Yes, the hero with the fluctuating personality was a challenge, but I had a lot of fun with him. Then the blurb described both my hero and heroine as ‘psychotic’ and, er, I was quite proud!

And LOL about the human twins…an identical twin I met said much the same thing to me.

By the way, Kate. Your story sounds incredible!

I’m glad you mentioned the His Dark Materials books, because they inspired a species in my fantasy books, where a person has an animal and a human body, and one soul split between the two. I spent ages deciding exactly what kind of animal ‘twin’ was right for each character: my forceful, beautiful, charming but deadly hero was a lion; his delicate, intelligent sister was a racehorse; his brutish brother a razorback hog.

Then I wrote a hero in the sequel whose animal never settled (it being mutable in childhood). It reflects various special powers he has, but also makes him more childish. He’s quite mercurial in his personality, and it was fun to have his ‘twin’ reflect this.

Speaking of twins–the normal human kind–I thought I’d share this, from a pair of twins I was good friends with at school. When one of them was asked if she ever looked at her sister and thought, “Hey, that’s me!” she replied, “No, I look at her and think, ‘God, I look rough’.”

Seriously though, all your character arc tutorials have been so helpful! And you’ve given me tons to think about with this supernatural character change as well

Thanks for the question, and I hope the answer was helpful, even though my appearance changes are a lot less radical than yours.

What you mentioned about a character changing into someone beautiful to reflect her inner beauty got me thinking about Shrek, because my character is going to be changing from a human form into an ogre like Princess Fiona did! lol – but she’s still got a beautiful personality

I can take away loads from your answer about how your characters changed their appearances as their personalities grew.

Thanks again so much!