
Everyone works differently, but I need visuals. Continue reading...

I  sketched things out on the wall, on scrap linoleum and in notebooks. I ripped out images from magazines that appealed to me and I hunted online for pictures of people, places and things I needed.

In a lot of sequences I was describing things I've never seen or places I've never been to, so the visuals were indispensible for helping me "picture" scenarios, episodes and psychologies.
 
The same goes for characters. I go out and look at living people. I take pictures of people with my camera phone, just because I like their nose, and want to describe it. I cruise people's vacation blogs and online Flickr accounts, just to pirate, kidnap and liberate single details.

The trick is to use these Franken-parts to create a whole creature that works.

Click here to read the whole Heather McElhatton archive.

Scroll down the archive to read more. If the layout confuses you, check out the Five Easy Questions FAQ for more information.