Sorry, my last post was political again. No politics. Must try harder.

Back to writing. Characterization.

Well characters are just people and as you are the only person you really know, characters are mostly you colored by your experience of other peoples actions and guesses about their motives. Mostly characters are what they do and you don't need to worry much about them.

Look at Sumto; he is a man of his class, brought up to believe certain things and taught what his society and class believe he should know. He is selfish; we now this because he has ignored the duties that come with the privilege of his class and is in danger of losing those privileges at the opening of the book. He is lazy. He is a gambler. We learn that he is impetuous and reckless as time goes by. That's about all you need to know about him. And most of these things you learn by seeing what he does in the situations that arise in the book. He is what he does.

In many ways the character (at least the way round I write things) determines the story. I imagined Sumto, then his situation, then things happened and he reacted to them and was changed by them, and that was the story.